No One Lives Twice

By: Julie Moffett

Narrated by: Kristin Watson Heintz

Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

"I'm Lexi Carmichael, geek extraordinaire. I spend my days stopping computer hackers at the National Security Agency. My nights? Those I spend avoiding my mother and eating cereal for dinner. Even though I work for a top-secret agency, I've never been in an exciting car chase, sipped a stirred (not shaken) martini, or shot a poison dart from an umbrella.

"Until today, that is, when two gun-toting thugs popped up in my life and my best friend disappeared. So, I've enlisted the help of the Zimmerman twins - the reclusive architects of America's most sensitive electronic networks - to help me navigate a bewildering maze of leads to find her.

"Along the way, my path collides with a sexy government agent and a rich, handsome lawyer, both of whom seem to have the hots for me. Hacking, espionage, sexy spy-men - it's a geek girl's dream come true. If it weren't for those gun-toting thugs...."

©2010 Julie Moffett (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Fun

Narrator was great with accents. Difference between male and female not so much. Book took a while to build, enjoyed it in the end.

Fun read - but the narrator is notta so gud!

This is a light hearted spy book with some fun, interesting characters - but the narrator ruins the experience. She sounds like she is mocking an Italian accent - speaks too slowly and with an exaggerated, comedic tone whenever the Italian character is speaking. It brought to mind an old Alka-Seltzer commercial with an old Italian man who needed an antacid because "thata wasa spicy meat-a-ball-a". Insulting then, insulting now.

I enjoyed everything else about the book - the plot had a great twist at the end - and an original premise. I loved the Keystone Cops ending. What a shame that the narration ruined so much of it. Still worth a credit, or a purchase if it's on sale, only because the story is that good. But I hope Slash doesn't have too many scenes in the rest of the series.

Okay

I felt like it was an introduction of characters as most first books are. The main character came off as naive and not worldly as meant to. The thing I can't get over is the narrator. The Italian accent sounds like Count Dracula or maybe more like Count Chokula from the cereal commercials when I was a kid.

OK story, really bad accents

The story is OK, not very deep and I would like it to be more about hacking than how inept she is around people. The narrator is fine with Lexi's dialog, but when she tries to do accents, they are so bad (especially Italian) that it is distracting from the story.

Popcorn mystery easy on the ears

Once I bumped the narration to 1.25, I found this book to be good commuting audio. Like a beach book, if you’re not looking for sharp, robust, or deep and just want unique characters, a plucky heroine and hints of romance (nothing more than a kiss at a time, smattered occasionally in the book) with mildly amusing banter and a mystery where characters matter more than plot, then this book works fine.

All of the different accents were unnecessary and distracting from the story. Unlike some reviewers, however, I didn’t find it so horrible, except for the times I kept hearing Slash’s accent as Count Chocula. Also, the male voices, to me, didn’t always mesh well with the characters. Slash in particular seemed like he was supposed to be more dark and dangerous: he’s a muscled hacker with smooth Italian charm and confident spy moves, but he sounds like a cocky teenager.

I was mildly annoyed by the stupidity of the smart techie heroine. She is attacked outside her parents house and says nothing to them (even though dad could easily bring his powerful connections in); she has a cop brother who she gets to run down a lead but who she doesn’t seek protection from or apparently trust to let in on her investigation; she keeps going back to her apartment after endless break ins; and she works for the NSA but never goes to them for help. Because it makes so much more sense to conduct a complex investigation facing repeated life threatening strangers without the aid of law enforcement.

I think a different narrator would bump this book up to four stars (I would definitely give it a second chance if narrated by Rene Raudman or TG Reynolds) but these will always be nothing more than light, popcorn flicks to pass the time.

As a “free” book to be borrowed under the monthly Audible Escapes subscription, it was worth it. I doubt I will spend the big bucks to purchase the later installments however.

Fast paced and smart

This was a great book.
The story was clever and complex and not a cookie cutter plot. It was fast paced and I enjoyed Lexi and the rest of her friends.
The narrator was alright, not great. Some accents were a little off - Spanish sounding like chinese - but overall the performance was good.

No One Lives Twice

I just happened upon this new to me cyber spy mystery series by a new to me author. Although I feel it could have have been shortened a bit, it had more than enough intriguing twists & turns to keep me reading. At this point, I plan to try the second in the series as it holds a lot of potential especially with cyber security becoming more & more vital to our & our own country’s interests.

Yikes

The plot is okay but the writing is amateur-ish, however, had the narration been good I would have enjoyed the listen. Unfortunately the narration was awful. The narrator does not develop characters well and her accents are cringe worthy. The Italian character, for example, sounds like a Hispanic Dracula. Every time “he” spoke I wanted to throw my listening device across the room. I only finished the listen to find out how the story ends. Thank goodness I’m done!

Good Story Line- Narrator is not THAT bad

What made the experience of listening to No One Lives Twice the most enjoyable?

I liked the narration. She did do a really bad Italian accent, but I thought her voice was pleasant and easy to listen to- the other accents were GREAT!

Who was your favorite character and why?

I liked that Lexi could laugh at herself.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

As above the performance was GREAT except for the Italian accent.... It sounded a little more like Dracula... but otherwise I thought she did a good job

Certainly not rocket science....

But I was surprised at the thriller aspect of this lightweight book. The narrator was good, the story got into more detail than I expected on the thriller part, the main character wasn't an airhead. She was only 25 but I didn't feel like I was listening to a Young Adult book. It was pretty unbelievable, but you can't read War and Peace on a regular basis. There wasn't any sex, there was some romance (mostly every man falling for the main character who was a computer geek), and I didn't have to totally suspend belief. It was a bit too long because the author seems to living life through Lexi (main character) and making the most of every heroic and romantic experience for her, but that's what fast speed is for.

Oh, the narrator was pretty good. However, if Slash is going to be a continuing character, she needs to work on his voice. He sounds like a 10 year boy trying to be smarmy and succeeding.

On the whole, I'd recommend this. And I've already put the 2d of the Lexi series in my library. Why not?