These Things Hidden

By: Heather Gudenkauf

Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Angela Lin, Angela Goethals

Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Author Heather Gudenkauf won instant acclaim for her USA Today and New York Times best-selling debut, The Weight of Silence.

Once the golden child of tiny Linden Falls, Iowa, Allison Glenn watches her reputation crumble as she is sent to prison for five years—convicted of a terrible crime. But what really happened that fateful night? Allison’s younger sister is the only other person who knows the truth. Now out of prison, Allison is more desperate than ever to set the record straight, but the revelation of the truth could have far-reaching consequences.

©2011 Heather Gudenkauf (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC

Below Marginal

I rarely write reviews, but this book was just awful enough that I felt duty bound to warn off my fellow audible listeners. While the performance was decent, I kept waiting for the story to develop. Well, hope you don't mind waiting for that to happen in the last 3 chapters, only to discover it's a horrible plot in the first place!!! My advice? Spend your credits (or $money) elsewhere!

No mystery involved

This book is a depressing, unrealistic collision of horribly unlikeable characters. It started like a polictical commentary on Safe Haven laws and went downhill from there.

hmmmm

What would have made These Things Hidden better?

Action - too long

What do you think your next listen will be?

not sure

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

Alison

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from These Things Hidden?

Halfway house scenes -

Any additional comments?

I loved the narrators voices, I just didn't like the storyline - way to long of a book for this story. Was glad when it was over. Sorry.

Disjointed

At the onset of the novel, the author bounces back and forth too much as she introduces the different characters of the story, making it difficult to get a grip of the plot. It drags along for over an hour of listening before the reader actually finds out what crime the main character was accused of committing. However, once at the halfway point, it does pick up enough to hold your interest.

This is bad

This book is bad, really bad. I don't think I have ever written a bad review of a book. I can usually find something I enjoy about them, but the characters in this story are trite and unbelievable. I generally enjoy listening to mindless stories (even Harlequins) while I exercise or do boring domestic stuff, but this story just doesn't work. Find something else.

Please save yourself the time

Is there anything you would change about this book?

This is the first review I've written for Audible and I have listened to so, so many. This was described as a psychological thriller. It was not. It was not thrilling. It was interesting but slowly paced. There was a BIT of a surprise at the end but a twisty, shocker of a close? No. No, not at all. The narration was very well done by the sisters. A bit overdone by Claire and Charm. I expected more.

Would you ever listen to anything by Heather Gudenkauf again?

Maybe.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

Allison

Boring, don't bother

This book was really boring, I thought about shutting it off half was through but thought it might get better. The last 10 minutes was great. The narrators for 2 of the characters was good, the author for the other 2 characters made we want to fall asleep while I was driving.

Predictable

I am listening to the last half hour of this book while I am writing this and I am looking forward to finish it up.

For me the secrets in the book were very predictable and therefore reading/listening to it not very exciting.

The perspective in which the story was told was odd and I didn't feel that it did anything to make it more interesting.

And while we spent a lot of time getting to know the characters, the descriptions didn't do anything to carry the story better.

Just Don’t

This story went from fairly interesting to beyond implausible alignment of stars bringing characters together in a way that could only happen in an authors sick twisted imagination exploiting teen angst unwanted pregnancy and mental illness. Oh yeh and a little infertility and adoption. Book reader beware.