ryan
- 4
- opiniones
- 11
- votos útiles
- 8
- calificaciones
-
Bad Monkey
- De: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrado por: Arte Johnson
- Duración: 11 h y 25 m
- Versión completa
-
General4 out of 5 stars 2,455
-
Narración:4 out of 5 stars 2,165
-
Historia4 out of 5 stars 2,170
Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office—has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing).
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Flame-out fail
- De Lars en 06-16-13
- Bad Monkey
- De: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrado por: Arte Johnson
very good monkey
Revisado: 07-07-13
Hiassen is waaaaay too funny.
his books are always a romp, bringing up sometimes serious issues with wicked good humor. in this book, we get real estate development and Medicare fraud all wrapped up in the tale of a shark-chomped arm and a mysteriously not-really-grieving widow.
our hero, a cop who was demoted to food inspector for a rather nasty bit of knight-in-shining-armor-ness, desperately wants his detective job back before he dies of starvation: inspecting restaurants has definitely put him off his feed. along comes the aforementioned arm, and he's off on a not legally sanctioned investigation into the death of its former owner.
along the way he does a little civil disobedience vis. his new view-destroying next door neighbor, builder of a monstrosity intended only for a fast sale. i've no idea what kind of twisted mind Hiassen actually has, but i wouldn't want to try to build an ugly house next door to him.
the book is exceptionally paced, with a lot of balls kept masterfully in the air. it does get a little hard to track who's who (at least in the audio version)--there are a lot of characters--but entirely worth the effort.
the choice of narrator in the audio version seems a bit odd--Arte Johnson is a gravelly-voiced fellow, sounding much older than one imagines the protag to be, but he does a respectable job even with the women's voices.
Se ha producido un error. Vuelve a intentarlo dentro de unos minutos.
Has calificado esta reseña.
Reportaste esta reseña
esto le resultó útil a 2 personas
-
The Chameleon's Shadow
- A Novel
- De: Minette Walters
- Narrado por: Simon Vance
- Duración: 10 h y 46 m
- Versión completa
-
General4 out of 5 stars 43
-
Narración:4.5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Historia4 out of 5 stars 21
When British lieutenant Charles Acland returns home from Iraq, his serious head injuries are the outward manifestation of a profound inner change. He may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or it may be, as his psychiatrist suggests, "the prolonged destruction of a personality".
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
just fabulous
- De ryan en 07-07-13
- The Chameleon's Shadow
- A Novel
- De: Minette Walters
- Narrado por: Simon Vance
just fabulous
Revisado: 07-07-13
Walters is a master of the convoluted mystery: whodunit is not only a matter of the puzzle, but a matter of the person. the candidates' character and psychology are inextricable from motive, means, and opportunity. this is what makes her books such great reads.
in this book, our protag is a wounded iraq war veteran suspected of a string of vicious murders of middle-aged--and possibly gay--men. Charles Acland is a prickly fellow, prone to sudden outbursts of oddly controlled violence. the book begins with his slow recovery from terribly disfiguring wounds and his psychiatrist's attempts to understand this angry and disturbed young man.
it's a fitting if unusual opener for a mystery, because we cannot hope to guess whether Acland did murder the men if we don't understand his character and psyche. Acland isn't the most traditionally sympathetic of characters, but i have to say, having long experience of PTSD-damaged people, he's entirely accurate to the syndrome. that in itself is an accomplishment on Walters' part. and if the reader has ever known a war veteran, Acland is actually a profoundly sympathetic--and deeply moving--character.
i find this an interesting addition to the growing body of war literature. too little of it deals with what happens after the soldiers come home. in this novel, we get a feeling for the aftermath of extreme violence... not always pleasant, but quite enlightening.
and of course we get it wrapped up in an expertly-told mystery.
the narrator of this audiobook did a quite fabulous job of handling a number of different characters--my own personal fave is Jackson, which must have been an interesting conundrum for the narrator.
if it can be said that an audiobook can't be put down, well, i couldn't put this one down. i listened in an almost one unbroken stretch. now i'm going to start it again, and listen for the pleasure of watching Walters toss out clues and herrings and seeing the puzzle unfold.
Se ha producido un error. Vuelve a intentarlo dentro de unos minutos.
Has calificado esta reseña.
Reportaste esta reseña
esto le resultó útil a 3 personas
-
Mending the Moon
- De: Susan Palwick
- Narrado por: Emily C. Michaels, Alfred Gingold
- Duración: 11 h y 44 m
- Versión completa
-
General2.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Narración:2.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Historia2.5 out of 5 stars 3
Melinda Soto, aged 64, vacationing in Mexico, is murdered by a fellow American tourist. Back in her hometown of Reno, Nevada, she leaves behind her adopted son, Jeremy, whom she rescued from war-torn Guatamala when he was a toddler - just one of her many causes over the years. And she leaves behind a circle of friends: Veronique, the academic stuck in a teaching job from which she can't retire; Rosemary, who's losing her husband to Alzheimer's and who's trying to lose herself in volunteer work; Henrietta, the priest at Rosemary's and Melinda's church.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Delicate story. Sweet and a little sad.
- De Juan en 05-29-13
- Mending the Moon
- De: Susan Palwick
- Narrado por: Emily C. Michaels, Alfred Gingold
good for insomniacs
Revisado: 07-05-13
'cause within 15 minutes, i was ready to snooze off from boredom. which is ok, you know, you gotta give a book a chance. so i fought off sleep and continued to listen, until i got to the part about the creation of the comic-book hero--and then i just got annoyed.
because there is a culture to comics and to geekery. for some reason the reader chose to read this section as though he was nothing but a pencil-necked geek--whine and all.
total diss on geek culture, narrator, and unwarranted.
Se ha producido un error. Vuelve a intentarlo dentro de unos minutos.
Has calificado esta reseña.
Reportaste esta reseña
esto le resultó útil a 1 persona
-
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away
- A Novel
- De: Christie Watson
- Narrado por: Claudia Alick
- Duración: 14 h y 10 m
- Versión completa
-
General4 out of 5 stars 20
-
Narración:3.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Historia4 out of 5 stars 17
When their mother catches their father with another woman, 12-year-old Blessing and her 14-year-old brother, Ezikiel, are forced to leave their comfortable home in Lagos for the village of Warri in the Niger Delta to live with their mother’s family. Without running water or electricity, Warri is at first a nightmare for Blessing. Her mother is gone all day and works suspiciously late into the night to pay the children’s school fees.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
gather round, kiddies
- De ryan en 06-16-13
- Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away
- A Novel
- De: Christie Watson
- Narrado por: Claudia Alick
gather round, kiddies
Revisado: 06-16-13
so i've been listening to this as i roam around sewing... and i keep hoping it will, so to speak, get a life. but it's not, so i need to hunt down another audiobook.
i deeply dislike books where it's all narrative, where nothing is left to the reader's imagination, and this book is a very clear example of that. we are told exactly what happens, what the significance of things are, and how to feel about it (in an emotionally intense scene, people will be gripping things until they draw blood or laughing, to let you know how you're supposed to feel).
i can never pinpoint what the necessary empty space for the reader should be, and i feel bad about that... it's a negative space, defined only by the things around it. when there's too many things, there's no negative space, and that's the best i can say.
re: the audiobook version. this is where the book goes from just kind of boring to downright annoying. the book's narrator is a 12-year-old girl; the book's reader has apparently conflated "child narrator" with "read as if to a group of children at storytime." you know that voice: "my EYES were as biiiiiig as PUMPkins!!!!!!" like that. big, big mistake.
urk. can't take any more. good thing Audible allows returns.
Se ha producido un error. Vuelve a intentarlo dentro de unos minutos.
Has calificado esta reseña.
Reportaste esta reseña
esto le resultó útil a 3 personas