skujia

Surprisingly Inspirational and Encouraging

Reviewed: 04-02-25

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this, but I found it to be pretty inspirational for someone who wants to write, but can't seem to gather his thoughts in any form or fashion. It may also encouraging if you find yourself staring down a big gardening project but unsure where to begin. It's not that these jobs are impossible. Sometimes we just get stuck. Andrew doesn't have some magical insight into curing procrastination, he simply presents his extremely relatable experience in (mostly) plain language and helps you realize that you're not alone.
I'm not even sure what it is that I'm walking away with, in terms of lessons learned. I do know that I had Audible in car mode and kept smashing that bookmark button throughout the whole book. It seemed like he kept saying things it sharing a circumstance that I'd experienced. I'd yell "That's exactly it!" to the recording of Andrew as he narrated some thought or feeling I have on have on a regular basis.
Highly recommended if you'd like a good lesson on being human. On the other hand, I could see Andrews musings frustrating someone who never doubts their own ability to be the first one picked for dodgeball.

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A Modern Classic

Reviewed: 07-27-24

Highly enjoyable. Some bits dragged on longer than I liked, while others rushed past. Perhaps, an artistic expression of time passing through the eyes of an immortal, but I think some parts of the book could have been trimmed. The best parts were rich with character and slowed down to bask in it.
Narration was excellent, but character voices were often similar.
Ultimately, I'd describe Circe as the tale of an unappreciated daughter of a titan, who found life and all it's facets, fascinating. When most gods saw humans as a waste of their time, or a means to glorify themselves, Circe admires the frailty of their mortality. She favors the scars and imperfections of human skin over the flawless, shimmering, perfect beauty of the gods that she sees is merely a disguise for their cruel and rotten hearts. She is exiled by the gods and finds she prefers living a simple life, gardening in the soil and earth.
Circe reflects the innocence and wonder we see in children. The beauty of the world is simplicity, if only you can slow down enough to see it.

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A bit of a disappointment when you know from the start what they reveal at the end

Reviewed: 12-29-23

Some changes in this season that I don't like. Characters were all well represented and acted. At times, some voices were hard to make out, especially if not listening with headphones without distraction. The Queen was especially hard to understand. At least the credits weren't 30 mins; that's a change I do like. While I enjoy some of the environment sounds, others are over the top, unnecessary, or unidentifiable, adding nothing to the story. Listening to a fight scene, or a vampire bite, or a make out session doesn't do a whole lot when it's unclear who's hitting, stabbing, biting, or snogging, etc. Some voices are drowned out by the environment, or too distant to be heard (introduction of Humble John).
Overall, the story was okay and I enjoyed the characters and suspense. My disappointment is that it all built up to the prophecy that we already knew from the start. Reiterating the prophecy at the end like it was a new idea. Yes, the moment was revealing the prophecy to a character who hasn't heard it before, but the listener already knew. So not a good ending. It basically ends exactly where the first season did. Sure, a few big events have taken place, but we're still waiting for some of them to resolve.
While the first season was a fantastic discovery, this second season falls a bit flat.

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Important message to get across

Reviewed: 02-01-23

You could make a drinking game or of how many times he says "the kill chain."
Jokes aside, this is an important message to get across. At times, it seems like the author is riding late Senator McCain's coat tails, claiming he would have said this or expressing "this is important because Sen McCain said so" or using memories of Sen McCain to evoke an emotional response, etc.
The truth is that this is an important topic. If we can't come together and fix our issues today, we will fall apart tomorrow.

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Outstanding narration, decent story

Reviewed: 04-29-21

I mostly love Wally Roux!
First, William Jackson Harper is outstanding (because of course he is!). When I started this up and realized it was narrated by Chidi (from The Good Place), I had to listen. He is the perfect narrator for this story.
The story basically boils down to an adopted-at-birth boy genius, who is smart enough to find a way to hack space-time to discover if the grass is really greener on the other side. He didn't really start out with that goal, but he also wasn't the only Wally messing with the space-time continuum (you know, because infinite many Wallys co-existing in infinite many realities or something like that).
Anyway, aside from some coarse language, I absolutely loved this production. I didn't think the language was necessary except for maybe in one scene. The story was not perfect, but entertaining, and William Jackson Harper nailed the performance and narration.

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I really wish I didn't hate this book

Reviewed: 11-17-20

This is a difficult review to write and I simply don't want to try to be thorough because it would take too much effort to type on my phone. So hopefully I'll update this in a computer eventually, but for now, my feelings, in short.

First, let's start out with where this book earned stars. Thank you Jennifer Hale for an outstanding narration. 5 stars for narration. As much as I simply didn't care about most of the story, her narration brought this book to life for me and was the only enjoyable aspect of this experience. Even as much as I disliked the book, after finishing, a part of me wants to go back and listen again. Mostly because of the phenomenal narration. Only partially because I feel like I missed the point... 32.5 hours, and I'm still not sure why this story exists in it's current form.

I've really tried to like Christopher Paolini's books over the years, but this suffers from the same issues the later Inheritance Cycle books suffered from--too much world building and losing track of the story. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is too long, and while it's packed with adrenaline-driven moments that keep you looking to find out what happens next, it's the empty gaps between those moments that needed to be filled with substance, but weren't.

What's sad, is that I enjoyed the characters, and I liked some of the ideas in the story. There were some truly epic moments. This could have easily been something I could have enjoyed had it been fleshed out with story rather than flashed out with action. Paolini needs to do what he did with The Fork, the Witch and the Worm, and focus on telling a story on short.

In the beginning of this book, so many characters are built up and then abandoned, and I just didn't care. If you want to tell me about those characters, then make book 1 about those characters and the survey of Adrasteia, the discovery of the xeno and the encounter with the Jellies, and end with the rescuing of the escape pods. Take the time to tell me something meaningful or don't bother eating my time.
Book 2 should have been about the Wallfish and ended with Bughunt.
Book 3 should have been Ganymede up to the ending that you so wanted to get to, a woman sleeping in a pod, adrift in a sea of stars.

Heck, you could have published all 3 books at once in separate bindings and a boxed set and I would have loved it, had they been developed as three complete and separate stories. But as they are, there isn't one complete story in the bunch, and I can't believe they let you publish this.

An alternate idea I had was to release an "abridged" version of the book as the main story and then have an "Author's Cut" release with all the extra nonsense for the truly diehard Paolini fans who blindly follow with 5 star reviews without thinking to judge what they're reading. I still think fleshing out three stories into separate books would have been the better option. Perhaps we did get the edited down and shortened "abridged" version of this story, and that's why it suffers.
Not that he'll ever read this review, but I hope Paolini will go back to the start of this and rewrite this book into separate smaller books with complete stories, recreating a TSiaSoS author's cut series rather than a single book.

There are so many aspects about this book that I can't help but blankly ask "why?" followed by reasoning that ends with "I don't care."
Breaking this book into sections and chapters and parts the way you did made no sense at all. Why? Just to do something new and be science fiction-y? I don't care.
Why the language? To break out of teenage fantasy author mold? The swearing in this book reminds me of playing baseball with kids down the street when I was young. I used every curse word just trying to fit in with the other kids, but they were empty words that meant nothing. A well placed curse can be an effective expression of emotion or shock, but when they become casual language, it's just lazy and I begin to not care about words you use. So why?
Why write about how Kira saved memories in her implants if the implants are immediately going away? This makes her loss of those drunken memories less relatable and thus, I don't care.
Why introduce the marines Kira rescued from escape pods if the only one that matters to the story ends up left behind? All others are just going to be put to sleep and handed off without ever waking. It would have been better if they were the marines stationed aboard the Wallfish later on, but as it was written, it's just more senseless detail that I don't care about. By the time the next batch of marines are introduced, I don't care to even remember their names because I've been conditioned that they just don't matter.
Why is it clear from the start that Kira and the Xeno are going to be overpowered and the only way the conflict is ended, and yet her development is like a software update progress bar--2 seconds to hit 90%, and then it takes 2 hours to finish the last 10 percent (or perhaps the opposite in Kira's case, 28 hours to reach 10%, and then 2 seconds to finish the other 90%). Everything is her fault, she's the only one that can solve any of it, and I just don't care. The whole book we're waiting for the abilities we know she has but she doesn't discover until the final chapter.
How is it that the nightmares are everywhere, destroying everything at once, and yet all the people we care about or need to contact miraculously survive?
Why does the Xeno get so many names?
Why did the Jellies capture a frozen pig when they boarded the ship?
Why is the Jelly "boss" bigger than a space ship and yet can somehow be fought one-on-one, fist to tentacle? While I loved the epic feel to the final battle(s), they just weren't believable because it seemed like Paolini forgot the scale of his own creations, and I ended up not caring about what was happening. Why? Well because we know Kira's invincible and she has other messes to clean up.

And here's the ultimate problem. As an author, Christopher Paolini never gave me a reason to care about his characters or their story.

I love the idea, and I love the characters, but I hate Paolini's delivery, and I hate that I hate it.

Thank you Jennifer Hale for making this trainwreck a bearable experience for us meatbags.

I really wish I didn't hate this book. I'm sorry.

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It's a sinking ship. Don't say I didn't warn you

Reviewed: 04-06-20

Wow! I guess I have never read this, or I chose to block it out of my memory if I did. It had such a great start, but it was all downhill from there. Or perhaps, in a more fitting, seafaring tone: A beautiful ship that began taking on water as soon as it left the shore?

Reading Moby Dick for the story is akin to having your entire car dismantled by an auto shop when all you asked for was an oil change. Melville should have written two books: the first being "Moby Dick" and a second entitled "Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Whaling."

The start of the book was fantastic buildup for the tale until the Pequod set sail, and then the story just died. The story is constantly interrupted by chapters explaining the history of whaling or the parts of the ship, or methods of doing this or that. Half the book was a guide for how to be a whaler. There was one chapter (a particularly long chapter) that even went into detail defining every type of known whale which was terribly inaccurate (although probably the only info available in the 1850's). It felt like the pace of the book went with maybe one or two chapters on the story or character interactions, and then three to five chapters covering "oh, I should mention how this part of the ship functions ..." or "let's discus the body parts of the whale so you understand what I'm talking about when I mention this in the next chapter..." or "here's some history on such and such." Some of the interruptions are informative and helpful, but others just drag on and on about some topic I didn't care about (two chapters discussing the significance of the color white for all things peaceful and pure in nature except for the the extremely deadly white animals). Describing the history of paintings and artwork depicting whales, etc.

When I was 33% of the way through the book, I posted the following update on GoodReads: "Melville goes off on so many metaphoric tangents, it's easy to get lost/bored. Reminds me of what a friend pointed out about a mewithoutYou song called 'The Dryness and the Rain.' The lyrics describe the destruction of a storm, and then reach the point that "You were not that strong wind or that mighty sound," and rather than continuing on with his point, he goes back to the metaphor and the aftermath of the storm." And if I was bored at 33%, just imagine how rough it was to get through the rest of the book.

So I understand why this is a classic. It truly is an amazing literary work, but I really just wanted to listen to the story of it. I didn't want (or expect) everything else that went with it. And then, after all that build-up, and finally making it to the end... ugh... It's like telling a child not to climb on something because they're going to fall, and then they climb on it and fall anyway and you're just left there shrugging saying "I told you so." Foreshadowing throughout the whole book said "Don't hunt the white whale, it'll be the death of you."
The one redeeming factor of this Audible version was the narration. Anthony Heald did an outstanding job! If not for his narration, I wouldn't have made it through the book. I honestly could have believed that he was Ishmael retelling the tale from his own journals. He created unique voices for all the characters, and really brought everything to life.
I just wish I had picked up an abridged version that cut out all the parts that didn't add anything to the story.

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But the physical book.

Reviewed: 02-12-20

I initially borrowed this from the library, but I had only read about a third of it before I had to return it. I eventually bought the Audible and listened until about two thirds of the way through before I took a break and listened to Manhunt: The Twelve Day Chase For Abraham's Killer. Then I returned and finished Lincoln On Leadership.
I really love this book, but the audio version is difficult to listen to. I definitely recommend the print version unless you're the type who can listen to a book intended to be studied. For an example of how this book does not translate well to audiobook: Every chapter begins with a quote and ends with a review of quotes in the form of "Lincoln's Principles," but with the audiobook, these run together, because the quote at the start of the chapter is read before the chapter number and title.
There are many principles that Lincoln held to that I wish we saw more of today. It was funny to hear that in the 1860s President Lincoln preferred to be silent in public due to the media scrutinizing and misinterpreting every little thing that was said.
It was a little bit scary to see so many parallels from issues in Lincoln's time to modern issues. Truly an incredible President.
And breaking from this to read Manhunt was heartbreaking because Manhunt begins by recounting the day of Lincoln's assassination. Although sad, I highly recommend that book as well.
I think I'd really have to read the physical book to get the most out of Lincoln On Leadership and give it a worthwhile review. There are so many bits that have slipped past me as I was listening while simultaneously doing other things. Definitely a book for the shelf, and worthy of highlighting from beginning to end.

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History woven together with threads of fiction.

Reviewed: 02-07-20

The story was incredible! A fantastic fiction woven between historical testimony and facts. It was difficult and sad to listen to what happened to President Lincoln, but incredible as well. Very interesting to see so much of this tale from the perspective of John Wilkes Booth or from the testimony of people around him (especially when I'm listening to this while I'm also reading Lincoln On Leadership). It was occasionally hard to follow as it would jump from following JWB to mention another character for one or two sentences and then jump again to some other event, and it seemed Swanson could have been better focused, but perhaps he was trying to follow timestamps from certain events that were all happening simultaneously.
There were also numerous times in the audio where I would missunderstand or miss a transition and I found myself jumping back 30 seconds quite often. Later in the book, when going over the arrests and convictions and the detectives and soldiers fighting for reward money, it was difficult to remember who was who, so it would have been nice to either have a brief reminder written in, or have the actual book to be able to look back and check for myself why the characters were.
The big thing that frustrated me about the audio version was that they simply divided the book into approximately hour-long segments and had a terrible stock TV-thriller-documentary-style suspenseful audio clip that blared into random parts of the story. Had they taken some time to properly separate the book at logical points in the story, it would have been much better, and the suspenseful music clip probably wouldn't have been so offensive and distracting.
Other than that the narration was very well performed.
Overall highly recommended, but be prepared for some emotional moments.

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We have loved this! A must-listen for young kids

Reviewed: 04-14-19

I downloaded this a while back as my free Audible Original for the month, but I didn't listen to it right away. About a month ago, I found it and started playing it for the kids while driving to and from school. They are six and two years old and love it and now ask for it by name. I've even enjoyed the stories and songs, so it's not just for kids. I had never heard of Laurie Berkner before, but I've been sharing her name now, and I'm not realizing she's been doing this for a while, but a lot of her songs can be found on her site or on YouTube.
I even went looking for the recipes which I was delighted to find do exist as an accompanying PDF on Laurie's website https://laurieberkner.com/audible-lbssk

The kids love chanting "shredded cheddar" and a lot of the songs are amazing and fun. I also love that the stories each have a simple lesson, like "things may not go the way you planned, but that doesn't mean it's bad" or "sometimes you have to do something slowly before you can do it as fast as you'd like". We also have two-year-olds running around the house spelling boots b-o-o-t-s, so they get some basic and repetitive spelling lessons out of this as well.

I have two reasons I might mark this down to 4 stars instead of 5, but that's from the perspective of an adult who is over-analyzing. I've decided to mark the review at 5 Stars because these complaints are a bit nit-picky and the project overall is truly wonderful for kids.
For the stories, it seems out of order, as though I'm listening to a podcast backwards from most current to the oldest. I suppose the genius of the setup is that they don't need to be in chronological order, because she's telling stories tied to whatever she's cooking or whatever events are going on at that time (birthday, bedtime, etc). Even so, some of the stories or comments are just out of place, for example, in Chapter 6 T-Pig requests a story about the ferret cousins, then in Chapter 9 he comments "Oh, the funny ferrets" as if he wasn't very familiar with them. There were also times in later chapters when Laurie is more descriptive, such as describing the colors of the individual ferrets, where in earlier chapters her stories go on as if we already know what they look like. The same can be said of describing Oscar's flower house. Again, the stories are just short stories, that could go in any order and children aren't going to notice, but it just seems to me there should have been a bit more thought put into the order they chose. One last issue is that some of the songs either didn't add anything to the story or some were even toeing the line at being boring and not memorable enough for kids to sing along with. But with that said, the majority of the songs are catchy and an absolute blast to sing along with. I find myself singing them all day long at work.

There are a couple reasons that I marked 4 stars for the performance, but the big BIG issue was volume, which is more production than performance. Most of the time, stories are quiet and songs are loud and riding the volume controls is very annoying. Even opening up the raw audio and seeing the visualization in Audible, the volume is all over the place and not consistent at all. Another thing that bugs me is the "Come on in" song at the start of each chapter. It is almost painful on the ears. I'm not sure if they used autotune, but it sounds like it as she's repeating "come on in", and although it's a catchy song, it's not very pleasant to listen to, much like the movie version of "Let It Go" from Frozen.
The great thing about the performance is Laurie's voices for each of the different characters.

Overall, I highly recommend this for any parents of young children.

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3 people found this helpful