Jessica Wright

I don’t remember anything

Revisado: 04-07-25

This first book was very good, but toward the end I started getting annoyed with basic science and goofy phrasing. It was like the author took a normal sentence and ran it through a thesaurus to make the words sound more intellectual or interesting. Unnecessary sentences that made me chuckle. And I’m sorry. The AI robot that can’t count how many bullets are in a gun? And one that “panics”? And the time dilation… except a year is a year on both sides because everyone in both universes experiences solar rotation the same.
I had to finish the series because that’s the kind of reader I am, but I frequently had to rewind because the story wasn’t engaging.

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Hard to get past the contempt

Revisado: 11-04-23

As many people have noted, this was someone who had an agenda, a platform, and an audience. I’ve loved everything King has ever written and I’m amused by how betrayed I felt by this book. I got through COVID by being humble, acknowledging that I don’t know anything, and by respecting the concerns and fears of my community, despite being annoyed and inconvenienced at every turn. I hated it but I can play along, and how fortunate I was to not have it hit me or my family personally.

One of my least favorite things about Covid was the distain and contempt people had for each other, people that they’ve known for years, family, friends, coworkers, etc. This book brings all of that, screaming back, it’s clear that all characters who have a laissez-faire view of COVID-19, whether you agree with that or not, are idiots or villains. It was just really discouraging to have a book that I’ve been looking forward to reading for so long be not about the character that I’ve become invested in, but instead be a contemptuous review of people who made different medical choices than Mr. King.

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John Lee has some serious talent…

Revisado: 08-13-23

…for putting me to sleep. I’ve had to go back and listen to multiple chapters because his voice is so soothing and pleasant that I have fallen asleep. I started this book on a day when I had a 3hr drive so I was excited, but I’m literally almost done with it and I know I have no idea what’s going on. His voice fades into the background so completely that even while driving and having no other distractions, I zoned out. When his voice drops to lower pitches, I don’t hear anything but a pleasant droning.

Also, this book was edited to remove the pauses between breaks in the book. So you’ll be listening to one character and then suddenly it’s another perspective. That was not the narrator’s fault at all, likely an error in the editing department, but it made it very confusing to track.

I literally just went to the store and bought the physical book, because what I have heard has been captivating but I can’t for the life of me get around the performance.

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Everything goes wrong for everyone forever

Revisado: 07-15-23

I tried. I tried to stick with it but everyone’s loved ones dying, constant terrible injuries, and stupid protagonists who don’t understand computer viruses as they tout AI being salvation… I slugged through the first book but after non-stop bad news it’s just enough. And even though the good guys are constantly on the brink of death somehow they keep going out and fighting more battles and getting more injuries?!
Love NSS, ADORE RC Bray, but what an utter bummer of a series. Explosions, lasers, and zero character development. It’s bad when you WANT the good guys to just die already.

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Can't listen to one more slurp

Revisado: 06-14-22

The story isn't good enough to suffer through the slurping noises. I wish I had read the reviews before downloading this. I have never in my life had to suppress my gag reflex while listening to an audiobook, but Glimmery's narration adds in "slurps" after most sentences. How was this allowed; did NO ONE listen to this before it was published?! My boyfriend asked what was wrong because I was listening with a nauseated frown on my face.

The first book in the series was a disappointment as well with the narrator. She has a very soft, muted voice, so I figured, "Okay, I just have to listen at a higher volume" when suddenly she shouted a line, and I about ejected from my skin. I don't mind her accent, I like listening to her, but the volume has to be moderated, and common sense needs to be exercised, slurping is almost universally disgusting.

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Committed but frustrated

Revisado: 05-18-22

I’m in it for the long haul but honestly, I’m frankly rooting for the protagonists to die. They are immature, over-reactive idiots. Every person they “trust” gets ignored, yelled at, and insulted when whoever were focusing on “just has to do something” and wow, they were right after all. No one follows commands (why is there even a command structure here, seriously?!), no one takes time to heal, and every person who just has to ignore advice or go before they’re ready gets into danger and then some beloved support character dies as a result. Or they find an incredible location/resource/piece of information, only to utterly destroy it. These people prove that perhaps humanity SHOULD be wiped off the face of the earth.

But as I said, I need to finish the series. So I have to listen to the audio book where my FAVORITE narrator, RC Bray, intentionally mispronounces every location name, despite the fact that the group has an AI who speaks every language but SOMEHOW doesn’t know the pronunciation of proper nouns.

Also let’s throw in a miraculous dolphin rescue. You guys…. I can’t.

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Well chosen hand-off

Revisado: 01-13-22

I started listening to the WoT series in September and am now finishing the final audiobook. I came to review this book as the start of the Sanderson era, and I can honestly say the whole series needs to be where the reviews sit because I ate each book up in days and I'm so sad it's over. I'm going to go back and physically read the books, mostly because the story is so epic, but also to shake the narrators' voices out of my head. You can tell they never collaborated in order to have continuity between their readings. Is it Moh-rain, Ma-rain, Mwa-rain... is it Ta-DIE-shar, Tye-dye SHAR, etc. After the first 10 books suddenly Elayne, Gawyn, and Galad are British... um.. SOMETIMES?! Also, and no shame, but if you are going to do a dive bar impression of an accent, I'd rather not. From the first chapter of the first book, I was amused at Kramer's budget theater Shakespear-esque reading, and lulled to sleep by Reading's monotone. Once they found their rhythm, it got better, and I could tell some characters apart by their inflection, but the inconsistency was like a splinter in your brain. The characters and storyline are SO complex and intricate and wonderfully detailed, and having various character names pronounced differently both between the two narrators and then from one book to the next by the same narrator was jarring.

Also, thank you Mr. Sanderson for your more budget-minded usage of the word "breast". I don't know if anyone was counting but Mr. Jordan sure has a favorite body part in the first 11 books.

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Good enough

Revisado: 08-21-20

I enjoyed the storyline, but it’s definitely early Jemison. Her other books are definitely more mature and less like romance novels.

I won’t be listening to the next books though; I’ll just read them. Casaundra Freeman’s reading style is grating. Her voices for the characters were fine, not enough definition between the main character and her “counterpart”, but no real complaints there. Actually I found her voice quite soothing in many places. What bothered me was the aggressively enunciated words and clipped consonants, which sounded like someone reading aloud in a classroom. Also I now hate the words “again” and “against” because she elongated the “a” sound (A- GAAAAIN) when she read them about 90% of the time. Yep, not 100%, a couple normal pronunciations slipped through.

This was a filler book, good enough to keep my interest the whole time and I didn’t guess the ending so that was refreshing. But it’s one of those books you sort of forget after reading. The Broken Earth trilogy was fantastic though.

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Recycled dialogue

Revisado: 10-15-19

We get it. They’re racist nazis. We. Get. It.
These characters were so one dimensional that I accurately predicted the dialogue several times. What could have been a really interesting book about a terrorist attack turned into a drama that only barely touched on the catalyst. Everyone is out for revenge, no one can believe how much things have changed, and everyone is about to stab someone in the back. At least the box set was only one credit because I would have been pretty mad if I’d wasted more than a single credit on this.
The narrator was ok, I liked his voice but his portrayal of the bad guy who only speaks on a barely audible murmuring (unless he’s calling someone a bitch, in which case that’s always a teeth clenched growl, EVERY time) had me fast forwarding through that dialogue just to get the nails on a chalk board sensation off of me.

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Good story, predictable characters

Revisado: 08-09-19

This was definitely a good book, and had I read it in paper format I probably wouldn’t have any complaints, however Ray Porter’s reading left me a little dissatisfied with very one-dimensional characters. The women sounded like caricatures of what a stereotypical man hears; heavy on the “s”es. And speaking of “s”es, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the whistling s-sounds had me on edge. Think the beaver in Lady & The Tramp, which I’ve noticed in other works by this narrator. The story was entertaining but the characters were pretty predictable, bad guys are bad guys and good guys are “tough but fair”, and apparently all intellectuals are immature, self-centered, and petty.

Good enough to spend a credit on though.

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