Ellen
- 21
- reviews
- 122
- helpful votes
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- ratings
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Bear
- A Novel
- By: Julia Phillips
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Sam and Elena dream of another life. On the island off the coast of Washington where they were born and raised, they and their mother struggle to survive. Sam works on the ferry that delivers wealthy mainlanders to their vacation homes while Elena bartends at the local golf club, but even together they can’t earn enough to get by, stirring their frustration about the limits that shape their existence.
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Depressing drudgery
- By Catherine on 08-09-24
- Bear
- A Novel
- By: Julia Phillips
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
I couldn’t wait for this to get over
Reviewed: 07-10-24
I really liked Phillips’ Disappearing Earth, but I was very disappointed by this one. It might have made a good short story or even a novella, but in this form, it was just boring. If I could have, I would have returned it. The characters were shallowly drawn and not very likable and I there was too much mundane detail that did not move the story or develop the characters.
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Upright Women Wanted
- By: Sarah Gailey
- Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger
- Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Esther is a stowaway. She's hidden herself away in the Librarian's book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her - a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda. The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.
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Mildly entertaining
- By Ellen on 03-04-20
- Upright Women Wanted
- By: Sarah Gailey
- Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger
Mildly entertaining
Reviewed: 03-04-20
If you can tolerate an excessively perky narrator who puts emphasis on the wrong words.
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5 people found this helpful
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The Long Call
- The Two Rivers Series, Book 1
- By: Ann Cleeves
- Narrated by: Ben Aldridge
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his estranged father’s funeral takes place. On the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family, too. Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: A man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death.
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Guaranteed to cure insomnia
- By puplhunt on 09-08-19
- The Long Call
- The Two Rivers Series, Book 1
- By: Ann Cleeves
- Narrated by: Ben Aldridge
Cleeves should have quit while she was ahead
Reviewed: 09-25-19
I loved the Shetland and Vera mysteries. I liked the characters in this new series and it was interesting to be in a new location, though I think Cleeves should have done more with the setting. The mystery itself was just plain boring. The possible suspects weren't developed well and I had no interest in who did what. It's the first mystery I've ever listened to that I was tempted to turn off just as the "climax" was reached. The reader started out just awful, reading in a low monotone and doing the dialogue too fast. He did settle down and do a better job by a quarter of the way through, but I still had to have my volume turned way up to make out what he was saying. I'd say don't bother with this one.
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Glass Houses
- A Novel
- By: Louise Penny
- Narrated by: Robert Bathurst
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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When a mysterious figure appears in Three Pines one cold November day, Armand Gamache and the rest of the villagers are at first curious. Then wary. Through rain and sleet, the figure stands unmoving, staring ahead. From the moment its shadow falls over the village, Gamache, now Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec, suspects the creature has deep roots and a dark purpose. Yet he does nothing. What can he do? Only watch and wait. And hope his mounting fears are not realized.
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Not my favorite Penny
- By Annie Smart on 09-25-17
- Glass Houses
- A Novel
- By: Louise Penny
- Narrated by: Robert Bathurst
Not happy with level of violence
Reviewed: 06-12-19
I’ve loved theses books, in a large part because they focus on character rather than guns and blood. I hope Penny does not feel she needs to conclude every new story with super hero style fist and gun battles.
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Where the Crawdads Sing
- By: Delia Owens
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand.
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Don't listen to the negative reviews.
- By Kyle on 12-03-19
- Where the Crawdads Sing
- By: Delia Owens
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
Young adult fare
Reviewed: 03-06-19
Completely unrealistic, a fairy tale. Read in an interminably slow caricature of “southern” speech. I thought it would never end and I’m sorry I wasted my time on it.
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44 people found this helpful
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Becoming
- By: Michelle Obama
- Narrated by: Michelle Obama
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms.
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Didn't know what I was getting into
- By Kenneth Woodward on 12-05-18
- Becoming
- By: Michelle Obama
- Narrated by: Michelle Obama
The Best
Reviewed: 02-17-19
Tjhis is my favorite audiobook of all time. MIchelle Obama is a gorgeous writer, a beautiful, moving reader. I wanted to sob throughout the whole thing for all kinds of different reasons: admiration, pain, inspiration, loss. We were so lucky to have this woman and her husband at the forefront of our nation for eight years, and remembering those years and the dignity, integrity, realness of our leadership, gives me hope for our future at a time when it is hard not fall into despair for a nation that has embraced fear and hatred. Thank you Michelle Obama, for sharing so much of yourself with us, and for taking the time to read your own words with such care and feeling.
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The Witch Elm
- A Novel
- By: Tana French
- Narrated by: Paul Nugent
- Length: 22 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Toby is a happy-go-lucky charmer who's dodged a scrape at work and is celebrating with friends when the night takes a turn that will change his life - he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family's ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden - and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed.
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Wow!
- By Beth on 10-11-18
- The Witch Elm
- A Novel
- By: Tana French
- Narrated by: Paul Nugent
TMI
Reviewed: 11-02-18
I have always liked Tana French's books, and I was really looking forward to this onde. I made myself listen to the whole thing, thinking at some point it would redeem itself; it never did. I kept thinking the genealogy angle would bring in another plot line that would prove to be captivating; it never came to anything. The characters were unlikable, and the endless psychologizing therefore held no interest. I really wish I didn't have the compulsion to finish every book I start. This proved a wasted twenty-two long long hours. Maybe at a third the length it would have held some interest. The narrator did his best to put energy into the story, but his reading was too snarky, too Valley-girlish. A bomb all the way around.
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Y is for Yesterday
- By: Sue Grafton
- Narrated by: Judy Kaye
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The darkest and most disturbing case report from the files of Kinsey Millhone, Y begins in 1979, when four teenage boys from an elite private school sexually assault a 14-year-old classmate - and film the attack. Not long after, the tape goes missing, and the suspected thief, a fellow classmate, is murdered. In the investigation that follows, one boy turns state's evidence, and two of his peers are convicted. But the ringleader escapes without a trace.
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Excellent!
- By Kathi on 09-21-17
- Y is for Yesterday
- By: Sue Grafton
- Narrated by: Judy Kaye
Tedious
Reviewed: 12-21-17
I have loved every Kinsey Millhone novel and couldn't wait to get this one, but Grafton should have stopped at X. Way too much detail about disgustingly empty teenagers who use words like "wiley" to describe cops -- right. Even Judy Kaye, who is usually spot on, seemed bored and misread a lot of lines. Between the interminable, unlikely dialogue and the incorrectly inflected sentences, it was impossible to get caught up in the story, which was pretty boring to start with. Makes me sad. I wish the series could have ended on a high note. But then there's still Z . . .
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Serena
- By: Ron Rash
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton arrive in the North Carolina mountains to create a timber empire, vowing to let no one stand in their way, especially those newly rallying around Teddy Roosevelt's nascent environmental movement.
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Subtle Genius
- By David Shear on 08-21-13
- Serena
- By: Ron Rash
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
Couldn't bear to listen
Reviewed: 09-01-16
I couldn't STAND what Phil Gigante does with the characters in this book. The voices he does ,are cartoonish and turn every character into a caricature, already a danger when you are reading about Appalachia. His exaggerated invented dialects, different for each character, and his simpering Southern Belle reading of Serena just ruined any possibility of getting through this novel. I'll have to buy the book. My ones for story and overall rating are just there because I couldn't write the review without putting something. I didn't get to the 3rd chapter.
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Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube
- Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North
- By: Blair Braverman
- Narrated by: Blair Braverman
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Blair Braverman fell in love with the North at an early age: By the time she was 19, she had left her home in California, moved to Norway to learn how to drive sled dogs, and worked as a tour guide on a glacier in Alaska. By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube charts Blair's endeavor to become a "tough girl" - someone who courts danger in an attempt to become fearless.
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Okay Read
- By Ellen on 08-08-16
- Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube
- Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North
- By: Blair Braverman
- Narrated by: Blair Braverman
Okay Read
Reviewed: 08-08-16
This memoir was good for what it was; my problem with it was that it was marketed as an adventure narrative, and it turned out to be more about coming-of-age and sexuality. I wanted more about the dogs and dogsledding and living on the ice and the people of Norway (those parts were great) and less about the men in Blair's life and their sexual tensions.
Blair Braverman read the account herself, and I do enjoy that. She is a somewhat flat reader, but still, I like the story in the writer's own voice.
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13 people found this helpful