JFC

What??

Revisado: 08-13-19

Enjoyed Karen Cleveland’s prior book, her debut, and had looked forward to this one. It started out well and that start, plus the fact that I had liked her prior book kept me slogging along for ~ ten hours. Wasted hours, though - this is the kind of book where the last chapter is an epilogue, where way too much info has to be crammed in at the last minute to try to tie together the plot. Worse yet, the penultimate chapter ended with the heroine saying she finally knew what she had to do and, despite all the verbiage in the epilogue, there wasn’t a word about either what she had decided or whether she ever did it . It was as if the audible version had skipped a chapter or two, but a quick look at the hard copy confirmed that wasn’t the case.

Cleveland clearly can write; she just needs a coherent, interesting plot .

On the plus side, though, Erin Bennett’s narration was great.

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Lots of action, but little plot and no pay-off

Revisado: 05-25-19

A whole book of smoke and mirrors hiding ....nothing much. Big drop-off from Pavone’s other books, especially the great 1st one. But, here’s hoping next one will be much better than this one.

On the plus side, Mozhan Martin’ s narration was terrific.

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Really talented writer spinning his wheels...

Revisado: 07-28-18

Ben Dolnick is a really talented writer. I've read his 3 earlier books, enjoyed them all, and was knocked out by "At The Bottom Of Everything", which was a beautiful story, beautifully told.

So, I came to "The Ghost Notebooks" with high expectations. Once again, the writing was evocative, and there were sentences that stopped me in my tracks. But, for me, at least, the plot never took hold and, at the end, I was left with the impression that Mr. Dolnick was just spinning his wheels here.

Even so, I look forward to his next book and to his continued growth as a writer.

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Really good...until the last fifth of the book

Revisado: 05-15-18

Got to ask - did the author get an order for a sequel after the book was done, and then had to do a rush job to set the story up for the sequel? Because that's sure how it seemed. Smart, determined heroine, plot that build momentum really well and without those logic gaps that befall lesser efforts...until the last fifth of the book when the heroine suddenly starts leaving obvious red flags unexamined for no reason other that what seems to be the author's need to set up the sequel. Too bad - this would have been a home-run as a standalone book.

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Wanted to like this, but...

Revisado: 04-30-18

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

No. Book was derivative of books by Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendall. All writers are probably influenced by other writers but the better ones, like Gillian Flynn with "Gone Girl", build on those influences and make something that is their own. Here, it's the opposite case - "Tangerine" is a lesser book than the best - or, even the second-range - books of Highsmith and Rendall. So, why read this, when you can read so much better?

Would you ever listen to anything by Christine Mangan again?

Hard to say. This was Mangan's first published book; basing everything on a debut is probably unfair.

Have you listened to any of Erin Mallon and Barrie Kreinik ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Not sure I have, but both narrators did everything they could with the story.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No, although I might be interested when it hits Netflix.

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Great Narrator

Revisado: 08-26-15

What made the experience of listening to Among the Ten Thousand Things the most enjoyable?

Hillary Huber's narration really knocked me out; it added so much to this story.

Re the story itself, Julia Pierpont writes beautifully and vividly, and this is an amazing assured debut novel. I was ambivalent about the timeline switch in the 2nd section, though; overall, it struck me as more of a stunt than as anything that deepened the story.

What about Hillary Huber’s performance did you like?

She did a beautiful job differentiating between the key characters. Most narrators vary their voice to distinguish between the characters. She did that to some extent, but she also did something better and, I think, much harder - she subtly varied her delivery. I definitely plan to look for other books that she has narrated.

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Skip it

Revisado: 05-08-11

Really liked the original TALES OF THE CITY books; was excited when I read that Maupin was revisiting the characters. But, after SURE OF YOU and now this book, it's clear that some things are much better left in the past. I remember the original books as bright, open and generous. The new two, though, are gloomy, clastrophobia, dull and not even well written. Was Maupin always this bad at writing believable dialogue? I'm tempted to go back to the orginal books and see but, really, it's probably better just to leave them in the past.

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