Joey

I'm not sure what it says about me as a 32-year-old, but I have really enjoyed quite a few young adult books in the last few years. This is another one that's worth the read no matter what age you are. I always love to see a strong female lead and this book fits the bill. I've read a lot of dystopian books, but this one still manages to be unique.

The book reminds me of the Hunger Games series in many ways, but the book is different enough that it's not derivative. If you read the Hunger Games and liked it, just go ahead and get this one, you'll almost certainly like it, too. I can't wait for future installments of the series to come out.

For much of my life I have liked Card's sci fi, but these will be the last of his books I read. I do not want to support the type of homophobic prosthelytizing present in this book. I have known for a number of years that Card was a Mormon and although I disagree with many teachings of that church, I do not mind having a difference of opinion with someone as long as they don't shove it down my throat. This book crosses the line. It's not just a distaste for same-sex attraction - he very clearly endorses the ex-gay movement wherein gay people are reformed to live a "normal" heterosexual lifestyle (a pseudo-therapy which has been proven to be extremely psychologically damaging). One male character even admits to having been attracted to men and then reveals that his life has been made worthwhile because he has turned away from his "perversion" and married a woman with whom he will try to have children to redeem his life. I'm not reading between the lines and this is not just the viewpoint of one character in the book - the message is presented as inescapable fact that all of the characters must embrace in order to have fulfilling lives. Again and again Card speaks of how every man should find a woman and life is without value unless you have children to pass on your genetic material. It is a major plot point. Meanwhile, two teenagers well below the age of consent (I believe they're 13 or 14) marry and have children, which seems to be not just fine, but desirable in Card's universe.

I can't believe that Card took a sci fi (not a religion) book in such a strongly religious direction, potentially alienating a large fan base. I can't believe that the publisher let him do it. If Card wants to write essays or novels on religious doctrine, by all means, he should do so, but he should not embed them in a totally unrelated book, one whose characters we've grown to care so he hopes we'll keep reading. It's akin to a friend suddenly asking if you have a moment to talk about Jesus Christ and when you say no he tells you anyway. The repeated assertions that gay is bad and only through heterosexual marriage and lots of kids can your life be worthwhile is offensive to me and even if it weren't, it is unnecessary and distracting to the story. I hope that potential readers notice, as I did not, the reviews discussing the strongly homophobic agenda in this book before buying it. (Incidentally, several reviews have referred to the book as anti-gay-marriage... Card's message is more encompassing than a discussion of equal rights, he preaches the perversion of any same-sex attraction, period.)

Potential readers - I understand the desire to know what happens to these characters you've come to know over the past several books and if you absolutely must find out what happens in the rest of the Ender series, I suggest you borrow the books or try to buy them somewhere used or even read a summary. Don't buy the books new or on audio and give more money directly to Card and this publisher because that implies we're okay with the prosthelytizing Card has taken to injecting where it does not belong.

I loved Ender's Game and am now re-reading the whole series in audio format. It's great to see the same story from the perspective of a different character. Bean, in particular, is a very interesting character. Learning about his background, where he came from and what made him who he is, really fleshes out the story. Much of the book takes place exactly overlapping Ender's Game, but Bean's life is so different and Card's storytelling is so good that it doesn't feel at all duplicative, even though I reread the two books right after each other in this go-around. I particularly liked things like *mild spoiler alert* how we find out that some of the things that were done to Ender by the teachers were actually thought out by Bean.

My only complaint is that Card seems to try almost too hard in spots to differentiate Bean's understanding of events that happened in both books from the viewpoint of Ender. He occasionally took things that Bean said or did, and injected ulterior motives on Bean's part that seemed a little forced, like no event could ever have been viewed the same by both Ender and Bean. This often took the form of a statement or action by Bean having actually been perfidy or sarcasm that Ender didn't catch on to. This process made Bean a little less-likable, as if he were constantly throwing barbs at Ender and Ender just didn't notice. Every once in a while I'd have liked to see Bean's recollections of a situation be the same as Ender's because in real life, sometimes everyone has the same understanding of what's going on and that's fine.

Despite that complaint, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book and adds a new and interesting dimension to the story of told in Ender's Game. Incidentally, Card speaks at the end of the book (it's nice to hear the author's own voice on audiobooks and I always like it) and says that without Ender's Shadow, a movie of Ender's Game wouldn't really be possible and that a movie version would bounce the story back and forth between the two books to handle some of the difficulties of telling the story from Ender's viewpoint alone. I don't entirely understand the difficulties he speaks of, even though he tries to explain, but regardless, if adding Bean's perspective makes an Ender's Game movie more likely, that's another plus for this book, in my opinion.

I loved Ender's Game - I read it first many years ago and recently got the audiobook to re-read. Then I decided to re-read the whole series while I was at it. Overall this is a great addition to the Enderverse and I liked hearing about what happened with all the characters I'd grown to love from Battle School, but I have two complaints:

First, as many others have noted, the production of this audiobook is really poor. It is riddled with pronunciation problems, even with the word "hegemon" (which is in the title) and with the name of one of the main characters, "Achilles" (how it's pronounced - English or French - is an important plot point to show if a character actually knows Achilles and it's often done wrong in this book). In some spots a different person has dubbed the correct pronunciation of hegemon into the audio, which is possibly more annoying than just dealing with the wrong pronunciation. The audio quality is overall bad - differences in volume and some garbled speech, etc. The voice actor casting are also not great. In particular, whoever reads for Peter's POV sounds about 70 years old, even though Peter is supposed to be quite young. This is a relatively expensive audiobook given that it was released more than a decade ago and I expected better.

Second, there were a few problems in the story itself. For instance, there's a lengthy portion of the book where they talk about Ender's childhood home, but they're in the wrong city - Ender's family moved from the home he grew up in and this was discussed at length in earlier Ender books. I do believe this was caught and remedied in a later version of the book (which just underscores the need for a newer audio version). I also thought that there were portions of the book that were a bit too long or too preachy, etc., and were both unnecessary and out of character in the story. This is is a problem I've often noticed in subsequent books from a highly successful author - it's like editors no longer take the red pen to texts in the same way they would with new authors.

Despite the problems noted above, if you liked Ender's Game (and other books in the series), this is a worthwhile read. I'd recommend you skip this audiobook, though, and read the newest paper version, which wouldn't suffer from the poor audio production and would also have corrections of some errors that made it into the first edition of this book.

I'm always in search of the longest audiobooks I can find, since I usually read both my credits' worth before the end of the month. At almost 47 hours, this one fit the bill and had excellent reviews so I gave it a shot even though I wasn't familiar with the author or book. I'm glad I did. The book (I think it was originally 3 books in Japan) kept me absorbed from beginning to end. It's a very unique idea and I loved the story-within-a-story aspect. Interestingly, nearly all the characters are kind of one-dimensional, from a traditional literary point of view. The characters don't change much from the beginning to the end, which is something I was always taught to avoid in writing, but it works here because (without giving spoilers) the story itself changes around the characters. Instead of the world being stable and the characters moving through it, the characters are the fixed point of reference. Because it's just a little off traditional storytelling techniques, it makes the story feel unique above and beyond the plot itself.

The writing is also vivid and excellent. It's the type of writing where you have to pause occasionally and really take in a phrase that hits you just the right way. Another reviewer commented on the phrase "shaken his heart from a strange angle," which is one that I loved, too. I was also very taken with the phrase "Bright words make the eardrums vibrate brightly." It's such an odd phrase, when looked at literally, but you instinctively know what it means. The whole book is peppered with that kind of language. The author, obviously, takes primary responsibility for this, but the translators also did a great job. I'm not really sure how the translation process works, but I suspect there were spots where they added small explanations to ease the reading of unfamiliar concepts. They also did a great job with the occasional idiom or slang word. It was so well-done that I felt less culture-shock than I have with some books that are written in English to begin with. (There's a bonus interview with the narrators at the end if you want to hear their perspective.)

There are a couple of things that I disliked. The first was, as others have mentioned, the female narrator. It was kind of bizarre - when she is voicing the main character she does fine. She has a pleasant voice that effectively conveyed emotion. When she was voicing some of the other characters, however, it's almost like instead of changing the timbre of her voice she just changed how slowly she talked. The elderly dowager, in particular, sounded similar to a computer reading text. Her speech was very slow, oddly emphasized, and emotionless. In some books with a narrator that talks too slowly I just speed up the playback, but it wasn't possible since the slow alternated with normal speech. My other complaint is that I would have liked it to be about 30 minutes longer and tell us what happened concerning a few supporting plotlines. I'm not saying that every loose end needs to be tied up - I think this is a cultural thing because I've noticed that American books and movies tend to completely resolve all stories and foreign ones don't... I ordinarily accept it as part of the style. But the way it was written, several secondary storylines were building towards a climax and then just disappeared. It felt like when you think you're going to sneeze and then you don't. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll give a made up example: It would be like saying that someone's dog had run away and they got a call from the pound saying there was a dog that might be theirs so they get in the car and go to the pound, and then the story switches to another character and never comes back to tell you if the dog was theirs or not.

Despite my two small complaints, the book is undoubtedly one of the best I've listened to recently and (especially if you like long books) you should not hesitate before getting and reading this book!

I'm a big fan of historical fiction - you get a great story as well as some education. This title is a great addition to that genre. I had to start it twice... sometimes a book just doesn't grip me from the outset and I have to come back to it once I have time to really concentrate on the first hour and get invested. I could imagine that some people might find it a little slow - if you like 200 page mystery or thriller stories, this is probably not the book for you. Likewise, if you can't deal with a story that is not always moving chronologically forward you might want to think twice. The story is rich and interesting, but takes time to fully mature. Many times the author introduces uncertainty into the plot; the main character (and therefore the reader) doesn't have all the facts. Rest assured that all is answered in the fullness of time.

The book's characters are very authentic - slightly flawed, not always entirely likable - which makes the story so realistic that I had to check at one point and make sure it was fiction. While this story itself is invented, the historical background (both of Ethiopia and of medical science) was quite well researched. Without giving spoilers, the medical aspects deviate from real life at the end of the book, but I still learned a lot about medicine in the process. I had never heard anything on the history of Ethiopia and was glad to add that background to my knowledge-base, too.

As with all of the Molly Harper books I've read, this is not a great work of literature, but it is very enjoyable to read due to the author's dry sense of humor and great, realistic dialogue. The theme (werewolfs passing as humans) and storyline (human/werewolf love + person terrorizing town) are not terribly original, but if you like that kind of book, this is a good addition to the genre. This is a quick, fun read that would be especially good while on vacation or not in the mood to think too hard.

By the way, I enjoyed the sequel to this book, The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf, more than this one so if you read and like this, consider getting that one, too.

First of all, I accidentally read this book without realizing it's the second in a series - it's not really obvious from the book's page. If you haven't read How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf, consider reading that one first. You can read this book without the other - you won't be totally lost - but they do refer to things that happened in that book in this one. If you have already read How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf and liked it, I like this one even more, so go for it.

On to the review - we all know that there are a lot of books involving werewolfs out there at the moment and they all have similarities. What sets this book apart is how amusing it is. In How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf we meet the main character in this one, Maggie, but she's not a major player. It's an interesting change to have this second book be from the perspective of a different character and have the narrator from the first book play a subsidiary role. I wonder if there will be a third book from yet another person's perspective. In any case, although Maggie came across as kind of unlikable in How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf, I absolutely love her in this book. The story arc is pretty formulaic - I predicted the ending well in advance of getting there - but that doesn't matter much because the author plays to her strength, which is dry humor. It's not a work of great literature by any means, but it's a fun read and would make a great vacation book.

I love this series of books. I love this narrator. I love that all the books in the series are now available on Audible (there were two in the middle that previously weren't). The Outlander series is what Audible is all about.

The series is the story of a woman who accidentally travels 200 years back in time and meets the love of her life. Whenever I explain this premise to people I get raised eyebrows, but the truth is that the books are more historical fiction than sci fi/fantasy. I read an interview with the author once in which she said she set out to write historical fiction, but just couldn't get into the mindset of an 18th century woman so devised the time travel in order to place a modern woman in the period she wanted to write about. That decision made the books even more interesting. All of the main characters are relatable and fleshed-out. The history is meticulously researched. The conversations, love stories, intrigue, etc feel organic. The descriptions of Scotland - both modern and historical - are amazing and make me love the country even though I've never been. I really have almost no criticisms of the writing.

Meanwhile, Davina Porter is one of the best narrators I've encountered in an audiobook. (Thank you, thank you to the narrator and audiobook producers or whoever arranged for the same narrator to read the whole series so far.) She manages to have a completely different voice for each main character and to my untrained ear moves effortlessly from one accent to another as the story dictates. Her American accent is not perfect, but it's still very good. She has a great cadence, sounds like she's read the book 100 times prior to narrating, and never stumbles over what must be incredibly difficult Gaelic words... (in fact, a friend of mine who is reading the whole series on paper calls me occasionally to have me pronounce the Gaelic words for her).

Clearly, these are some of my favorite all time audiobooks. Despite their length, I'm on my third time through the series. Speaking of length, all the books in the series are pretty long, but still only one credit so if you have an Audible subscription, they are great deals. In short, buy the books, you won't regret it.

I love this series of books. I love this narrator. I love that all the books in the series are now available on Audible (there were two in the middle that previously weren't). The Outlander series is what Audible is all about.

The series is the story of a woman who accidentally travels 200 years back in time and meets the love of her life. Whenever I explain this premise to people I get raised eyebrows, but the truth is that the books are more historical fiction than sci fi/fantasy. I read an interview with the author once in which she said she set out to write historical fiction, but just couldn't get into the mindset of an 18th century woman so devised the time travel in order to place a modern woman in the period she wanted to write about. That decision made the books even more interesting. All of the main characters are relatable and fleshed-out. The history is meticulously researched. The conversations, love stories, intrigue, etc feel organic. The descriptions of Scotland - both modern and historical - are amazing and make me love the country even though I've never been. I really have almost no criticisms of the writing.

Meanwhile, Davina Porter is one of the best narrators I've encountered in an audiobook. (Thank you, thank you to the narrator and audiobook producers or whoever arranged for the same narrator to read the whole series so far.) She manages to have a completely different voice for each main character and to my untrained ear moves effortlessly from one accent to another as the story dictates. Her American accent is not perfect, but it's still very good. She has a great cadence, sounds like she's read the book 100 times prior to narrating, and never stumbles over what must be incredibly difficult Gaelic words... (in fact, a friend of mine who is reading the whole series on paper calls me occasionally to have me pronounce the Gaelic words for her).

Clearly, these are some of my favorite all time audiobooks. Despite their length, I'm on my third time through the series. Speaking of length, all the books in the series are pretty long, but still only one credit so if you have an Audible subscription, they are great deals. In short, buy the books, you won't regret it.