frenchfry

A joy to listen to!

Reviewed: 05-06-24

I absolutely loved this! Initially, based on the book description, I worried I might find the plot too "done before", since it incorporates some common elements of romantic comedies. But I needn't have worried. It's an incredibly charming story with lovable, relatable main characters. Funny and painful, the book made me cackle out loud at times and tear up at others. Very well-written with good prose, pacing, and overall storytelling. The narration was perfection, too. The narrator didn't just read it; she performed it. The nuanced and convincing emotions in her voice, as well as doing subtly different voices for each character that helped distinguish who was talking, all brought the story and characters to life. I will definitely be looking for more from both the author Emily Henry and the narrator Julia Whelan.

My very minor nitpicks would be: 1) a slight overuse of the word "rasp"; 2) I thought the scene in which a main character opens up about his past could have used a little more oomph, whether from added substance, context, or foreshadowing; and 3) I would have liked to seen the eventual outcome/aftermath of Daphne's pent-up, had-it-coming confrontation with a certain person.

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3 people found this helpful

Frustrating ending. Poor pacing.

Reviewed: 04-12-24

Horrid people got away with doing horrid things -- and, aggravatingly, the book ultimately provides no satisfying resolution or closure.
Poor pacing. The first 90% of the book moves slowly with a lot of depth, but the final 10% reveals the truths quickly without exploring the aftermath. The book would have been a far better one, had the first 90% been cut down, and the final 10% been expanded.
Both of the twists are revealed so late in the game that neither gets sufficient exploration. There are 2 wrongdoers, and both of them got away with their crimes. The victims who died as a result of those crimes, never get any justice or closure. That alone is frustrating, but tolerable. What I find unforgivable is that the author failed to give readers a satisfying resolution - she failed to give any redemptive justice or closure to the innocent characters who DID survive the wrongdoers' misdeeds... 1 in particular, who ends up remaining an entirely tragic character. It's a travesty to her characters, and to her readers, that the author provided such a weak, depressingly bare ending after such a long, saga-like buildup. I enjoyed the author's prose, the book-within-a-book device, and Claire Foy's reading. But all those were trumped by the weak ending and lack of closure. And that's what I'll remember about this book. Do NOT recommend.

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Blech. Do not recommend.

Reviewed: 03-21-24

I enjoyed the 1st book well enough... but really disliked the 2nd book. Millie was very annoying and unlikable, and hard to root for. She displayed an unrealistic lack of wisdom and street smarts that you would think she'd have learned from her prior experiences. She consistently treated her boyfriend with such selfishness and total dishonesty, then acted so betrayed and wronged when he reacted perfectly reasonably when the jig was finally up. I wouldn't have minded so much had the author given the boyfriend some redemption/closure at the end, but it never came.

The narrator is a good reader for the most part, but I just don't think her voice fits Millie well - I had felt the same when she read Book 1. I kept hearing a 45-55 year old woman, not a 25-35 year old woman. And not a convincing Brooklyn accent. I cringed every time she pronounced Mazda as "MAZZ-duh", Hyundai as "high-UN-dye", and Long Island as "Long (pause) Island" instead of "Lawngisland".

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1 person found this helpful

Very entertaining

Reviewed: 01-26-24

Great story, pretty well written, and very well read. The plot was riveting, and the narrator did a fantastic job bringing the characters to life. The writer's pacing could have been a bit better -- the late-middle section felt a bit too dragged out before revealing what really happened... whereas the end felt a bit too hastily wrapped up. But overall, very much enjoyed this listen.

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Good story, distracting accents

Reviewed: 01-24-24

I enjoyed this book, more than the other 2 Anni Taylor books I've listened to (Stranger In the Woods, and The Game You Played). The author is a pretty good storyteller, and her story was creative and captivated my interest -- although occasionally I did find it to drag a bit. The characters were brought to life pretty nicely and made you care about them. I enjoyed the twist, although it did seem to come a little *too* completely out of nowhere, particularly one aspect of the parents' history which I won't spoil. I would have liked it if a few small crumbs of background were woven into the earlier part of the book, to make the eventual twist/reveal more believable and provide more of an "ah hah" sensation of things clicking into place.

The American vs Australian accents and language were distracting, not just due to the narrator, but as written by the author as well. The American main character would use phrases like "hired car" (instead of rental car) which didn't make her a very convincing American. The author wrote the main character's mother as having a Southern accent, but she had moved at too young an age from North Carolina to Pennsylvania, for that to make sense. On the narrator's part, her American accent frequently slipped, sometimes significantly, and (for example) it was odd to hear an American character pronounce pasta as "PASS-tuh". And I cringed when the main character, a Pennsylvania native, pronounced the nearby Poconos (mountain range) as "puh-KOH-nose". The Southern US accents for the main characters' parents, as performed by the narrator, were much too heavy. It also did not make sense at all for the father, seemingly a lifelong Pennsylvanian, to speak with a Southern US accent - and since the author didn't describe him as having one, I believe that was the narrator's mistake. Venting aside, I enjoyed listening to the book!

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I regret buying this.

Reviewed: 01-10-24

I'm a fan of Stephen King and (somewhat) a fan of James Franco, so I thought this would be a guaranteed hit for me. Unfortunately, the story itself is not Stephen King's most interesting work, in my humble opinion. Still, it could have been an enjoyable listen if read by the right person. But James Franco's dull, flat reading totally killed it for me. Honestly, he sounded like he was a high school kid who had been asked to read out loud in English class... or as if he'd been hired by one of those mindfulness apps to read a "sleep story" meant to help people drift off. He remained mostly monotone throughout. There was extremely little variation across different characters' voices. Every now and then he would randomly slip in a half-hearted attempt at an accent that never seemed to show up again. For the most part, it felt like emotions were completely absent from his voice, leading to a very lifeless feeling throughout the entire reading. Occasionally he would throw in a little emotional inflection, but it often felt unmatched with the context of the moment, incongruous with the emotion I would have expected the character to feel. I often felt my attention slipping away out of boredom. I finally called it quits at Chapter 15. I will be avoiding audiobooks read by James Franco in the future. Do not recommend.

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Giving up on this series.

Reviewed: 12-14-23

This (book 7) will be the last of this series for me. I enjoyed the earlier books to an extent, but book 7 really lost me. Book 7 started out engaging, but its plot developed into a convoluted, slow mover filled with fluff dialogue, before suddenly wrapping up neatly at the very end. The ending didn't feel satisfying in the way the earlier books' endings did. I haven't been able to get on board with Danielle's and Walt's romance, which seems to be the ultimate destination. These 2 characters just don't have any chemistry in my opinion, especially with the narrator's voicing of Walt as a stodgy old man. He sounds more like Danielle's dad or grandpa than a potential lover.

I've also grown weary of the author and narrator. I've also grown more and more irritated by the author's lack of variation in sentence structure and vocabulary. Characters seem limited to expressing their emotions by wrinkling their noses, wiggling their eyebrows, frowning, and developing headaches. When characters speak, they "urged", "insisted", or "explained". I couldn't help noticing when the author wrote that 2 characters (Peter Morris and Logan Mitchum) "riled at each other," instead of saying they "railed" at each other, or that they were "riled up". As for the narration, Romy Nordlinger has a very noticeably unique voice (kind of like a Fran Dresher type), one that I don't personally enjoy. In my opinion, her voice stands out so much that it doesn't fade well into the background enough for the story and characters shine through. She also narrates with some quirks, like having multiple different characters say "exactly" like "ehhhhgZACKlee!"

I also find it frustrating how hopelessly inept the entire police department continues to be... I wish the author would throw them a bone with an occasional win to keep things more interesting. On a related note, I'm unsure whether it's the author or narrator who is responsible for this, but the cop character Joe Morelli has an occasional New York Italian-American accent. Given this story is set in Oregon, and we get no back story about Joe having grown up elsewhere, that accent really doesn't make any sense and ends up seeming like the author based Joe on the stereotypical idea of a New York Italian-American cop from a TV show.

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Hallmark movie. "4 proud generations of Whites"?!

Reviewed: 12-13-23

Very much a Hallmark movie plot. I was initially excited for this, but I only made it 3 hours before giving up. The main issue for me was that I could see the plot was going to focus heavily on romance between 2 characters (who didn't seem to have much chemistry), whereas I was looking for more of a mystery book. I liked the narrator's voice, but I found her tone too flat and dull for this particular story and heroine. I also could not get past her awful attempt at a Boston accent for 1 of the main characters. Like some other listeners, I found off-putting the 26-year-old heroine's use of the cutesy word "tummy" as written by the author; it was even more jarring in contrast to her otherwise mature style of speech, especially as read by a narrator with a serious-sounding adult voice. The final straw for me was when the heroine mused earnestly about wanting to protect the life's work of "4 proud generations of Whites". I'm sure the author didn't even notice the way that reads/sounds in this day and age, but I actually laughed out loud and couldn't take the book seriously after that.

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