tobias schneider

Soap opera writing

Revisado: 04-24-25

I enjoyed the author‘s non-fiction books. A fiction writer he is not. Mainly clicheed cardboard characters loosly put in historic context. It feels like a mediocre teen romance novel. Women‘s hearts are ‚fluttering‘, male tongues being stuck into women‘s mouths make them fall in love….it‘s difficult to follow and care about characters with such caricature shallowness for 19 hours…

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Too long, too dull

Revisado: 01-31-25

I liked reading the first Corey novels, but it is getting old. The same obnoxious sarcasm from Corey which was fun but now just irritating. Mostly because there is no story. In short: archenemy is back, then typical ridiculous mano-a-mano showdown with the bad guy in the end…in between 13 hours of blabla going nowhere…no suspense building up. Even at 1.5x speed listening about 12 hours too long… the great reading performance can’t fix a dull story unfortunately.

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Ego journalist and cardboard characters

Revisado: 12-16-24

I like Chris Hammer. The Ivan Lucic Series is fantastic. Characters rounded, great story telling, intricate complex stories. I can't believe the Martin series is written by the same author?! Martin is a stereotypical egotistic journalist, only out for his own glory, but always blabbing on about 'the public has a right to know'...while just exploiting the misery of others. But what is worth, the story or suspense makes no sense. it is so constructed, so unbelievable. His girlfriend Mandy is just a cardboard character for his ego to reflect on. Right in the beginning it makes no sense that she moved to a remote town without telling him anything. As it turns out he grew up in it. How did that never come up in their relationship in the first book? There are so many irritating constructed circumstances, that make no sense.

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Not great

Revisado: 11-27-24

Couldnt get into it. The mixture of brutal violent crime and the adolescent main character (rugby, booze, picking up woman) does not make an interesting story. And why does the narator use a georgie accent for australian story?! Dulled out after chapter 7.

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11 hour buildup...ridiculous ending

Revisado: 10-27-24

This is not a thriller but a story about grief, sorrow and obsessive compulsive emotional regurgitation ad nauseam. There is lots of remembering. Lots of feeling. How they felt then, in between and now. With everyone Falk meets the entire story and backstory is recounted again and again…not only from that person’s emotional perspective but how he/she emotionally relates to the experiences of everyone else…ad infinitum. Federal police officers talking about their feelings when hearing about the feelings of someone else who is talking about the probable feelings of someone else in relation to someone..….not very believable and also not very interesting, especially if repeated over and over again from everyone’s perspective. This continues for… 11 hours…the story does not move one milimeter forward…It’s like watching an OCD patient washing their hands 100 times…you want to scream: move on!!
There is no twist, no suspence. Those is not a thriller but a jane austen type soap opera about grief.
What’s much worse is that every character sounds the same. I am not talking about the reader’s performance, but every character has the same expressions, vocabulary. So there is no characterization through dialogue happening. It feels all the characters are the same person. Same language quirks..
So 11 hours of Winfrey Opera show…then just quickly before the end..the resolution of the two crimes are presented, like the author suddenly remebered: oh yes, we need to find who has done it. And when it comes, it‘s just such a cheat. Makes no sense at all. The motivation for the recent crime is just ridiculous, completely unbelievable. What a waste. And how the first one happened is equally insulting to the reader. And then it‘s over.
Tortured for 11 hours of completely vapid conversations of family couples talking about kids‘n‘stuff and sadness regurgitated…and then this very dissappointing ending.
I liked Harper’s first book, thought already the 2nd was borderline..just no suspence..no believable story telling. This 3rd is just an insult. I wont read any futures ones.

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About 10 hours too long, dragging it out…

Revisado: 09-29-24

I like Nelson Demille. But this was just a drag. After a third it is easy to guess what happened, but you have 16 more hours to listen too.. Brody is supposed to be funny, but just comes across as an obnoxious wank‘a. The misogynism also supposed to be humerous but isnt. Everything is over-explained. The last 8 hours I could just jump 5 min at a time and not miss anything. Try another Demille book, John Corey series much better.

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Unbelievable, very annoying reader

Revisado: 07-11-24

Liked Central Park West a lot. Especially the characterization of Nina (feisty, smart, no stranger to sarcasm). Yet in Westport (also with a new reader) Nina is suddenly a ditzy dumbo, passively falling into an obvious trap of false accusations. Completely unbelievable that she suddenly has no knowledge of the law..no immediate suspicion…this is not helped by the readers irritating habit to read women‘s voices in mich higher pitch than her own, turning them into bimboes sounding like mikey mouse. Very odd, because the readers own voiceis very nice, the. Men‘s voices great…but all the women sound like empty heads. The contrast to the fantastic stron Nina character from the first book was too great..couldnt bear it longer than halfway.

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Not his best

Revisado: 06-13-24

Love Murakami. But this was not very good. Dragged on forever. Pretending to be philosophically complex…but really the consciousness bits and philosophy was just unnecessarily convoluted..for me the typical surreal murakami magic didnt appear. I just didnt care and thought it was rather silly. So when that bubble burst, there really isnt much left. Narrator tried his best.

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90% unironic religious Jesus babble....

Revisado: 05-31-24

Loved her newest book Not a River, downloaded this to hear more.
What a disappointment. The conflict between the two groups never really comes to a peak...just a release of violence in the end...but the intervening 90% is just bible delusions...Jesus this..Jesus that...so bored.

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Shockingly dull! Weakest Grisham ever

Revisado: 11-06-23

How did this get published? So boring.
Spoiler:
Someone gets kidnapped, ransom paid, person is free (and mostly complains about the clothes she had to wear)….that‘s it. No twist, no development, no legal issues…
A lot of time is spent talking about airlines, their food and scheduling…fascinating. Not.
There are so many inconsistencies. Such bad story telling.
Dont waste your time and money on this.
Please be sure to return the book if you have bought it with credit.
Never again will get a Grisham on pre-order. Will wait for reviews first.

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