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Ellen

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  • 141
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I couldn’t wait for this to get over

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

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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Mildly entertaining

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

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

The Long Call Audiobook By Ann Cleeves cover art

Cleeves should have quit while she was ahead

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

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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Not happy with level of violence

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

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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Young adult fare

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
2 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

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

The Best

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

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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TMI

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
2 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

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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Tedious

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

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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Couldn't bear to listen

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

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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Okay Read

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

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