Anonymous

Really bad narration, thin on any new facts

Reviewed: 06-23-24

It's only 4 hours 22 min so I don't expect it to be comprehensive but there isn't much new if you've ever read anything else about the subject. The narrator is terribly robotic and constantly puts the emphasis on the wrong syllables. It made me think it really was an AI narration or someone who is not a fluent English speaker.

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Amazing that she made it to 31.

Reviewed: 12-25-23

I'm torn as to whether having having her voice her book added or detracted from it. Her reading is manic and somewhat detached from emotions. Maybe that is the way it really was for her. The story has common themes you have heard before but she has all of them...abusive stage mom, child acting, eating disorders, driving problems... It was amazing that she could function at a high enough level to keep getting acting jobs. She seems to have got out alive but she is still only 31. I wish her well.

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1 person found this helpful

Interesting Topic, Too Many Sidetracks

Reviewed: 07-02-23

I like the parts of the book that stuck with the premise "Can we love the art of people who did bad things?" It starts out well discussing this, but then side tracks into a lot of the author's own memoir, so I felt a little cheated... interesting personal insight but that should be another book. The conclusion seemed to be that we are all monsters so there is no conclusion. Even the narrator (who is the author) seemed to be tired and depressed near the end.

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1 person found this helpful

Mainly for Bundy Completists

Reviewed: 06-21-23

I have read and watched almost everything on Bundy partially because I live in Utah and recognize many of the locations. The story of his long time girlfriend certainly adds the most intimate perspective. She did try to turn him in several times but in the days before the Internet and surveillance cameras everywhere, it was hard to positively ID Bundy. The only new biographical information I gleaned was that Bundy was also a compulsive thief. It could have done without about 2/3 of the love letters and pleading calls from Bundy... after about the 10th one it seems like she is just including them to convince herself. I'm also not a huge fan of the woman narrator doing the man's voice and vice versa though it isn't terribly annoying in this one. Having the real daughter speak up at the end was worth the wait.

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The Performance Made an Average Story Much Better

Reviewed: 04-12-23

Audio books where the narrator does separate voices for all the characters, male and female, are hit and miss. This one was a hit because the author is a professional actor and it is her story. The accents and cadence used for the different characters made them more relatable. As it relates to hippies, there is not a lot of new ground plowed here, but you do get a realistic view of what it was like to live off the grid with a bunch of people in Oregon in the early 1970s. The "average" part is that the story is common in its trajectory from idealism to practicality is predictable.

The ending seemed needlessly abrupt because to me that would have been the most interesting transition; how do you leave the commune with a new baby, almost no money and "make it" in Los Angeles as an actress? Is the answer as simple as you have a great friend from Yale named Henry Winkler? We don't know because she rushes off to the Epilogue. I'd buy a second book to find out about that part.

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1 person found this helpful

Name Dropping is Interesting...at first

Reviewed: 10-31-22

It's clearly advertised as a memoir and a history of the Rolling Stone so you are expecting a lot of the usual celebrity stuff; you want the celebrity stuff including the usual sex, drugs and rock and roll. As a journalist I enjoyed reading about the early days of publication and the painful transition to current day on-line takeover. The story is linear so I guess you are expected to remember everyone he's mentioning only by their first names towards the end. It gets a little pretentious towards the end when the author talks about private jetting around the world and to his various houses, lunch with Bono and parties with Mick, Bruce, Paul. You can probably guess their last names. I did enjoy finding out a little more about some the magazine's famous writers and photographers.

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Mixed Bag of history and commetary

Reviewed: 06-28-22

I have never been to Fire Island but the name is part of cultural literacy so I wanted to find out more. The author is a literature student so as you would expect there are dozens of literary references to writers who spent time on Fire Island. The book does go into the geographical history of the place and it's evolution to a gay mecca. The author is gay so I appreciate the inside perspective. It veers off into commentary several times about what is the "right" way to be gay. I found it interesting but a diversion from the original reason I got the book.

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1 person found this helpful

Needs some fact checking and culling

Reviewed: 04-25-22

It's a good listen and a reasonable length which I appreciate. Too many non-fiction books overstay their welcome. It took me awhile to warm up to it because out of the the gate there were some fact errors...the University of Montana is not in Bozeman, it's in Missoula. The most interesting part is "how does one support the adventure life" and "does living off of social media change how she does things" ... she does address this towards the end after the dog near-death incident but that could use some more fleshing out. As a dog lover that part both made me cry and consider "is it worth it?" Every "free spirit" needs a team of boring people with insurance and a spare couch to survive. In the end it seems like she bought an expensive piece of land and built a house on it by writing about being non conforming. She also seems to be doing a lot of globetrotting. Maybe I'm just jealous. There isn't much you can add to father/abandonment issues that hasn't been written about already. She could have left that out in favor or more current decisions.

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4 people found this helpful

A Oft Repeated Story with Some New Insights

Reviewed: 02-13-22

A few of the early reviewers seem put off buy Fiennes inserting himself in first person here and there. I found it mostly useful and was not an overused tool. There are so many other accounts of Shackleton's adventures that you couldn't really have a new book that just retold those. So I enjoy some of the details of his personal and financial struggles that I had not heard of before. Seemed that the fund raising was as arduous and the actual treks. Pleasant narrator and pace made one of the more enjoyable listens of the last few years.

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Important addation to the NXIVM story

Reviewed: 10-20-19

I've read this and "Scarred" and together they give you a better insight into NXIVM but I'm still waiting for a more complete story. This book is good at describing the origin years but the author and narrator was separated from NXIVM and Raniere for many years. The narration, thought authoritative by the author, is sort of flat; it could have used a little more production value.

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11 people found this helpful