irishred507

Cringey story with terrible narration

Revisado: 12-30-20

The narrator was so peppy the entire time that it drove me nuts and often didn't fit with the tone of the story. She didn't even attempt to give TJ a masculine voice or change it so we could distinguish between him and Anna. I would not recommend the audiobook version for this reason. I think if you read this book yourself you'd have a much better experience.

The book itself wasn't much better. It had some sweet and funny moments, but it was kind of boring and suuuuuuper unrealistic the entire time. Also, I had read other reviews that said their age difference once they became sexually involved wasn't uncomfortable because he was almost 19. That part is true, but when he was still underage we heard about a few boners he got, and there was a totally inappropriate scene when she helped him bathe. So it did feel a little pedo to me and grossed me out to get graphic details about a minor.

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Unbearably bad

Revisado: 07-27-18

She doused him in gasoline and burned him alive. He dragged her body from a rope tied to his horse. This is how they fell in love. Awww💩🤮

Oh, and speaking of barf, Sara literally pukes her guts out and 5 seconds later is the glorious moment the author decides to give her and Pestilence their first kiss. 🤮 Mmm, yummy! And that level of disgust right there sums up how I feel about this entire book.

382 pages of Sara’s unbearable inner dialogue stuck on repeat. “I hate him, he is an evil murderer, but god is he beautiful. What is wrong with me? He is such a despicable evil creature and I hate him so much but I think I’ll just have sex with him anyway for fun and oh my gosh we’re in love!!! But I still hate him. Sometimes we are riding the horse, and sometimes people try to kill us but we kill them, and sometimes people are nice to us even though they are dying because of us and I feel sooooo bad I can’t shut up about it for the entire book. And all the while he is such an evil merciless inhuman creature! But god is he gorgeous- those lips!- so I’ll overlook his evil because we’re in love because, well I don’t know why, we’re just suddenly so in love that nothing else matters. Not my life or anyone else’s. Just our undying love that is built on... well I have no idea what our love is built on since we were originally trying to kill each other and then spent the rest of our time getting to know each other by trying to punish each other and continuously arguing like immature brats and then being all broody forever. But we’re so in love!!!! Never mind all these rotting corpses surrounding us because he just murdered them all for refusing to save my life, just kiss me and tell me again that you love me!!!

But wait, while I was in bed recovering he went and killed millions of people! How could he do this, he loves me! Even though he has killed everyone everywhere he’s ever been I’m suddenly shocked he continues to kill all these people!!! He must not love me! He makes me sick so I’m leaving. Wait, what? He came back for me? I’m shocked! He does love me! And now, yay! We’re getting married! Everyone will be so happy for us!”

...oh wait. How is that going to work out since the whole world knows his face and wants to kill him? I guess we’ll never know, but at least there was time for one last pornographic scene right at the very end to tie up the story.

So you can take all of that plus chapter after chapter of Sara mulling over and over her very misplaced guilt, and you got it... I just saved you from having to read the book because that was pretty much it.

Oh yeah, and she’s supposedly a firefighter! Not a chance in hell such a foolish, whiny girl could ever be the badass that is a female firefighter and first responder. Nope. It’s not even trying to be believable!

It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a low opinion of a book. I think a high schooler could have written a more interesting book with far more creativity and depth.

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esto le resultó útil a 84 personas

Awkward TMI

Revisado: 04-13-18

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I couldn't bring myself to keep listening after hearing about the men having sex with sheep, which is mentioned several times within the first few chapters, along with other sexually explicit details, including a man pleasuring himself. I'm not a prude but I was not expecting that, and in no circumstances do I ever want to hear about humans having sex with animals.

For anyone who might mistakenly buy this book thinking it is a Christian novel, just know that it's secular historical fiction, and it is not clean-cut.

Unfortunately I purchased this book because Audible recommended it to me after I bought a few novels by Christian authors. Since it's categorized under Religious & Inspirational, I was mislead into thinking it was a clean-cut Christian novel.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Some moral issues

Revisado: 06-22-17

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***Minor spoilers***

This book has been my all time favorite ever since I first read it almost 10 years ago. Everyone else I know who has read it also says the same thing. However, I just re-read it for the 4th or 5th time and somehow I saw it from a different perspective this time.... and it was not for the better. I actually think the way the relationship with Angel and Michael began was just another (veiled) form of abuse forced on Angel like everything else in her life. She didn't want to have anything to do with him in the beginning, but he just took her while she was too beaten up to even know what was going on and she very clearly didn't want to stay. He had no right to take her like that or even guilt her with their marriage vows that she was practically unconscious for, let alone keep her with him when all she wanted to do was leave. Their whole relationship started off as as yet another thing she was forced into, all under the guise of chivalry, and it was rather disturbing.

I also think that for a Christian book, this book really pushes the limits many times with the strong sexual themes! I get it, she's a prostitute, but even with Michael it was pushing the limits talking about their intimacy, considering many younger girls are reading this book.

Yes, it's a devastating and beautiful story of redemption, but I don't think it should be considered a parallel to our relationship with God because He has never forced Himself on anyone like that or manipulated us.

I also can't stand that this is the narrator for all Francine River's books because she sounds much too old to portray these teenage girls.

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esto le resultó útil a 42 personas

Great premise, not so great execution

Revisado: 06-22-17

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I really wanted to love this book because it has all the makings of a great story, but by the end I was somewhat disappointed. I genuinely loved the characters and the plot was great, but I think the problem was the storytelling didn't feel cohesive throughout the book. I realize the lack of explanations for things was meant to build mystery, but for whatever reason it just didn't work well, and a nice flow to the story was greatly lacking. I also feel like more detail was given to parts of the story that were somewhat confusing or boring, and less detail/time given to the real meat of the story. The parts I wanted to know more about weren't given much depth, and the parts I wanted to spend more time in were cut short and not given enough story time. The narrator was great, though, and I would love to listen to her again.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Very nice surprise!

Revisado: 06-22-17

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I honestly didn't know what to expect from this book but by the end I was pleasantly surprised. It was creative, it kept me guessing what was going to happen, and it left me with such a frustratingly satisfying cliffhanger that I can't wait to read the next one and see what happens! I do agree with the other reviews that said it's not believable... this is very true. However, it is very likable and fun, so it is easy to let go of the things they did that weren't realistic because the world isn't even realistic anyway. Rebecca Soler isn't my favorite narrator but she did a pretty good job with this book and Zachary Webber only had maybe 5 minutes or less of narration so that was kind of odd.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Mostly entertaining

Revisado: 06-22-17

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This book was a little long-winded and found me wishing it would hurry up and get to the point many times. The story was interesting throughout, but the drama that played out was almost always resolved all too conveniently for everyone involved, so it wasn't very realistic. I feel like the premise was good but the story was less exciting/interesting than it could have been. The narrator had a voice that was too mature-sounding for Wanda/Melanie and she read the book in a somewhat flat manner, so she wasn't my favorite but definitely not a bad narrator, just not the best fit for the story.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Duped by good reviews!!

Revisado: 04-15-17

First of all, the audio is NOT censored by Audible or anyone else, it was written that way. Anyone who thinks so obviously wasn't paying attention because only 2 minutes into the book, the creepy muffled/distorted voice tells us that all the files that make up the story were instructed to have the profanity censored by the UTA (I think that's the government in the book). So you can blame the authors for that one because even the book blacks out the profanity.

I feel very deceived because when I read the reviews the first 25 or so reviews that are displayed are 5 star absolutely rave reviews! Then when you get past all those, the real truth comes out (which I didn't see before I bought the book).

The format was hard to follow and confusing. At least if you were reading the book, rather than listening to it, you would have been able to skim past all of the unnecessary info that is repeated constantly, such as timestamps, dates, and locations, etc.

The writing was very juvenile at best and the characters were irritating. I only made it through 17 chapters (out of 173) and I decided to return it to get my credit back because it was so awful. I saw that other reviewers said that it gets better by the last quarter of the book, but I couldn't even stand one chapter more so I don't know how I could make it through that much more before it actually got interesting, if it even ever did.

The full cast was neat and it did feel like a radio show, but it was just very hard to follow the way it was written.

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esto le resultó útil a 82 personas

Didn't want it to end

Revisado: 04-15-17

I really enjoyed this book and was sad when it came to an end. No, it wasn't the best writing or even the most creative story ever, but it kept me wanting more regardless. I really enjoyed the characters and the plot was fun and entertaining all the way through. It was kind of "chick espionage" or "espionage light." Ha ha. The narrator did a great job with both the female and male voices.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Cute story

Revisado: 03-27-17

I listened to this book because it was on a list of unputdownable books, and that particular blogger said it was one of her favorite reads of the year. While I wouldn't at all consider it unputdownable or anything close to a favorite, it was a cute and sweet story. It's definitely a book for high schoolers and is entirely written from that perspective, but it had enough insightful moments and meaningful or emotional scenes that kept me interested (I'm 37). The narrator, however, was annoying for various reasons. A lot of the time it sounded like she had a very stuffy nose. The rest of the time she pronounced every single word that has a "g" in the middle of it- like English, dangle, or finger- strangely and it's those types of things that grate on me throughout a book. Why is it so hard for narrators to pronounce words, especially common ones, correctly? I run into this all the time with audiobook narrators and I guess it's my pet peeve.

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esto le resultó útil a 12 personas