Sylvia San Diego

The story was quite different than the audible description!

Revisado: 01-28-24

This just goes to show that the people at Audible, who write the title details, should actually at least skim the book! The story actually had almost nothing to do with MI5, Other than one character using it, fraudulently as their fake backstory. Other than that, I found the story quite compelling, though creepy.

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I like this book but there's a problem...

Revisado: 02-28-23

Interesting concept, interesting book. I'm still listening, but I have a major issue. The narrator is good BUT she voices some of the characters in what is, essentially, a whisper. This means that if I want to listen as I drive, I must either keep the volume at full blast in order to catch what I otherwise would miss hearing, or listen at normal volume and just guess at what some important characters are saying. Neither works. This is quite frustrating, because I rely on audible books for long drives. Just to add a personal opinion here, I don't agree that a good narrator has to have a special voice for each character, and I find it distracting to listen to male narrators trying to sound like women or female narrators trying to sound like men. Just read the story, with feeling.

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TMI, exaggeratedly enunciated

Revisado: 02-16-23

This narrator speaks ver-y slow-ly and clear-ly, as though he is speaking to English language learners or is your grandfather creating his first recorded missed phone call message. There are also many emphasized syllables that don't need extra emphasis: "one HUNdred"; "FENtanyl." I found this speaking style very distracting. American English speakers tend to blur consonants ("butter" becomes "budder"). This is normal to us. A narrator doesn't need to pronounce every single consonant and speak very slowly for us to understand and mentally process what he's saying. This book could likely have been a couple of hours shorter, if the narrator had read at a normal speaking pace.
I felt overwhelmed by the information the author gave us. This is almost a modern day historical encyclopedia of today's recreational drugs. I learned about the drug use and programs for harm reduction in Slovenia, Spain, Belgium, and so forth, but I'm still not quite sure what the author was trying to get across. Is fentanyl a Chinese plot to weaken the west? Is harm reduction really the only approach that will work to save lives? I don't recall hearing much about what programs work to get off drugs entirely, or is this now passé? This book could have benefitted from some tighter editing.

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Stunning!

Revisado: 05-16-21

Probably the most important book to come out of the pandemic. It covered the stuff we hadn’t seen, not the outrageous things we all were seeing and hearing every day. I will never view the CDC in the same way again.

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Poorly written and read in an unnatural voice

Revisado: 03-31-21

I have found that listening to podcasts or books read by gentle, soothing voices helps me sleep. I am always looking for new bedtime stories that are interesting enough to get me out of my own thoughts, but not gripping enough to keep me from the embrace of Morpheus. I chose this book because it had a 5-star rating. My first complaint is that it's poorly written, relying on cliches and superficial adjectives. The narrator uses a sing-song, somewhat breathless voice that repeatedly disturbed me by rising at the end of declarative sentences and pausing unnecessarily mid-sentence. I listened to the entire first story about a little girl who had wanted to go to Japan to see the "amazing", "miraculous, "wondrous" sakura blossoms, and eventually traveled there as an adult with her own daughter. Because of the issues listed above, it was about as relaxing as listening to fingernails on a chalkboard. After the story ended, I was surprised to hear it begin again and I checked the progress of the book on my phone. The book apparently fills up its 10+ hours by repeating some of the material. Apparently this book has helped some people, and for that I'm happy, but it didn't work for me.

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Shallow, unlikable characters

Revisado: 09-15-19

I'm about half way through this audible book. I'm going to finish it, but it's rough going for me. There is not one character who is likable or good, not one character who is developed to the point of being compelling and interesting to me. I find the details about the wealthy peoples' lives to be superficial and stereotypical. Not only do I not care about the protagonist, I actively dislike her. Nor have I been able to care about the wealthy woman and her children.
Like I said, I'm only half way through. I hope to find out why so many other readers/listeners liked this book so much!

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Interesting murder story

Revisado: 02-20-19

I'm not done with this book yet, so I may have to come back and edit. Basically, it's a true crime story of a nurse who murdered many people in the course of his work in critical care hospital units. I find it interesting, as a nurse myself, to hear of how the hospitals covered up for the murderer because they didn't want a murder case to sully their hospital's reputation. Chilling!
The thing that is hardest for me to listen to is the constant mispronunciation of the medical nickname for "digoxin." The "G" in "digoxin" is pronounced the same way as the "G" in "digital." Medical professionals often shorten the name of this common drug to "dig" but it is pronounced with the same "G" sound as in "digoxin" or "digital," not a hard "G" as though you're talking about digging a hole. The narrator did a great job with the names of so many drugs in the story, but not the one that is spoken of the most. It's very distracting!

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Inspiring and gripping book!

Revisado: 10-03-15

I cried as this book ended; I had enjoyed the PCT journey so much and I hated for it to end. I had seen the movie recently, and it was wonderful to hear the book, rounded out with all the detail that had to be left out of the movie. (However, I pictured Reese Witherspoon in my mind throughout...) I highly recommend his book.

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