Genevieve Paquette

forgettable

Revisado: 04-27-18

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

For a crime thriller that purported to be dark and gripping, it was awfully cute. Between the cloyingly sweet narration an the adolescent-style romance, I was definitely not the target audience. I'm not a big fan of crime stories with a strong romantic element. This romance in this one kind of came out of nowhere and took over. The characters were generic and obvious and once you figured out who the killer was (and you'll figure it out early on), there's not much left to keep you reading/listening.
A different narrator, less cliched characters and less wish-fulfillment romance might have improved this for me.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Alison Campbell?

Anyone. She sounded like she was on the verge of giggling the entire time, as though she were reading the book while smiling delightedly. Totally inappropriate given the subject matter. Her voice was cloying and annoying and I will be avoiding her narration from now on.

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slow story, slower narration

Revisado: 03-02-18

I changed the playback to "faster" and the narration was still glacial. The narrator has strange phrasing, diction and the occasional dodgy pronunciation. and was generally a trial to listen to. Which was especially unfortunate, because the story was also noticeably slow paced. I couldn't finish. With three hours left, and the crime basically solved, I gave up. The plot wasn't particularly interesting, the writing was a bit hokey in s (ex: "the morning soft mouth" made me cringe) and the most interesting part was seeing how much culture (both police culture, or at least police culture as it is portrayed in the media, and western culture in general) has changed in the last thirty years.

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skip

Revisado: 02-17-18

The story was flimsy and not as fleshed out as it could have been. Not a lot of character development, and a lot of character motivations (particularly that of the killer) were left completely unexplored. I think it might have been a sort of entertaining quick read, but it was a hard slog to listen to. The narrator was not good. His voice was completely inappropriate for the story, and he slurred, stumbled and mispronounced words noticeably. Give this one a miss,

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disappointing

Revisado: 02-10-18

I like Lore, Mahnke's podcast, so I thought I'd try this. I shouldn't have. I have no idea how it got published. It's not terrible, but it comes off as extremely amateurish and not very well thought-out. The story is very thin and the writing borders on genuinely bad. I think I would have been less unimpressed had I read it, but listening to it emphasized all of its shortcomings, especially since the narrator was just as amateurish in his delivery, pausing in strange places, using a lot of vocal scoops like a hokey radio DJ and delivering everything with the same emphasis. The only positive thing I can say of that I'm glad I got this as a BOGO instead of paying full price.

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Great story, bad narration

Revisado: 10-05-17

The narrator was one of the worst I have ever heard, without exaggeration, but the story was interesting enough for me to keep going. His intensity NEVER changed. He could be talking about a ham sandwich or a gruesome murder, it didn't matter, the delivery was exactly the same. And he spoke every word like it was a separate sentence. It was almost painful to listen to.
That said, the story was exciting, engaging and well-written, I love gruesome horror but I hate it when the bad guy gets away in the end. This was perfect for me.
I plan on checking out more Joe Hart, but staying far away from Neil Hellegers.

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frustrating

Revisado: 06-16-17

Listening to it, it wasn't awful (though the narration wasn't good) but after I finished it and started thinking about it... It annoyed me. A lot. Spoilers ahead...

This was more of a zombie or vampire story than a ghost story.
AAARGH. It was a hugely unsatisfying waste of time. And the whole "cannot be killed" thing is so frustrating. So basically, the "sleepers" who spilled blood will survive the end of the world, and spend all of eternity floating helplessly and alone through the vastness of space in eternal torment? Clearly the writer didn't think that far ahead. Creating a monster that is impossible to kill is creating a problem that intentionally cannot be solved. Which feels lazy. And is so irritating.
Skip this one. It's not worth it.

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just not for me

Revisado: 04-20-17

The writing was fine, the narration was fine, the story was ok (slow for a horror, but ok), but the ending was a ridiculous, massive cop-out a la St Elsewhere. And it was neither scary nor satisfying in any way, just frustrating and sad.
If you're a patient horror fan, you might as well try it, as the writing is alright, but maybe skip the epilogue.

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moments of pretty good-ness

Revisado: 04-17-17

I liked it. It wasn't the most polished, and the writing wasn't spectacular, but it was alright. The story required a lot of disbelief-suspending and relied pretty heavily on coincidences. That said, though, the story itself was compelling and at times genuinely scary. There were scenes of child abuse that were skin-crawlingly awful in their realism. Not much gets to me, but that part of the story did.
The characters were likable and I actually did feel invested in their wellbeing.
Someone compared it to Koontz, and I can see that, but it lack's Koontz' awful preachiness and reliance of the same tropes book after book. No magical child geniuses, here. Which I appreciate.
It was a surprisingly good listen. I'm glad I took a chance on it.

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great

Revisado: 04-17-17

I enjoyed this quite a bit and look forward to more in the series. The characters were interesting and likable and the various mysteries were engaging. The setting was a new one for me and I enjoyed reading the author's interpretation of Vietnam.

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pleasantly surprised

Revisado: 04-17-17

I wasn't expecting much from this book, thinking it would be a schlocky, grocery store paperback. I was pleasantly surprised to find a well written, interesting tale that I actually really enjoyed. The characters were likable and even kind of realistic, and the plot was a lot of fun. I like stories that link past and present events, and the author does that very well, here.
I liked it a lot and I plan on trying other books by the author.

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