Maria

I didn't want it to end!

Revisado: 11-02-24

I needed an audiobook to occupy my mind on a day when I had a zillion chores to do, and this did not disappoint. Probably my most favorite Liane Moriarty book yet. Caroline Lee was stellar, as usual, and made the book. She brought Cherry to life and made her a loveable "villian." It started a bit slow with the back and forth, but quickly picked up speed. The characters were just enough to make the stories diverse, but not hard to follow. If I had one critique, it's that I didn't especially love the ending. I wish it had gone the other way. That would've been a more memorable plot twist that stayed in my mind. As it was, though, I still very much enjoyed it!

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Meh... not in love with this one

Revisado: 08-21-22

While I would agree that Julia Whalen is one of the absolute top, most talented narrators of all time, I'm just not madly in love with this storyline (no pun intended). Two hours in and I was honestly bored with it. I forced myself to keep listening, but another hour into it and I decided to move on. It just wasn't capturing me like other books. The banter seemed forced, the characters didn't feel real, the storyline too implausible. I didn't stir any feelings of "I have to keep listening to see what happens next." It just wasn't for me. I also wasn't thrilled with all the "god damn" that was thrown into the dialogue. To a Christian listener, it's like nails on a chalkboard and the blasphemous version of the word "fuck." I'm much more impressed when an author can use a bigger vocabulary versus repeating the same expletives all the time. I'm glad others enjoyed this, but I'll stick to books that feature Julia as a narrator.

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Gorgeous story -- loved it!

Revisado: 08-08-22

Old farmhouses, genealogy, old diaries, and romance... is there any better combo? Add in a clean, beautiful story with Christian undertones and you have a winner. Best of all, Ms. Wen is a very talented author who weaves together the family story of the 19th century family to the modern times in such a compelling way that I listened nearly all the way through. The only part that was a little muddy for me was the branch of Garrett's family to Oliver and Annabelle and how his grandmother ended up with the house and all that. Maybe I missed something, or maybe I was so caught up in Sloane's story that I missed the fine details. Still, it was one of the best I'd listened to in a while, and adored the inspirational aspects of the story. I hope we get more from this author! The narrator, too, was perfect. Well done and kudos to each.

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Fantastic! I listened nearly the whole way through

Revisado: 08-02-22

Well done! This was an incredible listen, captivating me the entire time. The premise was unique and engaging, and I loved the storyline and its characters. The narrator was perfection, and I'm not joking when I say I listened nearly the entire way through. I fell asleep with about a half-hour left, and woke up immediately to finish it. It's been a while since a book captured my heart so thoroughly. Highly recommend and definitely five stars. You'll walk away from this thinking about your own life, and asking, "What if???"

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Meh -- Just a left leaning political fairy tale

Revisado: 07-28-22

If it wasn't for Julia Whalen narrating, I would have given up on this halfway through. Too many obvious parallels that had me rolling my eyes more than once. If you like political rants disguised as a wild fictional tale, then this is for you. It would have been so much better if the book focused more on how the strings got there, why they were sent, rather than all the emotional mud flinging and tears and sadness and rants about discrimination and segregation. Weave in the super heroic gay couple that decides to get married despite impending death, the noble surrogate pregnancy for a gay couple despite a short string, all the schmaltzy love and emotion, etc. and it all just drags on and gets wearisome. I went into this thinking it was a science fiction and hoping for a fun mystery around the strings to be solved, but it's more of a social-political drama. I had to force myself to keep going, even though the Latino kid was the hero, the rich white nephew the weak bad guy, the white straight woman the fanciful weakling, the rich white couple from Virginia the evil leaders. You get the picture. But hey... everyone rallies toward the end and they all come together singing Kumbaya. I stopped listening the last hour of the book because despite all the time invested in this, I just grew bored. Giving it two stars because the string idea was a cool one, even if it didn't live up to its potential.

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I don’t understand why this is only 6 hours.

Revisado: 04-15-22

I have most of the audiobooks by Joel Thielke and Catherine Perry, and this one is my fave. As a middle age woman with typical middle-age hormone fluctuations, I often find myself with insomnia. This book puts me to sleep every time. The only reason I don’t give it 5-stars is because this book for an 8-hour sleep cycle is only 6 hours long. Every single time the closing credits jar me awake after only 6 hours. I really wish they’d redo this with actual 8 hours.

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Ugh, what's with the horror slasher storyline???

Revisado: 03-24-22

This could have been a great series, but I stopped partway through the second book. I'm not sure if a nuclear war and nuclear winter isn't horrific enough for the author or what, but apparently he felt the need to include a storyline of a psychopathic serial killer who likes to dismember and torture his victims. In book two I stopped when it got to the scene of Patrick in the bank with his next victim. Totally unnecessary IMHO and churned my stomach. There's not nearly enough of the storyline of what happens to everyday people or what the world looks like or how this affected our ecosystem, but if you want inside the mind of a cross-dressing transvestite slasher, this series is for you.

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Meh...

Revisado: 02-15-22

I agree with the others that this was a disjointed addition to the story. I didn't mind the Biblical stuff... that was kind of nice, actually. I loved the scene with Roger on the battlefield, trying to find his purpose in the situation. But everything else seemed so haphazardly thrown together. When I was halfway through, I kept thinking to myself, "Is this it???" I didn't understand at all why Ian would feel so compelled to take his family hundreds of miles to "go check on his ex-wife." That was just bizarre. And Jamie and Claire are in their 60s, but still doing it like rabbits. Claire is always willing, even in the middle of the night. No menopause? No irritability or hot flashes or anything? Their characters seemed so flat this time around, like they were obligatory in mention rather than integral. Way too much time spent on Sylvia and her situation, a character I didn't even really care about. And I had a lightbulb moment when everyone was throwing up at the smell in Pulaski's tent except for Brianna, and thought, "Wait a minute... isn't she supposed to be pregnant?" But other than the initial scene, nothing was mentioned of it and she had a stomach of steel, apparently. Whatever. The sad thing about this book is that it didn't immerse me like the ones before it. I never got sucked into the plot like previous books, but instead remained an objective, detached observer. This time, when I finished it, I wasn't thinking, "Wow... I can't wait until the next one!" like I did with the others. Instead, I just thought, "Well, that was 50 hours of my life I'll never get back." Shame. It had so much potential.

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Can’t wait for the next book!

Revisado: 07-10-21

Honestly, I was a bit skeptical at first. The Altman family seemed like a whiny bunch of spoiled entitled brats. I thought it was going to be tough to get through a book where none of the main characters were particularly likeable. But they really started to grow on me, and by the second half of the book I was listening constantly. The ending was fantastic, and clearly indicated that there would be a sequel, if not a series. Truthfully, it was really refreshing to read a doomsday apocalyptic novel where the characters weren’t perfect and weren’t preppers and didn’t have every imaginable item or tool or weapon like many of the other books in this genre. They were real people with real problems and real reactions. And I think every single human being knows a person like Marty. LOL Well done! Highly recommend if you like apocalyptic fiction.

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Really good, but still misses a few things...

Revisado: 06-25-21

I love the way this book was laid out, providing context around today's social, political, and economic climate as it relates to End Times according to Scripture. I also love the way the author uses Scripture to back up what he's stating. However, I'm yet again disappointed to see another end times author gloss over the words in order to support a pre-trib rapture position. I'm no scholar... I'm just a relatively new born again Christian, but have (since the beginning) been drawn to eschatology. Kinley specifically cites 1 Cortinthians 15:51-52 as a description of the how the rapture takes place. "In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye." He even states that a twinkling of an eye could represent 1/10th of a second. Then he goes on to say "with a trumpet blast," and then explains it will NOT be the only--or the last--trumpet blast, that there will be more with the 7 trumpet judgments of Revelation. Yet if you go back and read the passage, it literally says, "It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown." THE LAST TRUMPET. Why does no one ever point to this??? They just skim right over it. When reading Revelation 14, The Great Harvest occurs with Jesus on a cloud and an angel next to him shouting. Doesn't that sound exactly like how the Rapture is described? Well, that Great Harvest occurs at the last trumpet blast, as Jesus swings his sickle and harvests the earth. Then immediately afterward a second angel swings his sickle to gather the rest for judgment, the grapes that go into God's winepress of wrath. Then the last set of judgments are poured out on the land, again referred to as God's wrath.

1 Corinthians 15:23 states that "Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back." Why would scripture say it's we'll be caught up to be with Jesus at the last trumpet if it's not actually the last trumpet? Why are there parables and stories and references to a specific harvest if there's some supposed first, mysterious harvest before the real harvest? No matter how hard I try, I cannot wrap my head around any context for a pre-trib rapture. Yes, it does say we're not appointed to God's wrath. But God's wrath is specifically declared at the beginning of the bowl/vial judgments. It says that verbatim in Revelation 14 verse 19.

Anyway, I was just hoping this author would pick this apart a little better and provide guidance and information for Christians who will see the first 2/3 of the tribulation. I don't believe for a moment that we're essentially supposed to ignore the entire last book of the Bible because the events don't apply to us. If that's the case, then what's the point of even studying Revelation?

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