Joan

A disappointing book. Instead of the measured history of financial fraud I was expecting, this work focuses on a simplistic "shocked" approach to modern events and reads history in their light rather than on appropriate contemporary terms. If you're looking just for reassurance that you have a right to feel affronted, then this book will give it. If you're looking for actual understanding, seek elsewhere.

The story is a good one, though a little thin on detail: or rather, with great detail in some parts, then sudden shifts with a great deal of action not described, but finished. Still, a good period story. The narrator, however, is awful: why employ someone with such a terrible phony British accent? It would be better to have it read out in straight American accent if a true British reader cannot be found.

This is a compelling story that will keep you listening. The narrator's viewpoint is well managed, although she shows a little too much self-understanding for a real adolescent. Still, it was a good cathartic look at coming of age.

In more than fifteen years listening to audiobooks, this is the absolute worst performance I have yet encountered. The narrator of the first section is evidently not a native speaker of English, and her accented text is practically impossible to understand, let alone follow in any enjoyable fashion. Arrgh! There are the bones of a good story lurking, but I'll be darned if I could extract it.

It's a good story, but the narrator's repeated mispronunciation of one chief character's name (the "z" in Agassiz is silent) was a continual annoyance, like fingernails on a blackboard.

I suppose given its short length, I shouldn't have expected more, but this "history" is highly episodic. I was frustrated by the frequent jumps of coverage, completely missing out centuries and reigns. If you already know a lot of British history, this will be an interesting take on certain episodes, but it's not a "history" per se.

The story is mildly engaging, but the truly obnoxious music played at intervals (not even clearly delineating parts of the story) absolutely ruined the experience.

This book was an enormous disappointment, written in the tone of a schoolchild, seemingly aimed at those with no prior historical knowledge about anything, let alone astronomy.