Mimijo

Great new narrator!

Revisado: 12-31-24

Louise Penny at the top of her game with a complex story about a terrorist plot threatening Montreal. Just enough cozy Three Pines details to please without cloying. The choice of a French Canadian narrator is a brilliant one and adds so much atmosphere to the Story.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Fiona Shaw sounds like she has a slight speech impediment

Revisado: 07-07-23

I did not enjoy her narration, especially compared to Lesley Manville’s. My main problem was her very slight problem differentiating between her r’s and her l’s. “ Building” comes our sounding like “buirlding.” Words that end in L shade into a very slight R, and vice versa. It is hard to describe this quirk phonetically, but for me, over 7+ hours, it became a major distraction.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Corruption and sexism

Revisado: 01-12-23

I am a Grisham fan but this book grossed me out. The testosterone overload, the sexist portrayal of “girls,” the disgusting mob violence and corruption, all made me bail early on.

On the plus side, Michael Beck is great as always.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

The perils of social media

Revisado: 10-05-22

I am sure that J. K. Rowling (aka Robert Galbraith) is personally very familiar with the vicious internet attacks that she portrays so well in this novel. It's about a quirky cartoon, "The Ink Black Heart," which is set in a graveyard populated by animated body parts; the show goes viral and spawns a spinoff game, "Drek's Game," based on one of the cartoon's more ominous characters, Lord Drek.

The game's creators are separate from the cartoon's inventors, Edie Ledwell and Josh Blay, and rabid fans of the game mount a character assassination of Edie when she "sells out" to Netflix who want the film rights to the cartoon. Then Edie is murdered and Josh is wounded in an attack in the very London graveyard where the cartoon and the game are set. Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, partners in the Strike detective agency, are called in to investigate the crime and find themselves in a web of online evil at the center of which is the game's mastermind, "Anomie." As they penetrate deeper into the game in an effrot to discover the true identity of Anomie, they find connections to violent white supremacists, and more deadly acts occur, the menace coming ever closer to the detectives themselves. Throughout all this, Robin and Strike's romantic interest in each other simmers along beneath the surface, and the question of whether this would be the novel in which they finally get together kept me listening obsessively, as did the mystery and its creepy participants which Galbraith renders in vivid detail.

Listeners need to have a high tolerance for narrated transcripts of endless emails, in-game chats, and tweets, complete with usernames and addresses, hashtags, and the like -- it does get to be a bit much. But overall this is suspenseful and an incisive social commentary on the lethal abuses of the internet, showing the unbridled craziness that online anonymity can spawn. I can't wait for the next Galbraith outing.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Farfetched plot, overstuffed narrative

Revisado: 02-16-21

What I liked about the book: its honest and unsparing look at the grubby, grueling realities behind society’s idealized image of motherhood, and how isolated mothers feel when they alone seem to be struggling in their role. I also liked the ambiguity of not knowing throughout the novel whether Blythe is an unreliable narrator, or whether her daughter Violet is truly a Bad Seed.

What I disliked: The multi generational backstory; I did not need to know about Blythe’s familial legacy of bad mothering. A huge chunk of this too-long book could have been eliminated by focusing only on the present suspenseful story of Blythe’s own struggle to be a good mother, and her sense of failure. I found her husband Fox to be a complete cipher. Her addressing him in the second person throughout the book was distracting. The section of the novel that deals with her going off the rails and becoming a stalker was totally unconvincing, and made me want to shake her and say get a life!

The ending was predictably shocking, though it was unnecessary to have the criminal admit the crime (trying to avoid spoilers here!); the event at the book’s conclusion would reveal the truth sufficiently clearly.

In short, this could have been a much better book with strong editorial guidance.

The narrator had the weird habit of pronouncing the “th” sound in “thank,” “Thanksgiving” etc. like “this” rather than “think.” It grated on my nerves.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 8 personas

Intolerable narration, fascinating story

Revisado: 09-08-20

I wished there had been a filter I could place over my ears to render Ann Marie Lee's narration neutral, like a computer voice. That would have been more bearable than her mincing, overly punctilious pronunciation, and -- as others have remarked -- a certain singsong condescension of tone like a kindergarten teacher reading "Dick and Jane" to the "slow" reading group.. But, alas, no such alteration was possible, and I bailed on the book, just as the second narrator came on board with his grating G-man tough guy locution that promised to annoy me just as much. I now have a couple of audio readers to add to my "No go" list.

I will read the book in print and supply my own inner voices. The story itself is gripping, enraging in its portrait of white punishment of the Native Americans' prosperity and murderous attempts to steal some of the oil riches for themselves. The writiing is vivid and dramatic. The author deserved better from his audio production,

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Maybe my favorite so far

Revisado: 06-21-19

I just want to live in these books -- in this place, among these people. I feel like Brunetti, Paola, the Brunetti kids, Signorina Elettra, Vianello, even, heaven help me, the vain and shallow Patta, are all my friends. I love the beautiful world of Venice -- to tourists an exotic destination, to those who live there, a beloved and maddening small town sinking under the weight of its global fame. Donna Leon evokes all the charm and bella vita of daily Italian life while unsparingly portraying the modern-day troubles and corruption that afflict the city, the country, and, in many cases, the world.

Beastly Things takes its place among my favorite Leon/Brunetti novels. The last scene of the funeral attended by the veterinarian's devoted clients and their pets, and presided over by the priest who eulogizes the sanctity of the human-animal bond, just slayed me (to use a term appropriate to the slaughterhouse setting of the novel).

I simply refuse to listen to any Brunetti book not narrated by David Colacci. Period, the end.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Enigmatic fable of ancient England

Revisado: 12-27-17

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

David Horovitch's performance is wonderful, really brings the story to life. I am not a fan of fantasy, but was enthralled by immersion in this world of dragons, pixies, knights and strange mists that cause memory loss. I have been bingeing on Ishiguro lately -- loved The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, didn't much like When We Were Orphans. This I would put in the "like" category. It is vividly described and the characters are well-drawn and sympathetic (though, as other readers have noted, Axl's incessant use of "Princess" every time he addresses his wife Beatrice gets very tiresome).

If you’ve listened to books by Kazuo Ishiguro before, how does this one compare?

It is beautifully narrated, as were The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, though by different performers.

What about David Horovitch’s performance did you like?

I liked his different accents for the Britons and the Saxons (Wistan sounds Swedish, as befits the Nordic Saxons). And his different vocal qualities for the various characters, male and female, were well done.

If you could rename The Buried Giant, what would you call it?

The Mist of Forgetting

Any additional comments?

I am pondering the ending. It dropped off a cliff and left me dangling. There is a great and building sense of melancholy as the novel moves into its last phase. At the end I was not sure whether to trust the boatman's promises, his reassurances. Clearly Axl seems to profoundly doubt. I think this is one I will reread in print, to study the clues to its overall meaning that I'm sure Ishiguro has carefully planted.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Fascinating look inside Vatican City; intelligent theological mystery

Revisado: 03-25-16

2 priest brothers, Vatican-City-raised, seek the truth about the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. The stakes are no less than the healing of the centuries-old schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churces; they rise when a Shroud historian is killed and one brother suspects the other of murder. Dan Brown has nothing on the brainy and elegant stylist Caldwell.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Wonderful performance that brings new life to this classic

Revisado: 05-21-15

Nicholas Guy Smith gives a pitch perfect of Thomas Hardy's masterpiece. He does full justice to the range of voices, personalities, moods and accents. I had not realized before how very funny Hardy can be. There are passages of dialogue, especially among the working men of Bathsheba's farm, that are hilarious. Guy Smith gives them their full measure of entertainment value. Hardy's ability to take a godlike view of a whole scene in one moment, and then to zero in on the poignantly human details of his individual characters, is most impressive and moving. This is one I will listen to more than once.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 6 personas