MrAmazon

Peirce Does It Again!

Revisado: 02-14-19

I began following Lincoln Peirce's work via the Big Nate comic strip in the local newspaper. Then I saw that he had novels out based on said strip, and so I read all of those. I even listened to the audiobooks.

So I was quite happily surprised to see that Peirce had a new book out, especially after no word of new projects following his last Big Nate novel a year or two ago.

The face that it came from entirely new material was barely even a factor.

Max and the Midknights is definitely a step in the right direction for Peirce, being as good, if not better than, his previous Big Nate-based works.

Kristen Dimercurio has the perfect levels of wry and relatable in her voice as Max, the narrator, being at the equal of Fred Berman, the narrator of all of Peirce's Big Nate audiobooks. (He even makes an appearance here as Mumblin the magician and a few other background voices.)

The Big Nate books were fine, and this story here was already fine on its own, but the performance is further embiggened from its predecessors via the use of a full cast, not to mention the musical score and sound effects. Those and a familiar writing and humor style pretty much guarantee Max and the Midknights to be a total grand slam of an audiobook.

And, may I end by saying that this Kristen Dimercurio person definitely needs to narrate more books going forward!

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This Is Why I Hate Remakes

Revisado: 09-05-18

(Warning: Spoilers Ahead)

Gena Showalter did indeed once write a book called "Oh My Goth". It was back in 2006, making this book a remake (one of the worst things out there, in my opinion).

I guess some of the fault lies with me. I maybe should have been tipped off by the mentions of Youtube and the selfie phenomenon, but it had been a while since I'd read the original.

The story also has had a massive sledgehammer taken to it.

In the original, Jade and Mercedes were actually trapped inside a computer virtual reality thing, forced into it by the school administration in a radical attempt to get them to stop fighting with each other. Here, the whole thing was...sigh...a dying dream on the part of Jade, who was hit by a car while trying to protect Mercedes. A dying dream that somehow also leaked into the dreams of rival Mercedes and love interest Clarek.

I remembered a thing or two from the original, like Clarek having to flirt with the attractive school secretary so that Jade and Mercedes could sneak into the school files, or Jade ending the simulation by giving her popularity crown to the unpopular Mercedes inside the fake universe. I liked those parts, but they did not happen here.

If you had any love for the original 2006 version, I would strongly advise against not buying this. The production's only saving grace was the narrator. Katie Koster provides a pitch-perfect amount of angry and depressed and bored and feisty to the troubled protagonist Jade.

That's all I can really say about "Oh My Goth 2018". Now, if you'll excuse me, off to eBay to find a copy of the original, better version...

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just okay

Revisado: 08-24-18

I remember reading this collection when it first came out. And I remember thinking that most of the stories in it were just okay. And, boy, were my memories right.

But I was jonesing for some more Julia Whelan narration, so I picked this up.

The rest of the narrators were just okay, nothing to write home about. And poor Julia only got to narrate, like, three stories here, two of them in a dumb Southern redneck voice, rather than her own, which stunk.

Most of the stories were just okay and, for me at least, the best one was the Alice In Wonderland take-off (which was read, of course, by Julia Whelan). That being said, there was only one serious stinker in the bunch, and that was "M".

If you have money to burn on something fairly mediocre or just plain aren't picky, this audiobook gets my vote.

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Basic, Yet Not

Revisado: 10-11-17

First of all, I am a big fan of Julia Whelan, but everything else I've ever heard her in was nonfiction, with no discernable main antagonist.

This audiobooks defies that on both counts. It was refreshing to me to hear a Julia Whelan-narrated protagonist dealing with sudden fantastic violence and supernatural events.

The story itself was fairly standard (I knew something supernatural was up early on), but only little pieces are revealed to sharp-eared listeners here and there, forcing you to put said pieces together yourselves. The summary might make it seem totally depressing, but it's really not quite so bad as all that.

And what an ending! Now that's definitely not standard!

On the downside, though, the voice she does for the father character is more like the one she usually does for old men (though that may be to show just how weary he is after all his family's been through before the start of the story proper).

That, plus it's a tad longer than most of the other stuff I've heard her in, and the chapters are a tad long, too.

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Heartfelt, Heartbreaking and Well-Acted

Revisado: 12-09-15

What made the experience of listening to Define 'Normal' the most enjoyable?

Definitely the voice acting. Christine Larkin not only perfectly imitated a very young boy, but also a toddler, and both French and Hispanic accents. Not many people can handle doing all those things in the same book.

Would you recommend Define 'Normal' to your friends? Why or why not?

I'm not sure. The story can get pretty dark and beautifully heartbreaking at times, but it was nice to see some real issues being tackled, such as living with a parent's depression.

Which character – as performed by Christine Lakin – was your favorite?

I feel she puts just the right amount of toughness into the character of Jazz, yet can easily take it down a notch whenever the performance needs it.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

We each have our own cross to bear.

Any additional comments?

The one minor issue I had was that this title is always grouped together with "lesbian teen" related books, and so I kept waiting for a lesbian relationship to form between Jazz and Antonia. But only now do I see that it's just because of the other books in Julie Ann Peters' ouvre.

The "poor rich girl growing up with expectations from her parents so bad that she totally bucks them" thing is also pretty overdone, as is the "two opposite people becoming friends" thing, but that doesn't really detract from the overall greatness of the story.

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