Pennalie

Outstanding Book and Narration

Revisado: 08-14-22

The author not only brought to life the story of William Tyndale and the history of the Tudors, but he also demonstrated the creative genius of Tyndale as a writer. The narration was perfect. There wasn't a dry moment in the book, nor a dry eye at its conclusion.

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fantastic Storytelling

Revisado: 10-01-21

I'm a fan of stories told out of order - never moreso than in this stiry of 15 lifetimes. Some reviews complained about a slow start, but I wholehearted disagree as the world that Claire North created was fascinating, and each chapter drew me in! Rarely do I listen to an entire audio book in 3 days, but each time I turned it off, my imagination lingered until I just had to put my earbuds in again. Wonderful prose combined with exquisite narration. I'm so sad that it's over.

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So Much Torture

Revisado: 09-28-21

I'm all for painful stories, but there is so much torture in the book that it becomes mundane. The despair, anguish and brutality that drips off every chapter was simply too much for me.

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A Brutal Conclusion

Revisado: 08-24-21

A rather brutal conclusion to the trilogy, many threads left hanging. The moral of the story is a bit on the nose, but I was deeply enough connected to the characters to see it through.

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Fantastic Story of Choice & Consequence

Revisado: 07-15-21

Once I began, I couldn't stop. Even as the characters made their choices as and terrible things happened, their strength was captivating.

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Wonderful Premise and Payoff

Revisado: 06-10-16

If you could change one moment in time, which would you choose? That's the premise of Time and Time Again. Is there a single moment in time that hurdles the 20th century into unspeakable violence, pollution and vapid consumption? Were we heading for a better future if not for a single event? And if you had the power to change that one event, should you use it?

This novel is a fantastic blend of action, adventure, romance and philosophy. Add a dash of Isaac Newton (because who doesn't yearn for more Isaac Newton). Faultlessly l
paced with twists and turns - some you see coming, and at least one that shakes your foundations to the core.

Beautiful narration be Jot Davies who made even the most wretched of characters wholly human (if not all slightly masculine). The novel's conclusion - perfect to the story but also haunting in such a way that will simply not permit you to easily put this story away.

I am so eager to talk about this book with my frinds, but sadly I will need to wait for them all to finish reading the numerous copies I am purchasing and intend to gift to them all first.

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Best to binge on all 7 books at once

Revisado: 06-04-16

Yes - ends on a cliffhanger. But exceptional storytelling throughout! If you love end-of-the-world, plague, conspiracy, disaster, good-vs-evil stories and you want a long, multi-faceted, character-filled thrillers - get all 7 books and have a ball!

Fantastic narration. MacLeod Andrews is exceptional with accents - esp. Sanjay and the India plot-line. Great pacing by Brett Battles. I listened to all of Pale Horse in a single day, getting very little else done and staying up until the wee-hours of the am to finish it. Started Ashes (Book 4) the following morning.

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A very G-rated apocalyptic tale

Revisado: 04-05-16

Hunger Games this is not. It is far more family-friendly is every way. That was my reason for picking this book - and if you have kids ages 9-14 and a long road trip, this may be a good pick for your family too - sure to lead to some interesting conversations.

But for the adults in the car BEWARE. The teen narrator will grate on your last nerve. For a good portion of the book I blamed the narrator - Emily Bauer - for the childish, whiny protagonist. But a bit more than halfway though, I realized that it was not how the words were read that was the problem - its the words themselves. The protagonist is supposedly 16 years old, but she sounds very much like she is 12. Her focus throughout the story (until the last 2 hours) is so vapid, whiny and self-obsessed that I had a hard time cheering for her survival. Oh how much better it could have been if the author had decided to give our young heroine some maturity, spunk, and/or intelligence from the get-go.

As far as end of the world survival - the family relies on a coincidence of good fortune that removes them from the true life or death struggle that the story attempts to portray. Apparently in this part of Pennsylvania looters and bandits do not exist, so the breakdown of civilization is downright Norman-Rockwellian. That being said, the author does an good job building on the tension of isolation and the claustrophobia that would grow as communication with the outside world is severed.

All in all - a very G-rated apocalyptic tale.

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Tough Listen with No Pay-Off

Revisado: 03-18-16

I wanted to want this book more. It took weeks for me to finish it - because the story is so . . . . odd. Perhaps in print I could have better made sense of Area X - but as an audio experience, I could never fully grasp much of anything. I felt only that I (living vicariously through "The Biologist") was swallowed up by a never-fully-revealed organism. The long passages of clinical description were only interrupted by recollections of an unhappy marriage. These recollections became more and more intrusive as the plot continued.

In the last hour, I finally felt like I there might be hope that the story would take me somewhere, that The Biologist might actually do something other than observe, that her motivation might move her to strive for a conclusion. Then - repeatedly - The Biologist tells us that she (and by extension we) will never understand this place, her experiences - or basically anything we have spent the last several hours exploring. Really?? After all this, the author has chosen not to fully reveal this strange world or its mysteries. Why else were we invited into this story if not to at least make sense of it in some way?

It felt very much like a cheat. And in the end I found the story to be an utter waste of time.

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Frustrating Protagonist

Revisado: 12-11-15

I wanted so much to lose myself in the National Archives with a presidential mystery going back 200+ years, but instead I was utterly distracted by the whiny so-called hero of the story who is emotionally frozen as the zit-faced nerd he once was in high school. I could not get past his childishness, his puppy love, his paralyzing self-doubt or his failure to think things through. He is supposed to be smart, and yet he came across as a 14-year old boy trapped in a man's body.

For 2/3 of the book, the mystery kept me interested, until the author deliberately erased fundamental plot lines in order to "surprise" the reader at the end. The finale,set in an underground labyrinth filled with blind alleys going no where turned out to be the perfect metaphor for this story.

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