Steve G.

This book could benefit from being about 10 hours shorter. I'm not sure what it is that differentiates useless details from engaging atmosphere, but my eyes rolled back in my head after about the first 6 hours or so. The main characters are pretty one dimensional. I had a hard time caring about any of them. Most of the great fantasy I've read has an over-arching mythology to it, and this story seems to be missing that, unless it has yet to be revealed. If it's going to be revealed in the second book, I guess I will never know...

A friend who had read the print version of this book recommended it to me. When I found it on Audible, I was a little apprehensive because I have never been a big fan of "narrated by the author" books. In my experience, there are few people who can do both well (Neil Gaiman comes to mind).

In this particular case, the author, who lived through this amazing experience, is the perfect choice to recount what happened. The emotion and intensity of what happened is there, but not over the top. He really brought something to this story in his reading of it.

I'm going to recommend the audiobook version back to my friend!

OK, so I got most of the way through the first book in the series before giving up. My gripes then were essentially my gripes now. I am not a big fan of Roy's narration. Some of the voices are ridiculous, and most of the guy voices sound like pirates or stodgy old Brits. The women sound like they should be in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It is true, though, that the voices for each character are more or less individually recognizable. That's a good thing because my second gripe is...

DANG, there are a lot of characters in this series. It's hard to know when a character is introduced whether they will be inconsequential or hugely important. I like to keep track of things like this in a story, so this in particular drove me nuts for quite a while.

The last thing I'll mention on the minus side is that there is a boat load of detail. Too much in my opinion. I lose track of what is going on and who is currently present in the story for all the detail. I don't care what your cloak is made out of, just move it along!

Now, after all that, you're probably wondering why I bothered to part with four more credits to get the second and third books in the series. Well, at the risk of sounding low brow, I'll tell you. I LOVED the first season of the HBO series. There... I said it! All the issues with the hokey voices were addressed with excellent casting. All the extraneous characters either evaporated or faded into the background. All the long descriptive passages became beautiful sets and locations. I got a good grounding in the story, saw the developing big picture, and promptly got the second book after I finished watching the first season.

Now that I know how the more important characters are handled in the book, I just resign myself to letting the other characters sort of wash over me without giving in to my OCD and trying to keep them in order. I got an app for my phone with a Westeros map on it, and descriptions of the houses, religions and characters. That helped. The mental pictures of the actors from the HBO series help me to keep the characters straight, too. At times, I just let my eyes roll back in my head when the Roy-ness gets to be too much, or there is a multi-paragraph description of what people are wearing.

I'm most of the way through the third book, and there is a real story arc developing, and quite a few surprises. On the whole, I'll admit that I am now enjoying this series despite my strong negative reaction to the first book. I think I will see this one through...

I don't have much to add about the story that has not already been said. It's thoroughly engrossing on a number of levels, and you will probably irritate your family and others around you as you enjoy the marathon listen.

What I did want to take a moment to say is that, unlike many of the reviewers who wrote the reviews I find at the top of this list, I thought the narrator was perfect. I didn't think she read too fast - most often I took that as a convincing rendition of what a teen or a child would sound like recounting her part of the story. Certainly not distracting or difficult to understand. Also, what some took for monotone, I found more atmospheric and appropriate to life in this difficult, gritty place.

Do listen to the sample, but if you are unsure, forge ahead!

For me, this is one of those books that I will listen to again at least once. Morgenstern weaves just the right amount of atmosphere into her story, without resorting to long, torturous passages that one would be tempted to skip over to get back to the story. Speaking of the story, it's loose enough to keep your mind engaged in "what if's", and wondering "what's next?" without becoming messy or hard to follow. Definitely looking forward to more from this author. Also, you cannot go wrong with Jim Dale. Great to listen to him read something other than Harry Potter.

The publisher's summary says this book has "equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense". I guess I must not be a fan of the paranormal romance thing, because I found this book to concentrate far too much on that aspect of the story. The narrator was pleasant to listen to, although there was the occasional mispronunciation, which is always a little jarring. If paranormal romance novels appeal to you, you'll probably like this novel.

That???s got to be some kind of record for me, but this story was clearly going nowhere I wanted to go. The accents were laughable, as already noted. In the brief period I was able to hang in there, more characters were introduced to me than I might expect to meet in an entire night of speed dating, and a not insignificant number of them were killed off. It was like the end of The Godfather, only without the masterful setup, and at the beginning of the story. Ludicrous. Hey Audible, can I have my credit back???

Let me start by saying that I'm only 2/3 of the way through this book, so I may be proved wrong before the end. I usually have a pretty good idea of whether a book will "turn around" by now, though...

The Publisher's Summary for this book compares the author to Stephen King. I don't see it. Someone as prolific as King has the occasional "dud", but when I think "King on his game", I think of books like Salem's Lot and The Shining - books that kept me up at night with the lights on. By comparison, The Good House is most decidedly NOT scary. It's also fairly predictable, at least so far. The author contrives to work an element into the plot, and you find yourself thinking, "I bet such and such happens later", and of course, it does. It most closely resembles a Lifetime TV network movie to me. Love interests, teen angst, broken homes. That sort of book has its place, I just didn't get that from the Audible Review or Publisher's Summary.

My friend and I were talking about how we like Stephen King novels that aren't too far out in left field, and have characters that are well developed and explored. This is one of those novels. Solid characters and just enough creepy to make things interesting in "that" way, too. I enjoyed John Slattery's narration as well - I'll look for more titles where he reads.

Never made it to the end of this one. I think I went in expecting something akin to "In Cold Blood". It's not. As some of the other reviews state, the book is CHOCK FULL of details, but they're not details I am interested in: victim was found 10' 6" from the passenger side door; victim was wearing a yellow metal class ring. It's like a dreary recitation of a police report. If you're a Zodiac enthusiast, this may be the book for you, but I guess I am not. Any attempts to ratchet up the suspense or create drama seem sort of clumsy, and are completely ineffectual. In the end, the book did not hold my attention. Three stars because the book is what it says it is... but nothing more.