AnnabelLT

Unlistenable

Reviewed: 02-09-22

The performance:
What is a struggle to read on the page - 3 columns of simultaneous online chat transcript - becomes simply unintelligible in the audiobook. Glenister makes zero effort to add emotion or tone, so you are left with the equivalent of Siri reading out screeds of (deliberately) illegible text speak and Twitter handles. More thought should have been put into how to make this work in the audio version - like having different voice actors for the different parts.
As with previous Galbraith audiobooks, there are inconsistencies that a good producer should have ironed out, like changes to accent and pronunciation.

The story:
This is Rowling's weakest Strike outing to date. Once again, the word count needs a major tightening up - at over 1000 pages, much of the filler content should have been culled in an early draft.
As one reviewer put it, 'Strike and Robin are forever telling each other what they have discovered, which the reader, having just been with them when they discovered it, naturally already knows.' The same reviewer has a question as to 'what input Galbraith’s editor had on this outrageous example of authorial self-indulgence'.
The will-they/won't-they romantic storyline has been dangled before us for so long now that I'm losing interest - and given the Strike/Robin relationship is the redeeming part of the book, that's a problem.
And when single 30 year old Robin, who for five books has not earned much and had to pay legal bills for her divorce, says that it's about time she got her own place in London, I snorted out loud.
The fandom/gaming storyline was uninteresting for me, and while it is clear that Rowling's own experience of online trolling has been horrific, this book doesn't further our understanding of the subject. It's just boring, I'm afraid to say.

Have loved this series and pre-ordered this audiobook. Returned the audiobook and got the paperback instead, but not finding it much better. So disappointed.

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If you're struggling with issues, try this...

Reviewed: 17-09-20

Chapters 2 and 6 "cutting off" - this isn't a technical issue, but part of the book. The chapters end '...'

If you can't get it to play/it's frozen, delete and re- download. This is because it has been republished to fix errors.

Likewise if you're hearing "Isla" at all, rather than "Ilsa", delete and redownload.

Overall, classic JK storytelling. If you like her writing, you'll enjoy this.

But it definitely needed a proper edit - as others have said, it feels flabby and there are numerous inconsistencies within the book and with other books in the series.

Robert Glenister is usually great, but I don't think this was his best Galbraith outing. Although it has now been corrected, how on earth did he not remember how to pronounce "Ilsa"? And how on earth didn't anyone spot it?

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Utterly incredible - read it!!

Reviewed: 22-08-18

Last night I finished listening to the audiobook version of Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born a Crime. I cannot urge you enough to listen to it.

This book is insanely funny and full of absurd moments that make you go ‘wait, I need to read that again… seriously??!’.

Set in apartheid South Africa and just beyond, this is a survival story in the realest sense. Noah’s not climbing Everest or trekking to the poles, but he and his friends and family face the day-to-day terror of a police state, abuse, discrimination, hunger, imprisonment, crime, shootings.

Noah doesn’t just talk about being poor, he makes you taste and smell and see it. From the stench of backed-up sewage to the disgusting squelch of a caterpillar bursting in your mouth when that’s all you can afford to eat.

His use of language – particularly in the audiobook version where each character is brought to life with their own accent and dialect – paints the story in such vivid colour.

He is honest not just about his actions, but his innermost thoughts. These musings put you in his shoes, forcing you to examine your own mind. How much would you pay to save your own mother’s life?, he makes you wonder. Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?

What resonated with me most from this book was the reminder of the importance of someone showing you what is possible from life. Had Noah only seen the confines of the walled ghettos his closest family were imprisoned in, his life today would be unimaginably different. But his mother empowers him to believe he can be something else, live somewhere different, feel, see, taste and experience an ‘other’.

You can’t be what you can’t see; that is why it is so important that we show people their potential.

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