Susan

The problem with this audio book lies solely with the narration. The reader sounds like he didn't get past the 5th grade in school. Actually, I know 5th graders who can read a complete sentence with more tone and inflection than this man. He has pronounced so many words incorrectly I'm beginning to wonder whether or not he knows how to read and speak English. As for the story itself, the premise is good and the characters are reasonably interesting. I think I'm going to give up and read the rest of it in print (I hardly ever do that). My best advice is to stay away from this narrator in the future. I hope Audible reads this and reconsiders using him to narrate their books.

I can't figure out which was worse in this book, the accents of the narrator or the violence. In either case it is very rare for me to take this long to get through an audio book, much less be considering not even finishing it. The story is too convoluted. The characters are not interesting to the point that you care about them and want to see what happens to them, as often happens in a good mystery or thriller. And it isn't that I mind violence in a story, but in this case it is too much for too many different reasons and the thought behind why it happens became absurd in some cases.

So you get the point that I'm not enjoying this book. Often when I read an audio book (and I read a lot of them) I try to think about whether or not I would have enjoyed the story more or less if reading it in print instead. In this case I honestly think that it could have been a much better book if it weren't for how dreadful the performance is. I have read other books by the same narrator and didn't find anything amiss with them. This one was just awful.The accents he was using were harsh, inconsistent and largely sounded fake. Sorry, this one is a no for me. Now I have to go figure out if I'm going to bother finishing it or move on to another one. So much for my anticipated WWII history review lesson for this year.

It is amazing that someone could cram so much history of NYC into one book and do it so expertly. I couldn't stop listening. It is well read as well as well written, which is pretty important given its length. The characters are wonderful. The story weaves its way through the lives of the main family and the ones surrounding them brilliantly. I learned more NY history reading this book than I ever learned in school, and I grew up in NY State. Thumbs up for this one from an avid audio book reader.

I was pretty amazed that the author was able to take the life of someone relatively boring and make it an interesting read.
Ayn Rand is interesting, but her life wasn't all that exciting. The author managed to find things about Ms. Rand's life that that helped the reader understand her legacy. The narrator did a very good job reading this one.

I just finished this book. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I did make it through it. I basically understood what passed for a plot. It was even interesting, given its setting. However, the characters weren't people I liked. As I got farther and farther into the story I couldn't wait for them all to just go away, which they did. So, my recommendation would be to read it if you are interested in the era of history after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Hungry does have some interesting history, and I did feel like the author had a healthy respect for this. But what did any of it have to do with Prague? I believe that city was mentioned only a few times in the whole book.