Dea

Having trouble finishing it

Reviewed: 05-16-21

I love the author's YouTube channel, she seems knowledgeable and creative so I wanted to see how this would translate in her own book. The narration was quite nice, but the story isn't keeping my attention. There's a LOT of description, and I find it distracting when I'm trying to get an idea of the world and the storyline. Like, there will be some dialogue indicating something is about to happen in the story or flesh out the world- but it's immediately interrupted by extremely detailed character descriptions and extremely detailed descriptions of the setting.

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engaging all the way through

Reviewed: 03-24-21

Loved the characters and how the story slowly unfolded. Didn't know what was coming next. Really beautiful and thoughtful.

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Amazing

Reviewed: 06-28-20

The story is completely immersive, even if the alien world it takes place in is difficult to comprehend. The story is a unique take on the sci fi genre- the bizarre relationships between consent, autonomy, and colonization. This book gave me a lot to think about.

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1 person found this helpful

Yikes, how is this allowed?

Reviewed: 04-16-20

The subject of this book is told exclusively through the lense of white colonizers, it's just fact after fact without presenting any questions or room to think for yourself. The story of these people starts post colonization, we get no sense of their culture, how they interacted with other tribes, and how they got to this point of aggression and brutality towards settlers. That seems to be because the author does not believe these people have culture or any motivation that lead to their ability to build essentially this powerful army. It's hardly interesting to see the power of the empire reduced to unfeeling villains with zero perspective or insight from the subject your book is about! This book unflinchingly refers to it's subjects using racist language and the author repeatedly makes his own moral stance clear making this book the furthest thing from an "unbiast account" of what occured in this period of history.

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2 people found this helpful

How can you make this premise boring?

Reviewed: 04-16-20

The narrator has a distinct style some describe as "uninterested". I thought this might be a choice, to deliver some of the wacky ideas in this story in a Bill Murry-esque dead-pan tone. But rather than add to the humor of the story, I felt like I had to strain to listen. Was this part supposed to be funny? Was that part supposed to be sexy? Every line had a distanced, monotonous delivery.

I've listened through narrator's I didn't care for before when the story has engaged me enough. But there's nothing I found interesting about this main character or this world that made me want to follow his journey. I get that maybe we are not supposed to like him or maybe he's morally ambiguous, but his introduction is so soulless that book probably could have told the story without him at all!

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1 person found this helpful

Dark humored, but not mean spirited

Reviewed: 03-06-20

This was fun to listen to, the narrator did a wonderful job giving each character a unique voice. The story itself is very empowering, but also fun. The main women are the kinds of people I would want to be friends with and the little town feels like I place I've been to before. I haven't watched the show, but I can't imagine it's better than this book.

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Wonderful

Reviewed: 09-12-19

I loved that Jaycee Dugard narrated her story. This memoir is authentic, relatable, and horrifying. It satiated my curiosity about the life of a kidnapping survivor and I learned a lot about the process rehabilitating after such a trauma. I could also relate to the confusion and unorthodox coping mechanisms associated with living in a toxic environment and appreciate reading this experience.

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Dissapointing

Reviewed: 08-02-19

This books strength lies in making the ordinary everyday appealing by putting us in the perspective of someone who's living everyday like it's her first- and last. The book was a slow burn, which I loved, as pieces started to come together in a logical conclusion. But then ... the ending was safe, reminded me of a Lifetime mo is ending. The main character made a commentary on Domestic Violence that, in a way, contradicted itself and made the messaging problematic. If the novel wasn't so focused on a happy conclusion, it could have been quite poignant but maybe darker than the author seems to have intended. The ending ended up feeling predictable and cliché which made the experience disappointing. I quite enjoyed the narration, though. I think it enhanced the material.

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confused but seduced

Reviewed: 06-19-19

Narration is everything. The story is a bit absurd, lots of coincidences and more sex and violence than the last book. I never rooted for Joe, he's a sexy hypocrite at best. The characters he kills or simply disrespects are totally insufferable through his eyes- he's the one with the problem. He's clingy, insecure, has no work ethic, holds people up to impossible standards and, oh yeah, he KILLS PEOPLE who get in the way of his delusional sense of love. But the character can also be funny and insightful and the narration makes this book terribly listenable. If Santino could narrate everything I ever have to read from now on, it would truly make life with living. I don't agree that Joe is relatable, I never rooted for him at any point in this book and I am a little disturbed by other reviews that seem to imply the characters actions were somehow justified- that's not how I interpreted the story at all but that's my perogative. This a sequel to a book that didn't need a sequel, but it was enjoyable enough on it's own mostly due to the narration.

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2 people found this helpful

Saw the mini-series first

Reviewed: 05-04-19

The story is great, I'm not sure it translates well to narration. Firstly, I saw the mini series first and was put off when I heard the narrator wasn't using an accent. it was also difficult for me to follow characters because the narrator used the same gentle voice fir all of them. Chapters would also be divided by these documents like letters and newspaper articles and I struggled to understand the shift in perspective and language at first. Could just be a processing issue on my part. I thought the story was great, there were some unanswered questions (not plot holes!) that I don't mind, but I know a lot of people have hang ups about that. I think the writers note at the end tied the story together nicely.

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69 people found this helpful