Candice

Should not be a part of this series

Revisado: 12-01-21

Susanna Kearsley's writing is once again phenomenal, and the story itself is fantastically, if a little chaotically, told. Her characters come alive in a setting I can imagine perfectly, and you feel like you know them by the end.

There were some things that other people mentioned that bothered me. First was the narrator's pronunciation of Don Quixote as "Don KICKS-oat." It's not like it's an uncommon book; someone should have caught this. Maybe it was an attempt to say it as someone from 17th century Scotland would, but if so, I found it very distracting and would have preferred to not have that bit of historical accuracy. I also found it was easy to tune out the narrator; his voice is lovely but his tone while conversational, wasn't super compelling.

The other thing that really really bugged me was that most of Kearsley's books, including the others in this series, have some sort of supernatural element, where the main characters form some kind of connection through time. I expected the third book in the series to be similar. Unfortunately, it was not. And that was jarring.

While there's a good plot twist at the end, I found it hard at that point to put all the pieces in place, and was ultimately disappointed. Had this been a standalone, I don't think I would have felt that way (just a little puzzled at how everything in the story fits together still.)

As a standalone, I would find the book well-written and intriguing, so I gave it 5 stars for that. Her story plots always surprise, always entertain and always make you stop for a second and think.

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A fascinating look at the modern textile industry

Revisado: 06-09-21

As an amateur social historian, I'm deeply interested in the history of textiles and their production more than any other thing, and I thought that this book might be an interesting read on modern textile production. In that way, Ms. Bedat didn't disappoint. Unraveled is a well thought out, well written look at the life cycle of a pair of jeans. Ms. Bedat writes in an accessible, friendly way. She also has a wonderful voice for reading, and her flow and cadence made the audiobook a mostly easy listen.

One of the things I really liked was the way the book was set up, logically, to follow the cotton to the washers, to the spinners, to the weavers, etc. I make my own cloth, occasionally, and she didn't miss a step. She even pronounced "sliver" (Sly-ver) right, which isn't even common in those of us who know how to spin yarn by hand. Ms. Bedat was able to look at political and social issues that affect the industry without getting wallowed down in politics, or making those issues louder than the rest of the story.

There were only two things that bothered me. One was maybe me geeking out, but there were some inaccuracies in her presentation of history and textiles. I won't get deeply into it here, but the Cherokee were not primarily removed to provide arable land for cotton growing (they were mountain dwellers and gold was discovered shortly before the passing of the Indian Removal Act, but it's much more complicated than that.) Also, wool and linen garments worn by Northern Europeans were not itchy and uncomfortable, and continued to be used as the most common fabric even after the introduction of cotton, which was a luxury fabric for a long time. Finally, yes, organic fabrics may have chemicals used on them to process them, but Ms. Bedat leaves out the fact there are several certifying bodies - Oexo-Tex and GOTS are two - that certify that either the fabric was processed without chemicals or that there are no residual chemicals on the fabric at the time of wholesale.

The other thing was mispronunciations. A producer should have caught these and corrected them. The worst one, especially for a book about textile production, was "Man - ah - facturing." It would have been simple for the audio producer to correct Ms. Bedat's pronunciation and have her try again, rather than leaving it to become distracting and a bit infuriating as a very common word in the book (yes, I do realize that's a little petty!)

Would I recommend the book? Yes! Would I read it again? Yes, I probably will read it again. The breadth of the topic and the amount of information Ms. Bedat was able to compile about an industry with very little formal oversight was amazing.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Compelling and beautiful

Revisado: 01-13-21

An excellent, excellent book. I highly recommend it. The author is a master at weaving a complex tale that is also believable. I will be looking for other books by this author.

My only complaint was the narration. I don't know what was happening, but the narrator kept pausing at awkward moments and it would pull me out of the story. Something like (making this line up) "Pia went up to the man and asked (long pause) for a cup of water." There was no discernable reason for doing it and at the very least could have been edited out.

Other than that, the narrator had a lovely, changeable voice that made her easy to listen to. The characters were defined and it was easy to tell who was talking. I would listen to other recordings she's made, despite the weird pauses.

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Lots of stumbling, but a fascinating topic

Revisado: 12-18-20

I really enjoyed this listen, as the topic is fascinating to me. While others might find that the level of detail is too much, someone who studies language, I found it to be just enough.

I did appreciate how Curzan divided the lectures into different subject matter - first broad and then specific. This allowed the listener to really focus on an aspect of language or language change. The lectures were well organized and easy to follow. I also appreciated that Curzan seemed to anticipate where I would have a question and was quick to answer it before moving on.

The only issue I had was that Curzan often stumbled over her words, which was distracting. I do realize that these may be recorded live or as if they were live, but some editing would have been good. She also always sounds like she is out of breath - some lectures were worse than others - but I felt like I had just watched her run into to the classroom, late for the class.

I did see a few reviews that complained about her going on and on about political correctness and feminism. I wonder if some of them stopped listening after chapter 27, which was the discussion on how gender is used in the language in the past, the present, and how it's currently changing. I really didn't hear any ranting; it seemed a very rational discussion. Perhaps the reviewers find it a sensitive topic. After all, it is true that while many masculine versions of words retain their dignity, many of the feminine pairings decline into something less prestigious or scandalous over the centuries. (Think "Master" vs "Mistress" in modern day usage.) She's not making it up and it's relevant to the entire series about how language changes no matter why this happens.

The chapters following Chapter 27 did not or only briefly addressed this subject of masculine vs feminine words again, and only where they were relevant to the topic at hand - idioms, sports, love/relationships, war terms, forbidden words, politics and the internet, to name a few. So don't let those reviews fool you - it's well worth a listen.

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Ouch!

Revisado: 09-14-20

I only lasted about an hour. I probably would have slogged through the unidentifiable voices and the confusing jumpy plotline, and even the wholly inaccurate word usage (lots of modern phrases and words and swear words that would never come out of people of that station in Victorian England.) I also felt like the portrayal of Holmes was untrue.

But I wear headphones, at a decent level, to listen to my books. And there were these awful sound effects that were at a frequency that literally hurt my eardrum. It sounds like a gong and it signifies the beginning and end of flashbacks. Every once in a while it was fine, but about an hour into the book, the performance was jumping back and forth, with the present actors speaking about a past event, and that past event being acted out every few seconds within the dialogue of the present. So just as my ear pain would stop, here comes another. It was like swimming in waves - every time you come up for breath there's another one looming!

So if you have hearing or sensory issues (or are wearing headphones) beware this recording!

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esto le resultó útil a 17 personas

Thoroughly enjoyable!

Revisado: 03-03-16

This is one of the best books I've read in a while. The story was light and fun while still being intriguing and suspenseful.

I won't go into too much detail, since it would give much of the plot away, and I think this is one book you don't want to know what's on the last page. While appearing like a love story, it's actually two-in-one, and every time, as a reader,I thought I understood, another twist appeared in the story.

The reader was excellent. Her character voices were well defined and while sometimes the conversation felt a bit unnatural, it felt like how you would hear a conversation in a play, and not awkward. She does a fantastic job with the phrasing and pacing of the story, making this a book you want to keep listening to, as well as making it easy to listen!

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Like a whirlwind...

Revisado: 03-03-16

This story was light and fun, the kind I love to listen to while I'm sewing or otherwise needing my eyes and hands but not my brain. I have no complaints, and I've read several of Dickerson's books now (though this is my first audio copy.)

However...The narrator reads crazy fast, with little to no phrasing. I am a fast speaker myself, but I couldn't handle this. It made me feel stressed trying to keep up!

I ended up turning it down to .75 speed, and even then, it was often hard to tell who was talking because the voices were all very similar and their conversation ran together. Often, even at .75 speed, the only way I could tell that Dickerson had started a new section, chapter, or a new character's perspective was by contextual clues - because there was no pause between one section/chapter and the next to signify the change.

Mason's voice was very consistent throughout the book - the book was read, rather than acted, with little variation in the voices of the characters.

That said, Mason has a lovely, pleasant, clear voice, and I think that if she would just slow down and take a moment to allow space between sections of the chapters, she would make a very excellent reader.

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esto le resultó útil a 8 personas

Kitty is a shallow, stupid heroine - SPOILERS

Revisado: 01-24-15

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Maybe. I would say it's entertaining if you have nothing else to listen to. The writing style is fantastic, the storytelling decent, and the performance excellent. But the heroine is lacking. She is not a strong lead character. She's obsessed with her personal relationship and can't see past it to the larger issues going on in the book. She makes selfish decisions and can't see it's not all about her. She never gets that people are fighting for their lives and she's in a position to do something about it but won't because of her boyfriend. I think the author was trying to create a sense of modesty/humbleness but it just comes off as self-centered shallowness. For heaven's sake, the battle for everything is going down and she takes a bath and has sex with her boyfriend! Then she gets mad because Knox is fighting instead of helping her. Really?!!I found this book so annoying and shallow that if it wasn't the end of the book when the ludicrous scene happened, I would have shut it off. May as well finish the last half hour...

I actually went back after writing this review and lowered the stars...I think I was too generous the first time with two...

(And I hate to talk like this - usually I am not so picky, but this book really was terrible, just because of Kitty.)

What could Aimée Carter have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

I would like to have seen Kitty develop, to mature. Since the point of the book seems to center on a revolution developing against the Hart family, it would be nice to see her begin to understand her role and accept it, becoming a strong heroine character instead of a useless, whiny, selfish pawn.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas