jbn17

Book length gimmick.

Revisado: 02-16-25

Shallow. Contains prose so amateurish you will often consult a dictionary to check word choices and scratch your head about descriptions that make no sense. Structured for television.

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Interesting material ruined by narrator

Revisado: 02-18-20

I think this might be a really interesting book, but the material is buried under some sing song narration. The author reads every line conversationally and as if her every word is incredibly amusing. It was torture to listen to. If your interested, get the print edition.

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Decent book, but not for adults

Revisado: 12-23-13

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

There were three things I kept thinking as I read this book. 1. Did this book have an editor, or is it a rough draft? 2. Is the pseudonym (Pitticus Lore) a way to disguise that the author is a teenager? 3. Does this author know that a science fiction world should cohere somehow? I don't know the answer to any of those questions, but hope they indicate something about the book.

Would you ever listen to anything by Pittacus Lore again?

Unfortunately, I have to. My son likes them and I encourage his reading by following his suggestions.

Would you be willing to try another one of Neil Kaplan’s performances?

Neil Kaplan made a regretful decision to voice the protagonist (#4) like a whiny Luke Skywalker. The author is mostly at fault for creating such a character, but if Kaplan had read the protagonist with more gravitas the narration would not have been so excruciating.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from I Am Number Four?

The entire action sequence / finale is one of the worst written passages I have ever read (no hyperbole). The protagonist spends most of the sequence "surrounded" by enemies that politely attack one at a time, or not at all. The moment I will never forget is when a soldier swings a sword at #4 while he is busy grieving in the middle of battle. The protagonist dodges the attack, and that's it. The soldier is never heard from again. I guess he only had energy enough for one swing and went for a nap.

Any additional comments?

This is not the kind of young adult literature that has a wider audience, but it has merit as a book for tweens.

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Great idea ruined by narrator

Revisado: 08-07-13

How could the performance have been better?

I would buy the book again if they handed it over to another narrator. As it stands, I could not finish it. I apologize to anyone from the upper mid-west, but it is torture to listen to this man's accent. Imagine a book narrated by one of the characters from the movie Fargo and you will get the idea. Excruciating. This is not the first Audible book ruined by an author's ill advised decision to read their own book without first making an honest appraisal of their own speaking skills.

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interesting subject ruined by narrator

Revisado: 06-22-13

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Longtime Audible users will know that on rare occasions a narrator can completely ruin a book. That is the case here. I was excited to learn about the subject, but the narration of this book is nearly unbearable.

The narrator reads every sentence like he is announcing the headline of an upcoming news story, seems to have no idea what he is talking about, and cannot connect ideas between sentences. It almost sounded like the book was being read by an illiterate high school student making a joke out of reading in class by trying to draw attention to himself.

I feel sorry for the author.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Different Narrator

Would you be willing to try another one of Kieran Phoenix’s performances?

No

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