Andrea

Jenny Sterlin does a wonderful job on this one. Her reading is engaging and does a great job bringing the different characters to life. Nice timing.

I really enjoyed this. The reader does a fabulous job bringing Twain's language and irony to life.

The two stars are for the audio interpretation, not the book itself! I was so looking forward to this one not only because of the hype but because I liked The Corrections. Now that I'm to the end of Part One I am about to give up. I had trouble with the reader from the very beginning--had to keep relistening to the first half an hour several times because his reading just didn't manage to create any of the story or the characters in my mind. Once I got over that I went along thinking I could ignore his interpretation but I am afraid that I might have to decide putting down the audiobook and instead buying the print version. As another reviewer suggested there's something irritating about the sing-song inflection he gives his reading that makes it seem overdone (in an unproductive way). What a bummer!

Hm. I was so looking forward to this. LOVED Skinny Dip and got into a Hiassen phase after that. But this one... It just doesn't work for me the way the others did. I really just ended up not caring about the story or anybody in it.

The readers are fantastic, really bringing this story to life. Bahni Turpin does an especially fine job. The novel itself, the story-line and how it ends, is overall a bit too smooth and tidy for my taste. The last part I just kind of listened to to get through, but it felt too "feel good" almost to really capture me. There are wonderful moments, though, and it was interesting to get a sense of the time from our perspective now (which is what it feels like to me).

This is just such a great trilogy! Vance is fantastic.

Like most folks I bought this audio book with high expectations. I tried and tried but could not finish listening. It kept feeling like an utter waste of my time. The readers both do a good job but Gruen's writing is too predictable, cliched, and often simply doesn't ring true. Maybe this is what bestseller fiction is about but I certainly would not credit this book with any literary merit.