The Case Book of Abee Normal

Paranormal Investigations, Volume 1

De: Claudia Hall Christian

Narrado por: Maria Herrera

Dead or alive, everyone likes Abee Normal.

“My name is Abee Talent Normal. I live in the forest just outside of town in that house you thought was haunted.” Abee Normal gives up her dream of going to Princeton in order to stay home and care for her mother, Joanna, who has multiple sclerosis. Abee and her great-great-or-something-like-that-grandmother, Ma'am, travel around the United States investigating paranormal phenomena. Abee Normal is bright, funny, and hugely likable. Her Ma'am is... well, you'll just have to listen to find out. This case book is a collection of Abee and Ma'am's first six cases. Abee Normal is don't-miss fiction.

©2018 Cook Street Publishing, LLC and Claudia Hall Christian (P)2019 Cook Street Publishing, LLC and Claudia Hall Christian

Both the stories and the narrator are wonderful.

These stories are charming and the characters endearing. I instantly fell in love with the narrator. She brought the characters and stories alive. Tone, rhythm, pacing were all wonderful. Looking forward to future stories in this series.

Great listen

The characters are very well done and the story draws you right in. The combination of the paranormal mixed with some Southern history makes this series stand out

Another one knocked out of the Park

What can I say that would make anyone want to read or listen to this book? I love Abee Normal and Ma'am. The adventures they are something of fantasies. They took me back to that imaginative kid I was a very long time ago. I love how Abee feels everything and no matter how special she is, she still have her faults. She freely admits those and finds her true self along the way.

Ma'am turns out to be her partner in crime while Everett just loves her. I love this book! I cannot wait to her Volume 2.

Great story made hard to listen to

I enjoyed the stories of Abee and her Ma’am and I’m definitely interested in learning more about each of them. I feel like the author writes an engaging story. I did not like the excessive repetition of “Ma’am said” or “Abee said”.

Now, I’m going to criticize the narration of this audible book, but not necessarily the narrator. I feel like she was given a very difficult task of bringing these characters to life with a distinct accent, and there was good character differentiation in MOST places (not all). However, The actual narrator/storyteller of the book really did not need to have a Louisiana or whatever it was accent. It was just too much to listen to and distracted from the story.

It’s actually kind of rare that I think reading a book would be better than listening to it, but if I’m going to have to listen to that accent throughout the entire thing, then I would be much better off reading it.

Great Stories!

I loved finally hearing one of CHC's stories brought to life. Now, if we could just get the Denver Cereal or Alex the Fey in audiobook format!

Bad all over, to be honest.

This story has so much potential but over all feels as if it were written by a fifth grader. The majority of the book is, "She said" "He said" or "-character name said", as dialouge reads more like scanning over text message screen captures rather than actual conversation.

Key points in the stories that should be expounded upon are glossed over- which I understand, for a collection of short stories, but it would be far more interesting to learn about how spirits work in this world rather than hearing the same description of the car every single time they get into it. The editing is also poorly done, with things like "Silently she slipped into the door, silently." I don't understand how even a novice editor could miss such things.

Audio wise, the editing is also very poorly done. Corrections for words that were clearly mispronounced break the cadence of the reading, as they have not been altered to match the tone or rythem, leaving a clearly harsh correction in the middle of a sentence akin to a bleep on a curse word.

I am glad I got this on the 2 for 1 deal, so I don't feel too terrible about having given it a shot. It could have been so much better.