Hope

Awful Narrator

Revisado: 02-24-20

I should always listen to the sample; I find the narrator's voice harsh and unbearable.

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Overdone narration

Revisado: 11-06-17

I like the interesting plots in the Albert Campion series. I've read a lot of them before but coming back to them at this point in history I can't help but be sensitized to the racism in the books although it is not a major thing, it just is an underlying note.

The narrator is a competent narrator, but the choice was made to really overact. I belong to the camp that is not looking for a fully dramatized story. I do like to know who is speaking and to have it phrased well. David Thorpe takes the description of Albert Campion's voice in the text and goes to town with it and it is pretty awful to listen to. Some of the other characters are awfully voiced as well.

Given those two issues I have, I still listened to the whole book, taking breaks to listen to other books when I couldn't stand the squeaks and squeals.

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Kirsten Potter can't do accents

Revisado: 08-16-17

Any additional comments?

I really enjoy Joanna Bourne's spy/romance novels; her characters are interesting and she writes good but not overly convoluted plots. They are quick, fun reads.

However, I am really mad at myself that I again bought her book on audio; I should have remembered that these are books that I can't easily listen to again because the reader is so very bad at accents. Her main fake accent is what might be called standard British, only it's not. I am American, but I am constantly wincing at how badly Ms. Potter pronounces both the English dialogue as well as her pseudo French accent. She is actually a decent narrator although she tends to read very similarly from book to book. But I am really annoyed by readers who don't have the skill or the ear to do well by the material. This is bad enough that I'm warning other listeners off of it.

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A good story ruined - beware

Revisado: 07-26-17

What disappointed you about Rondo Allegro?

Fenella Fudge uses an overwrought Italian accent for the heroine that makes listening to this unbearable for me. I tried speeding the narration up to see if it would be listenable and it helped but not enough. I really dislike narrators/producers who think they are putting on a play or making a film instead of providing an enjoyable but unobtrusive reading of a book. It is too bad because this is book worth being well read. Get the print version!

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If you are interested in Queen Victoria

Revisado: 12-03-16

Any additional comments?

I really enjoyed Daisy Goodwin's first two books: The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter. This newest book is a fictionalized account of the time of Queen Victoria's life from just before she succeeds to the throne until she becomes betrothed to Prince Albert. Victoria is very well written and tells the story well. The problem for me ended up being that I just wasn't that interested in this small piece of history, at least not taken to this extent. The history (which the blurb says is well-researched) could be told in a fairly short essay. I have to say that while I did listen to the whole book, I didn't find it compelling. If you are a fan of Queen Victoria, it might be a better fit for you.

The reader is excellent, and I found her various accents convincing.

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A potentially good plot, but...

Revisado: 10-03-16

What disappointed you about Savage Run?

This is the second Joe Pickett noel I've read. I find Joe Pickett to be an uninteresting and actually stupid hero. As a game warden in Wyoming, he should be skilled outdoorsman yet he continually makes stupid choices or shows lack of knowledge. For instance in one case he needs to pull another person up using a rope; he just pulls, he doesn't use a nearby tree or even his own body as a belay. I could go on, there is much worse, but people don't like spoilers. This book has a basic plot which is actually potentially a very good plot, but it is ruined by turning most of the characters into caricatures. Even the 'normal' people are one dimensional. This is too bad because the challenges of the American West are really important and complex and don't deserve to be treated in this cartoonish way. (I say this as a westerner.)

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I would never choose to listen to a David Chandler narration. I didn't find him unbearable but he was pretty flat and certainly did not add to the story.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Savage Run?

It wouldn't be saveable in that way. C. J. Box needs to have a better understanding of people, of the west and of the complex challenges of the Rocky Mountain West. There are so many competing wishes and needs, and perceived as well as legal rights. The allliances that arise from the changing nature of the western United States change often and are unpredictable; it is far from black and white in any area.

Any additional comments?

I do wonder if C. J. Box has gotten any better in later books in the series; I won't be finding out. I only finished reading this book to give it a thorough review. If it were up to me, I would add a bunch of 'spoilers' so other potential readers would know it's not just an off day for me.

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Well worth a listen

Revisado: 07-20-16

Any additional comments?

I bought this audiobook for two reasons; I was curious about what would be done with such a problematical plot in a current setting and I know Anne Tyler as a very good author. I don't usually read Anne Tyler; I have had enough angst and deep sorrow in my own life that I choose to read books that don't put me through it.

If I had had to rate Vinegar Girl in the middle of reading it I would probably have given it 3 stars. There is a lot of family dysfunction and I didn't love the characters. I was pretty uncomfortable; it was not happy reading, but it never reached the point where I thought seriously about not finishing. I am so very glad that I did finish. Anne Tyler really did take The Taming of the Shrew and make it work and beyond that, she made it make sense.

If you know Shakespeare, you know the plot; Tyler certainly deviates from the original; she has to in order for the plot to make any sense in today's world. She does hit the high points of the play but I really had no idea how she would bring it all together at the end, but she does, and it is brilliant. I was completely charmed by her ending.

I want to mention that I also appreciated that she kept the book very tight; it is short as audiobooks go these days, but it was the right length for what she accomplished; there was no filler in it. It is so much harder to skip filler in audiobooks than in print; I have sometimes loved the plot and characters in a book and have just been worn out by all of the extras thrown in. Thank goodness for a disciplined author and for good editors.

Kirsten Potter was brilliant all the way through. I have heard her read before and she is one of the audio narrators who really shines in the profession.

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Overall, good for what it is

Revisado: 07-10-16

Any additional comments?

Julian Fellowes is a very skilled writer. Belgravia seems to be set up to be a serialized TV show, like Downton Abbey but taking place at a different time in history (1825 and 1840).One of Julian Fellowes' and thus Belgravia's strengths is the depth of knowledge of history and culture that make this book more than just a fluff piece. I particularly enjoy a novel that is enriched with that kind of detail, although it was interesting that he chose to assume ignorance on his readers' part and use the term market cart seller rather than the usual term costermonger. All he had to do was provide the definition once and his readers would be smart enough to remember that. A very small quibble.

I did enjoy istening to this book. It is by no means great literature, it is rather like a period soap opera in book form, but well enough done that it is a fun escape. The beginning is particularly well done; as the book goes on, the plot is fairly predictable. I found the characters engaging (Anne in particular) and was very invested in their various stories.

I am glad I listened to it, overall, it made for some fun hours of escape from every day life.

Juliet Stevenson is a narrator whom I trust; I've listened to her read many classics. She is as good as ever reading Belgravia. She is a bit more emotive at various times than is usual for her, but I thought she did her usual excellent job.

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Starts well, crashes into melodrama

Revisado: 06-24-16

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No, it's a book I found pretty disappointing. It began well, an interesting heroine who engages with the hero in quite an engaging way. She has serious ambitions to be other than the society woman she was brought up to be. She makes difficult choices (with some help) and pays a pretty heavy price for those choices. She is a very attractive young woman which actually makes her life easier for the most part; she is able to support herself quite well while she goes to medical school because of that.

There is a lot of back and forth between the H and h; he is still quite young himself and establishing himself in the business world; the two are drawn to each other but are unsure of the others true feelings. This is all well and good and done fairly well, not serious literature but entertaining and even somewhat educational about the life of a woman of her class during the 1920's. But then...



SO SERIOUS SPOILERS HERE! BE WARNED!



My big issues were how very melodramatic the story got the farther it went on. There was the Big Misunderstanding trope which fortunately did not last too long. But the thing I need to warn people off this book about is an issue which really enrages me. The hero declares his love for the heroine; they have extra marital sex - OK, birth control was available and they were in love. But then the hero has to go back to England for business; the heroine gets pregnant by him before he goes and NEVER TELLS HIM. For me this is despicable. If a man is a pedophile or extremely abusive, I could understand protecting his child from him, but otherwise, a man has a right to know that he has fathered a child! I don't care what excuses the heroine makes up about not wanting to wreck her lover's business career by having become a social pariah; she still needed to tell him that she was pregnant. Even at the end where it gets ridiculously melodramatic and she's not going to tell him that her little girl is his unless he loves her, the heroine, and would marry her anyway. This is so selfish both towards him but also to their daughter. The author uses the term 'prevaricate' when what is really happening are outright lies, both in commission and by omission. The last HOURS of the book is all mostly moaning and breast-beating instead of telling the truth and bringing the story to a neat and plausible ending.

Did Kelly Burke do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Kelly Burke has a nice voice and she does differentiate characters fairly well; her male voices are her weak point, but I found them workable. What I did NOT like is her melodramatic reading from the first to the last. I've heard worse, but books that are written with this kind of drama in them already do NOT need to be played up. The words already convey the story and it takes only a little emotion in the reading (and only in those parts that call out for it) to get the feelings across. It's rarely clear at this point who has made the choice about how a book should be read. Some books are recorded by a narrator who directs and produces themselves while other have both an additional director and producer. I tend to believe that the better readings are done when there is outside feed back from a director and/or producer. (Just like self-published books are often crying out for a really good editor,)

Do you think A Kiss from Mr. Fitzgerald needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No.

Any additional comments?

Audible should give reviewers a choice of questionnaire formats instead of asking us to try to fit our reviews into formulaic questions like these; many reviewers only answer the questions that are asked no matter how irrelevant the questions are to the book being reviewed and even though the reviewer seems to have much more to say that would be useful to other readers who are considering buying that book.

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Histrionic story by an author who can do better

Revisado: 06-19-16

What did you like best about A Hundred Summers? What did you like least?

Beatriz Williams is a competent writer; she could use a really good editor or a good writer's group to cut out the unnecessary melodrama. This book has a decent plot (with some too stupid to live moments, unfortunately) but it is self-indulgent and has a lot of scenes and descriptions which are excessive to the story. I did like some of the characters, although there were an enormous number of secrets kept unnecessarily.

Would you be willing to try another book from Beatriz Williams? Why or why not?

Yes, she can write well.

What didn’t you like about Kathleen McInerney’s performance?

Incredibly over-acted, histrionic performance. She has a good voice and reads well and rarely mispronounces words. It isn't clear whether the way she read this book was her choice or due to a director/producer. The book is already melodramatic; it doesn't have to be read so very over the top dramatically, from the very first sentence. In a movie, this level of over-emoting would be obviously ridiculous; I find it amazing that narrators read books in this manner.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No, it's pretty shallow, I don't think it would be worth the time.

Any additional comments?

I listened to this book sped up, I couldn't have finished it otherwise. I enjoyed the first third of the book, but by the end I felt that I had wasted my time.

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