Blindsided

By: Jay Giles

Narrated by: Ron Knowles

Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Matt Seattle, a Sarasota stockbroker, befriends an older stock enthusiast, Joe Jesso. During one of their weekly Wednesday morning sessions, Joe announces he's gotten married. A week later, Joe dies. Believing Joe may have been the victim of a black widow, Matt hires an investigator to look into Joe's death. The investigator finds old Joe wasn't so innocent; he embezzled money from a drug cartel. Suddenly, Matt finds himself battling Joe's widow and her shyster lawyer who want his money, The National Association of Security Dealers who wants his broker's license, and, oh yes, the cartel who wants his life. It's enough to turn any bull into a bear.

©2006 Jay Giles (P)2006 Reagent Press

Good old fashion good guy bad guy story I love twist

The good guy , Matt Seattle , gets snaggled by a confusing state of affairs involving money . The bad guys kidnap his girlfriend until Matt does what they want him to do . The really bad guy is a big community person and yet we see that he is the scum of the earth . There is some shooting and some beating up and some deaths. But in the end all works out well for Matt Seattle .

I downside of the narration is poor quality of the narrator imitating different voices and persons, especially female voices and persons. But the story overcomes the narration and all ends up well .

Cartoony voice.

The narrator voice sounded almost cartoony. It was unbearable. The only reason I listened to it is because it was required listening in our book club. In order to bear the narrator's voice I had to set the narration speed to high. I will not listen to this narrator ever again!

Awful narration, I couldn't last 20 minutes

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

One of the worst narrating jobs I've ever heard. The narrator sounds like the old guy you meet at the race track who wants to give you betting tips. His cavalier attitude when describing the death of the main character's family is so ridiculously blase I had to stop listening 20 minutes in. His imitation of female voices sounds like the voice you would make when trying to mock your wife/girlfriend during an argument. Do not recommend.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Didn't make it that far.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Ron Knowles?

Literally anyone else.

Was Blindsided worth the listening time?

No. And the worst part is that I wasted my money.

Blindsided by the good reviews

While the premise of the story was interesting enough to keep me listening until the end, the narration was off-putting enough to make me take frequent breaks. The female characters' voices and the extreme nasal quality of some of the male characters are dreadful. Except for the voice of Matt Seattle the other male characters' voices are merely annoying. The constant mispronunciation of "d'Onofrio," the name of one of the main characters, is also distracting.

Some of Matt Seattle's actions and reactions aren't very believable, but I found myself rooting for him to prevail.

I might listen to more of the author's work, but will studiously avoid anything read by the narrator of "Blindsided."

Entertaining

Good storyline. Several twists with a few quirky charaters make this a fun, easy read. The feel good ending a little over the top, but not enough to detract. At times the audible reading sounded odd. I felt the pronunciation of D'Onifrio is incorrect or maybe too "Americanized" for me.

Horrible narration

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I found the story interesting but was distracted by the poor narration.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

The plot had me waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

What didn’t you like about Ron Knowles’s performance?

The narration is the worst narration I have listened to. The narrator either needs new glasses or a good dictionary to get the pronunciation straight. For example on one line he describes the bad guy as being worried someone would inflate his business when the word was infiltrate. The voices of the women were high pitched and made them all sound like 95 years old. Mostly I could not stand the voices other than the protagonists. There was a lot of nasal in some of the mail voices. What irked me was that when the protagonist is having a conversation and the narrator switches voices he often did not switch the voice making it sound as if Matt's character was talking to himself.

Was Blindsided worth the listening time?

It was partially worth it because with WhisperSync I can read faster and I like using two senses to read the book.

Any additional comments?

I will not buy another audio book which Ron Knowles narrates.

Couldn't tolerate the narrator

I listened to the audio book for awhile but couldn't finish. The actual story promised to be a good one but I couldn't stomach the narrator's voice. He had a drawl that was irritating. I'm from the south and nobody talks like that. He was just a little too excited about his reading. I just couldn't listen to him for 8 hours. Maybe I'll just read the book instead. 😣

Awful

Worst I have listened to
The reading was so bad it was almost laughable Sorry

Reader is disturbing

The story line is good but the voice and reading style is difficult to tolerate

good read

story line was good but the narrators voice was hard to understand. would not recommend reader