Heartless

By: Marissa Meyer

Narrated by: Rebecca Soler

Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's Summary

From New York Times best-selling author of The Lunar Chronicles, Marissa Meyer, comes Heartless, a vision of Wonderland like none you've seen before, telling the untold story of the girl who would the notorious Queen of Hearts. 

Long before she was the Queen of Hearts, Catherine Pinkerton was just a girl who wanted to fall in love.

Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland and a favourite of the unmarried King of Hearts, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next queen. 

Then Cath meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the king and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship. Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness and monsters, fate has other plans.

©2019 Marissa Meyer (P)2019 Macmillan Digital Audio

Horrible Narration

In my opinion, if you are not English then please do not put on an English accent when reading books. Accents for characters should not be attempted unless you can accurately portray that accent. I could not stand hearing her go back and forth from American accented narration to trying to give English accents to the characters. Ugh. Ruined the whole book. I ended up switching to a hard copy instead.

Marvellous

I loved the narration, Rebbeca Soler is extremly talentes, she managed to voice each character in a way I didn't believe it was the same person talking, she really makes the audio book a whole experience.

Loved it!

I love a good retelling and this one has been on my TBR pile for a while. I read Melissa's Lunar Chronicles series last year and I LOVED it! So when I saw this was on audio I just had to grab it.

This book is set before Alice in Wonderland and tells the story of how Catherine became the Queen of Hearts. I liked this different take on a retelling by telling the villains story. This has happened a few times recently in a few Disney films and it's something I really like. I feel like people most of the time there is a reason people have turned evil.

Catherine is young and full of dreams. She is an avid baker and dreams of opening her own bakery. She loves the way her treats make people happy. Catherine was such an endearing character that you really struggle to see how she can become the Queen of Hearts. Marissa does such a good job of making Catherine likeable. I kept hoping that somewhere something would go right for her and things wouldn't turn out so terrible.

I'm not a die-hard Alice in Wonderland fan but it did make me want to read the book (or maybe watch the film!) I loved that some of the characters like The Mad Hatter were in the book. It really made the story feel real.

I'd love this to become a series as I feel there is more that could come from these characters but I equally understand why it's a standalone. If you love a retelling with a twist then I would highly recommend this story. Especially the audio version. Rebecca has such a great voice I could listen to her read to me all day. She does such an excellent job of portraying the story and differentiating the voices.

Great prequel to Alice in wonderland

Kept trying to guess how and when she would turn evil and was not disappointed at all! Only little thing was the accents used was a little overdone and kind of ruined a few characters .

The ending 😞

I've become a huge fan of Marissa's books. Heartless was fantastic from start to finish. it was engaging, whimsical and also scary in parts. The ending made me sad so if you're looking for a HEA this may not be the book for you, but it was sooooooo good. the narration was top notch too. I have nothing bad to say. I loved it.

The accents. Dear God why?

I'm only a chapter in, and I just cannot fathom what on earth possessed this narrator to give every character (so far) British accents when she can barely sustain a vaguely passable facsimile of something approaching the approximate vicinity of a semi-reasonable imitation of an accent that sounds a teensy bit like a comedy English accent for three syllables before it breaks down.

Please, American narrators, for the love of God, if you haven't lived in the UK for an extended period and/or drilled the hell out of the accent with a native British tutor (ideally both + a naturally good ear for accents), stop trying to do the accent. No, it doesn't sound real. Yes, you sound like an American who might, at best, have heard the Queen speak on the telly once. No, Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins and Heather Graham in From Hell are not good choices upon which to model your accent. Just stop it.

I was really looking forward to this book, and I liked Rebecca Soler's work on the Lunar Chronicles (apart from Queen Camilla, as the accent suffered from the same problem, but she appeared so infrequently that it was easily ignored. Not so here), but this...it just hurts to listen to.

Gave me a headache

Didn’t like it. SLOW. BORING. STORY. & the narrator as well was agitating. The story was everywhere.

Amazing!

Wow first of all every part of this book was amazing from the writing to the narration and voices used for every character! I cant remember the last time I enjoyed a story as much as Ben I have with Heartless

Amazing story to how she became the Red Queen

I loved this book. I am a big Disney fan and always wondered how this backstory might be, but it was amazing So if you love romance, mysery and have a sucker for villians This is a book I would recommend. ps. sry for bad english

Irritating Heroine

I’ve enjoyed the other stories in the series, but I found the heroine in this tale incredibly irritating. I think the author was going for high born daughter who just wants a humble life as a baker but instead she just came off as selfish, spoiled, prideful and determined to get her own way regardless of its impact on others. I found her so disagreeable it ruined any chance of my enjoying the tale.

A bit disappointed

Based on her previous book, that I really enjoyed, this one was a bit disappointing and not what I have expected. Narration is good.