Brenda

The narrator.

Overall, the story wasn't bad.

Michael Levine himself or Malcolm Gladwell.

Only to stop listening to the book.

I did not enjoy this book. The narrator was annoying with dramatic pauses in the wrong places causing confusion rather than effect. He also spoke too fast. I can’t say I would recommend it.

So this girl is not only beautiful and stinking rich, but she also has a gorgeous body, is highly intelligent, speaks numerous languages, has an eidetic memory (but of course), cooks like a master chef and is a ninja with a gun and thus shoots with flawless grouping. Oh come on!!

This kind of teenage fantasy plot is nauseating!

The narration by Julia Whelan however is good. Give her a decent story to narrate and it will be a sure success.

Somewhat predictable, but nevertheless a good read. Robert Crais is very good at building his characters, making you feel like you are inside the protagonist’s head, and making you feel sorrow for him and anger towards his enemies.

William Roberts’ narration made this book a winner.

I can sum this book up in one word – Triumph. The prologue is so riveting, I literally gasped with the intensity as my eyes welled up with tears. Ok, so I’m a sissy and my heart breaks in two when it comes to animals and soldiers, but still. The prologue is mind blowingly brilliant.

And then there’s the rest of the book. I could almost feel Maggie’s doggie breath on my face and touch her fur with the palm of my hand. I fell in love with her from the very first second and the moment the book came to an end, it left an empty hole behind.

My only complaint is that the book is too short. Robert Crais and MacLeod Andrews, for goodness sake please make a sequel together, I’m having withdrawal symptoms!

A genuinely bad story with an equally bad narrator.

To use Douglas Kennedy’s repetitive reference to the word “narrative”, this one is exceptionally weak. It’s basically just two different stories lumped together. It’s as though he desperately needed to get a book out so he blabbered on and on through one meaningless story, trying to find a path for it. Then completely out of the blue, he had a bright idea for a better storyline, so to avoid having to re-write the entire thing, he just shoved the two stories together so that it might sound interesting and not be kicked clean out the door by the publishers. He didn’t even have the decency to bother to try and find a link between the two stories. And then to add insult to injury, he ended the book with an unfinished plot and a lame cliché.

The first three quarters of the book are so pointless that I would suggest to any listener that they completely skip past both Parts 1 and 2, and start listening from one hour into Part 3. This is the only section of the entire book that contains any semblance of a real plot and has some guts to it. Everything else prior to this point makes the main protagonist look weak, directionless and pathetically gullible. Part 1 and Part 2 are simply there to pass the time.

Then there’s the false notion that Douglas Kennedy has about his ability to convincingly pull off a lead female protagonist. How many women do you know who repeatedly use phrases like “dropping money” on buying a sports car or renting a flat, or “chasing down” pills with Vodka? Seriously? He really imagines women talk like this?

And finally we get to the narrator. Kate Harper’s manly voice is so gruff, it sounds like she’s smoked way too many boxes of Marlboro’s in her time. On top of this, she is not adept at changing her voice for different characters, so it becomes a task to distinguish between which character is speaking and whether it’s a male or a female.

There are way too many good books in the world to waste your time reading this one.

I have never laughed so much during any book - ever. At times, I hit rewind just so that I could re-listen and laugh out loud again.

I listened while I was driving, I listened while I was cooking, I listened at every possible opportunity I could because I just couldn’t get enough of this intriguingly hilarious story.

Not to mention how absolutely perfect Caroline Quentin is as a narrator!

A true WINNER, if I could rate this book 7 out of 5, I would.

It kept me guessing “who dunnit” through to the end. The plot would be good for a movie thriller.

A missing piece to the overall performance is that the narrator’s voice was a bit bland which unfortunately didn’t help to build the tension.

Not a must read, but a good way to pass the time.

Jam packed with an entwining plot, it was fun and cute. Quite an enchanting 'read'.

I literally laughed out loud. Wonderfully entertaining, I enjoyed every minute of it.

There couldn’t have been a more perfect choice of narrator for this book. Niamh Daly did a remarkable job.

I highly recommend this book.

I bought book two because I thought it couldn't possibly get worse than the first one - and Wow.

I am now more certain than ever that I will need to have left my brain outside in the rain for a fortnight, for me to ever be stupid enough to allow book three to become part of my library.

Even the sex scenes became so tedious that I regularly hit fast forward to get back to the story - to see if there actually was a story! This book was so utterly dismal that it sucked in every possible way. I found myself feeling thoroughly gob smacked and embarrassed for E.L. James.

I really enjoyed the educational aspect and getting such a deep insight into Amish life. What I liked least about the book though was that the story was so transparent and predictable.

Christina Moore and Suzanne Toren did a fine job. I don't know which one was which, but the main narrator was the best of the two. Compared to 50 Shades' highly irritating narrator, these ladies were perfect.

The ending was quite disappointing - I had already predicted it halfway through the book. In fact, every twist there was came as no surprise. I felt a bit let down and expected more from the author.

On the whole however, it was entertaining enough and worth the listen.