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Not really anything here

Revisado: 10-21-18

Read Trelease's "Read aloud handbook" instead. I admit to have only gotten through half this volume, and that was more time than I should have given it.

It was my error for having bought this through a sale, but it was not marked as a christian volume there, and boy is it christian. This is more of a christian reimagining of Trelease than anything else, and Trelease was much better in its original form. Trelease had facts and studies and data to back him up. Trelease is a reasonable writer. This book has ... anecdotes and feel good stories about god along with a great deal of filler. One gets the idea that the author was paid by the word, and in order to make her word count fluffed out the book by making a number of long lists.

Poorly written, barely argued, preachy. Even ignoring the heavy-handed religious content there is nothing of value here that isn't extended quotes from books you'd be better off reading than this one.

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

Truly Awful

Revisado: 04-13-14

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I managed to struggle through half of this before giving up. The characters are cardboard cut-outs, particularly the flawless protagonist and his equally perfect dream-girl. I tried to look past this, as perhaps this sort of fantasy isn't the place to look for intricate character development, but the story itself managed somehow to be dull and predictable with way too much filler. There's a ton of pro-gun libertarian politics mixed in as well, so I suppose if that's your thing you might find something redeemable there.

Basically this is an overly long and violent action movie in book form.

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esto le resultó útil a 11 personas

Not for a very wide audience

Revisado: 02-06-14

Any additional comments?

I picked up Kingdom of Little wounds because it had made several "best of" lists and won a Printz Honour this year. I had been wary of this title because opinions on this title have been mixed, and I finish the book finding my opinions on the title are mixed as well.

The writing throughout this book is wonderful. However, the subject matter is harsh. Many of the characters are sick or diseased in some way and the author describes lesions and medical procedures in detail. There's also a rather graphic rape scene. Furthermore, the first three quarters of the book don't seem to be really going anywhere. The main characters have misfortune after misfortune piled onto them and we hear a lot about court intrigues but there doesn't seem to be an arc to the narrative. Then the book rallies in its last quarter with the main characters working together to save themselves and the book becomes vastly more interesting and entertaining. I spent the first 75% of the book wondering why I was listening to this and the last 25% of the book not wanting to put it down.

I'm not a fan of this narrator. I've listened to one title by her previously and I find her heroines a little too flimsy and breathy. You get used to it after a while, but it's jarring at first.

There are going to be people who love this book, but I think that there will be more who don't manage to stick around for the finale.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Covers a lot of old territory

Revisado: 07-19-12

While this book makes for a breezy listen, a lot of what is contained within will be old news to many readers. If you know what a straw man argument and an ad hominem attack are, have read too many descriptions of the marshmallow experiment and the Standford prison experiment and are just plain tired of Milgram this book is probably not for you. While there were certainly many sections that contained information that I was previously unaware of the amount of the content that I already knew ruined this for me.

This book comes from the author of a blog of the same name, and it shows. The chapters read like blog posts, tending to lack depth, and the flow between chapters is choppy at times. However, it's an easy read, and a good introductory look at some of work that has been done in psychology in the past century.

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esto le resultó útil a 135 personas

Perfect summer listen

Revisado: 07-19-12

I really enjoyed the previous two instalments in this series and was eagerly awaiting the release of this one.

Fortunately, I wasn't disappointed. A joy to listen to - filled with a wonderful sense of humour and original characters. I particularly loved the expansion on Puri's mother in this book as she out manoeuvres her lovably egotistic son. The same narrator as performed the first two books returns and yet again puts in a great performance; truly adding to your enjoyment and immersion into Tarquin Hall's India.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Victorian space adventure

Revisado: 05-13-12

I'm of two minds with Larklight. First and foremost I am bowled over by the world Reeve has created. I can't recall ever reading a book with a more fully realized and original world. It seems as if every page contains a new species, device or concept - it's almost overwhelming. At the same time, the bits and pieces pulled from Victorian England are - to my remembering - historically accurate. Absolutely worth reading for this alone.

On the other hand, the plot itself isn't as compelling and drags at the end. Furthermore, the characters aren't nearly as well rendered as their environment, making it difficult to be that emotionally invested in what happens to them. It's almost as if Reeve had to decide where to put his efforts and plunked all his eggs into the world-building basket. What he created was extraordinary, and I hope that future efforts spread his talent around a bit more evenly.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Excellent YA Fantasy

Revisado: 04-30-12

I've been striking out with YA lately (Delirium and Divergent I'm looking at you), but I am so glad that I picked this one up.

The first half of the book is much stronger than the second half. The set up here is phenomenal: great writing, an original setting, interesting characters, mysteries that are actually mysterious. I found that I didn't want to stop listening. For me, the book loses it's way a little when we get sidetracked into the romance in the second half. However, the world the author has created here is somewhere that I want to explore further and I am looking forward with great anticipation to the next book in this series.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Unoriginal romance

Revisado: 04-18-12

I was wary of this title, but as it was an "editor's pick" for the tournament of books, I decided to give it a try.

The plot here is derivative (seen the movie Equilibrium? This idea was better done there - which isn't setting the bar particularly high). The dystopian future described is so illogical that it is difficult to buy into as a reader. The central plot is a romance, which isn't really my genre, and it's sickly sweet here. The characters lacked depth.

Some of the best bits were the chapter epigraphs which set out children's rhymes or propaganda quotations. These gave the world a bit more history and context. But, epigraphs are hardly a reason to read a novel.

The narration was superb. But, by the middle of the book I was just waiting for it to end. I had no interest in the characters, had no doubt as to how the plot would pan out, and simply persevered because I'd sunk the credit into it. I probably should have rated my time more highly.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Slow moving, but worth it

Revisado: 04-04-12

This is a really lovely book. It's a love story set against the background of the beginning of the cold war. However, it's more of an "Atonement" love story than a typical YA love story.

This seems much more mature to me than a lot of YA fiction. The writing is superb. Peet has a way with words that lingers in your head for days. However, readers may not be expecting such a slow moving novel. There's a lot of great detail here, but not a great deal of action. To me, it was a perfect capturing of a time and a place. A delight to listen to.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Great narration of science fiction classic

Revisado: 03-16-12

I think that this story lost some of it's punch for me as I knew so much about it before I started reading. Perhaps I would have preferred the short-story version, as I found that the story dragged in sections.

The narrator does an excellent job of trying to portray Charlie's various levels of intelligence with his voice, versus the use of spelling errors and the like in the text version.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas