Marie

Boring and dragged out

Revisado: 06-17-22

I bought this book because of all the good reviews, but I’m not sure how it has all of them.

This book was trying so hard to be mysterious, switching perspectives, hiding what happened at the pep rally forever, and with the attempt to have a drunk and unreliable narrator. But... it fell flat on its face. The execution just wasn’t there. It just dragged out a barely existent plot that is unbelievable at best, and frankly was a slog to get through. Even the reveal at the end felt too long and boring, and that’s usually the part where I can’t stop listening.

I’ve never quit listening to a book in the middle but this one very much tempted me to break that rule.

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Once again, amazing!

Revisado: 10-12-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I read the first of Starla’s flipped fairytales and loved it! This book seemed a little different, with what I consider to be a slightly bigger deviation from the original fairytale, but did not fail to disappoint! I found the first chapter or two a bit of a struggle to get through, but after that I was hooked and couldn’t put it down. I really appreciated the message of kindness and compassion towards others, I think it’s a good message to keep in mind but one that can get lost or forgotten in modern day, fast-paced life. I also liked the subtle references to the first book included in this one (while reading the first is by no means necessary to enjoy this story, I recommend it anyway just because it was a great book)

The narration of the audiobook is decent. The sound quality is good with no issues or excessive pauses, however the narrator I’d say is average. Not bad by any means, but I’ve heard better.

Overall I highly recommend these flipped fairytales and can’t wait for more in the series!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Intriguing and new true crime

Revisado: 08-25-19

I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts and audiobooks and have never heard of this case before.

First off the author does a great job of giving life to the characters, and making me feel as if I had some sort of connection to them. I truly cared about all three women and wanted to see the other two get justice for their friend.

I took one star off the story because I felt that relatively little time was spent on the investigation outside of the very lengthy discussion of the trial. The trial stuff got to be a bit of a boring format after a while, and I think it would have been engaging if the story was a little more balanced rather than a lot of background, a quick investigation, and then over half of the book seemingly dedicated to the trial.

Overall an interesting listen that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys true crime!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Starting to turn towards the cliche

Revisado: 08-09-19

I loved the first book of this series, and grew attached to the characters. I was excited to see what happened to them as the story continued to unfold. However, I’m getting nervous about the direction of a series that had so much potential.

First, this book just felt slower than the first one, and took me longer to get through. It wasn’t quite the same level of “can’t put it down”. I think this may be due to the shift away from action into a more psychological and political sphere, but I feel that both were not completely exploited to their potential. Especially with regards to the politics on the planet, it could be so much more in depth about tactics and manipulation that is involved in the power struggle “game”, but instead it just falls flat and sometimes the actions of characters don’t truly make sense.

Additionally, while in the first book Eve was mostly just a standard person thrust into a bad situation, in this book it takes a definite turn to the cliche. She’s not ordinary anymore but a special/chosen person, and rather than just saving her team, she’s suddenly responsible for so much more. I find these tropes overused in fiction and frankly boring. Not every character in a dystopia needs to suddenly become a huge hero that causes radical change; it’s unrealistic. Additionally, I feel like the characters became flat and lost some of the interactions and traits that made them seem real. They became a little more flat and one dimensional.

The narrator once again did a great job bringing the story to life, no complaints there!

Overall I’ll keep reading because I want to see how the story ends, but I felt this book wasn’t as good as the first.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Starting to turn towards the cliche

Revisado: 08-09-19

I loved the first book of this series, and grew attached to the characters. I was excited to see what happened to them as the story continued to unfold. However, I’m getting nervous about the direction of a series that had so much potential.

First, this book just felt slower than the first one, and took me longer to get through. It wasn’t quite the same level of “can’t put it down”. I think this may be due to the shift away from action into a more psychological and political sphere, but I feel that both were not completely exploited to their potential. Especially with regards to the politics on the planet, it could be so much more in depth about tactics and manipulation that is involved in the power struggle “game”, but instead it just falls flat and sometimes the actions of characters don’t truly make sense.

Additionally, while in the first book Eve was mostly just a standard person thrust into a bad situation, in this book it takes a definite turn to the cliche. She’s not ordinary anymore but a special/chosen person, and rather than just saving her team, she’s suddenly responsible for so much more. I find these tropes overused in fiction and frankly boring. Not every character in a dystopia needs to suddenly become a huge hero that causes radical change; it’s unrealistic. Additionally, I feel like the characters became flat and lost some of the interactions and traits that made them seem real. They became a little more flat and one dimensional.

The narrator once again did a great job bringing the story to life, no complaints there!

Overall I’ll keep reading because I want to see how the story ends, but I felt this book wasn’t as good as the first.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Full of speculation

Revisado: 07-27-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

This book employs a narrative style similar to fictional novels that feels out of place with true crime. It describes encounters and experiences of victims that died and therefore are mostly if not almost entirely speculation. Because of this I found it nearly impossible to discern what was factual from details the author imagined and added in an attempt to tell a “compelling” story, which almost entirely ruins the point of true crime.

The narration was well done, with the narrator having a truly creepy laugh that added to some scenes and fit the style of the narrative.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Not a stand alone novel

Revisado: 07-06-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

This story was alright, but despite being book one of a series it referenced a lot of past history between characters that seemed as if it came from other books or something. It was frustrating as I often felt like I didn’t quite understand what the relationships were between characters. That being said the author is very skilled at building relationships between the characters, and it was fun to watch some relationships form over the course of the novel.

The entire novel felt like it was more of an exposition to the larger series and was not the most entertaining on its own, but rather slow at times. It is clearly setting up a story, but unfortunately I feel like it does so by sacrificing some of its own story potential to set up a larger narrative. The ending especially makes it clear that there will be more books as very little is resolved, and it is left feeling more incomplete than most books in series I’ve read that wrap up smaller narratives within larger narratives.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and as such I usually listened to it in bursts while doing other things. One thing that tripped me up often was that the main protagonist and antagonists had similar names (Tiodaria vs Tione or something like that) and I frequently got the names mixed up, further frustrating me at points in the story when there was a lot of interaction between the two characters.

The audio of the audiobook was okay but a few spots near the end that had some editing issues where the narrator either got cut off or faded out.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Not what I was expecting but fantastic

Revisado: 06-27-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

When I first read the description of a “prude” reporter and special agent investigating the BDSM scene, I expected some sort of comedy over the discomfort of two straight-laced people in a uncomfortable community for them. Rather than that, the special agent is very involved in the community, teaching Hope about it along the way. While not comedic, it allows for much more erotic tension and definitely made for a better story than my initial expectations. I highly recommend this story, with well paced mystery and intrigue during a high stakes investigation, to anyone of age who enjoys mysteries or thrillers.

The narration was excellent, and I loved the involvement of the two narrators to tell the dual story as it made it easy when picking up in the middle of a chapter to figure out which character was narrating. Both narrators did a great job bringing the story to life!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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All men are evil? Lack of nuance in gender discussion

Revisado: 06-24-19

I really wanted to like this novel, but unfortunately found that I just couldn’t. I will explain below, but the explanations will contain spoilers.

The pace of this novel was slow, and I found it to be a bit of a drudge at times. Additionally, parts of this book seemed to stray from sci-fi to me into the realm of fantasy. While there were a lot of technological advancements shown in the story, there was no real indication of how the world got those advancements, and stretch too far into the realm of the implausible for me. The biggest example of this is the core, an AI made of floating processors that assumes various shapes and can look completely human if it chooses. Additionally, the main protagonist of this story is involved through no real significance of her own. Unlike many sci-fi stories where the protagonist is qualified in their own right either through intelligence, inventions, or ingenuity, she is chosen by the computer because of her breeding. This “chosen one” who possesses no real qualities of her own almost seems to be fantasy rather than sci-fi, especially when you consider that any information she has comes through dreams (supposedly provides by the core, but still feels more fantasy than sci-fi to me).

The HUGE problem with this book though is the flagrant plot holes with the virus. My understanding is the virus was designed to spread to those with violent personalities or other characteristics deemed undesirable by the creators, and it does so by looking at genomes. Despite the fact that I believe much of personality couldn’t be determined from the genome, especially when you consider epigenetics, even if this is taken at face value, the virus kills every single man on the planet while killing relatively few women. This idea that every man is inherently evil and would murder or rape if there were no consequences, while almost all women are inherently great people with no real flaws is inconceivable to me. While I could buy the argument that in general men are more violent or something like that, they are stereotypes, and many women are also violent or evil in their own right. To me it felt like the author was trying far too hard to appeal to a feminist argument and in doing so went to extremes. This novel could have been a great platform for a nuanced discussion of gender but it failed to have any nuance and instead went for a black and white view to avoid the challenges in that discussion.

The audio narration was good, but I deducted a star for the fact that I don’t think the format of the book, which alternates between the story and various Wikipedia articles, UN laws, and other tangentially relevant documentation, doesn’t translate well to audio. The transitions between the two can feel confusing if you’re not paying careful attention and can be a bit jarring.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Spectacular audiobook

Revisado: 06-22-19

This story is engaging and entertaining. Packed with adventure and excitement, the plot is constantly moving and well paced yet unpredictable and surprising. The characters are all unique individuals with well developed personalities and backstories, and all have their own flaws. Eves personality shines through the narration, full of sarcasm and snide comments along with the events of the story. The landscapes and trials are creative and well described, never feeling repetitive.

The narrator of this book does a truly astounding job, breathing life into the characters even when they’re communicating electronically and filling the narration with so much emotion and personality that the characters feel real.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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