romance reader

2 bad narrators, interesting but disjointed story

Reviewed: 08-28-13

This is a difficult book to review. I love Khaled Hosseini's writing. The Kite Runner tugged at my heartstrings and made me cry. I liked his second novel, too. This third one is more similar to his second one (but even more dramatic; overly dramatic, I thought) in that it brings the threads of different characters together - but they are even more characters, even more diverse, and the switching between them (and across time) is very frequent and sometimes annoying. You start to care about a certain character, then you're switched to another time and place and you need to adjust. What made it all more dramatic (and it was already quite dramatic with the storyline) was the switching of narrators. In the end, the book as a whole was too dramatic to touch me in the same way The Kite Runner had.

Let me talk about the narrators. Disclaimer: English is not my native tongue, and I am quite tolerant of various forms of accented English. I have no problem listening to an entire audiobook narrated in an Indian accent, for example. But this book's narration was annoying. There is one pleasant narrator with a slight accent, whom I take to be Khaled Hosseini. The other two were very annoying to listen to. I initially thought they were Afghan but later started to think they were chosen because they are Afghan who also spoke Greek/French and English. But their English is really not good enough, in my opinion, for them to narrate an audiobook. I'm sorry. But it really detracted from my enjoyment of the book.

It's possible the narration biased me against the book - but that was a risk the publishers took, and I think they need to deal with the consequences

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overly dramatic, but I still enjoyed it

Reviewed: 06-14-13

This was a difficult book to review. So I will keep it short and informative:
1. This is not the last book of the series. I thought this would annoy me, but I still enjoyed reading it
2. It is overly dramatic and gets overly complicated and unrealistic. But then again, it was never realistic (Gideon's age, their addiction to each other, their overly complicated pasts)
3. Strangely enough, I am getting sick of the sex and a little bit sick of the complications of the characters' lives, but I STILL wanted to read on, and I still want to read the rest of the series.

Basically: it is like one of those addictive soap operas. You know it's unrealistic and in some ways silly, but the characters draw you in, and it is well-written enough that you are addicted to it.

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2 people found this helpful

not enough focus on the main romance

Reviewed: 04-10-13

This book is fine if you don't mind the following:
1. A complicated storyline
2. A further complication of French names that are slightly similar (twins called Lynette and Lysette who get confused for each other and you as a listener get confused even though you never see them! also two important male characters De Garnier and De Jardin... these sound slightly similar to me)
3. A narrator who puts an inflection on every single sentence she says. Argh
4. Several romances going on at the same time, none of them fully developed in a convincing way.

I love Sylvia Day, but sometimes she does not develop the romance in a satisfying manner, and this was one of those cases where there was too much else going on in the story, and too many different romances... I would have loved to see what happened to both twin sisters in more detail, rather than hear all about the other elements of the plot in such detail.

I read all sorts of novels, not just romances, and it is my belief that very few romance authors do a good job of the "side story". Sylvia Day, Nora Roberts and Lisa Kleypas all SOMETIMES succeed - but this book was not an example of that.

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6 people found this helpful

not bad, but not her best

Reviewed: 02-09-13

OK, here's the thing about this trilogy. the books are not horrible, but Nora Roberts spends soooo much time focusing on details of what ppl are doing (esp at the Inn itself) and so less time developing the romance itself. The writing is still good, but the satisfaction from the romance not as good. I also thought book one was better (i fell asleep a few times with this one)

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silly story, bad narrator

Reviewed: 02-09-13

Would you try another book from Jennifer Probst and/or Coleen Marlo?

no way

Would you ever listen to anything by Jennifer Probst again?

nope, too silly, poorly developed story

How could the performance have been better?

if the narrator didn't have a voice like she was recovering from a cold

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

boredom

Any additional comments?

I don't want to be mean about the narrator, but her voice isa bit nasal and out of breath or something? it doesn't suit this genre. I heard her in "calling invisible women" and her vioce suited the humor there... but made this book here even worse than it was

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1 person found this helpful

Had potential, but ultimatly disappointing

Reviewed: 01-12-13

i had huge expectations for this book... But i was disappointed. I do not regret reading it, because it gave some insight into what it would be like to be a caregiver for a quadriplegic person BUT it gave v little insight into the feelings and thoughts of the person with quadriplegia.

Strangely, even though the book is told mainly from Lou's viewpoint, at some of the most emotional moments, the author turns to a third person's viewpoint. Disappointingly, we get very little of Will's viewpoint.

So while the book was engrossing and interesting and slightly educational, it fell short on the emotions, and failed to surprise me overall. There were also lots of details of secondary character's lives that could have been built into the story more engagingly, but in the end fell flat.

So i do not regret reading it, and it has made me want to read more stories involving main characters with disabilities, but i did not think it did a great job of it, was hoping for more.

The main narration was very good, though.

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24 people found this helpful

Erotica with psychology. Way beyond FSOG

Reviewed: 12-25-12

I can see the comparisons to FSOG (which i hated, because of the v poor writing and v unlikeable characters plus the BDSM was disturbing but then the scenes unsatisfying) , but i can see if people liked FSOG for the frequent scenes involving a young, dominant, male billionaire, they would like this.


But this book was written by an adult and the characters, though a bit extreme, have generally adult behavior (if admittedly psycho) and i really liked the author's way of weaving psychology and therapy into the story, which is refreshing, rather than expecting such psycho behavior to be accepted as totally normal!

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1 person found this helpful

Review of the book, not thr codes themselves

Reviewed: 09-01-12

Would you listen to The Healing Code again? Why?

Yes because it has made me think a lot... However, this book needs visuals to show the reader how to preform the healing code! Without them, the book is still itneresting and worth reading, but it is hard to implement the suggested exercises!

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Add a pdf or video file with how-to-perform the healing code

Which character ??? as performed by Stephen Bowlby ??? was your favorite?

N/a

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not great, not terrible

Reviewed: 04-25-12

Would you try another book from Nora Roberts and/or Julia Whelan?

yes because every now and then, Nora Roberts produces an excellent one - but this was not one of them, in my view

If you???ve listened to books by Nora Roberts before, how does this one compare?

This is one of Nora's average books, not great, not terrible.
it is similar to her other books in that she exaggerates how terrible one parent is (the heroine's mom) and how wonderful the other family is (the hero's parents and sisters).
It has an interesting plot outside of the romance itself, but it feels incomplete somehow.
The first few chapters are very well written (about the heroine in her teens) but the hero does not appear until much later and then their relationship develops quite fast. I actually dozed off in the middle of their first bedroom scene!!

This is better than some of her latest work (The Search, the last 3 books in the Bride Quartet) but nowhere near her very best work (e.g. The Chesapeake Bay saga, Montana Sky, the Stanislaski brothers and sisters)

Have you listened to any of Julia Whelan???s other performances before? How does this one compare?

first time I listen to her. She is quite good - though her portrayal of Abigail made her sound a little bit cold/boring, I think it made sense for her character

Do you think The Witness needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

no...

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50 people found this helpful

good material, not so good sound quality

Reviewed: 04-02-12

What made the experience of listening to Great Minds of Medicine the most enjoyable?

it was great to hear first-person accounts of such important medical advances

Who was your favorite character and why?

n/a - not a novel

How could the performance have been better?

the sound quality of the interviews was not so good
some of the interviewer questions made her seem ill-informed (eg confusing psychology w psychiatry in the name of an association!!!)
the repeated

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

no but it made me google some topics for more info

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1 person found this helpful