The Girls Are Gone

By: Michael Brodkorb, Allison Mann

Narrated by: Michael Brodkorb, Allison Mann

Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's Summary

On the evening of April 19, 2013, Samantha and Gianna Rucki disappeared. Two of five children born to David Rucki and Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, the teenage sisters vanished in the midst of their parents divorce.

The girls father, David Rucki, worked tirelessly with law enforcement to search day and night for his two missing daughters, following every lead while raising three remaining children at home. Their mother, Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, used her newfound freedom to vacation around the world, abandoning her children. And as the investigation intensified, catching the attention of the media, Sandra also disappeared.
 

The Girls Are Gone is the true story of two sisters who went missing, the father who kept searching, and the adults who conspired to keep the truth hidden.

©2018 Michael Brodkorb, Allison Mann (P)2019 Michael Brodkorb, Allison Mann

Unacceptable audio/unfortunate return

When the female narrator is reading, things were manageable with only a few repeated sentences that weren’t properly “cut”. When the male began reading, I was unable to continue. He reads without fluency, openly states his frustration with himself when he makes a mistake, and this was not cut out. There was a sentence repeated at least 4-5 times in a row with this type of issue. His reading is very choppy, without emotion or proper tone, and repetitive. This may be a book best suited for reading, and not listening to audio. The story was interesting, but overall lacked quality as it went on. That combined with the males audio, and I had to return.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Worst Narration Ever

I'm writing this while not done with the book. Let me start by saying that i listen to a lot of books and podcasts. I feel like I'm probablay a pretty good judge as to whether or not someone does a good enough job with reading the book or script. I've fought through ones that I felt weren't great, becuase I'm interested in the content. This one is so bad, that I am hopful that I can make it all the way through. But, it remains to be seen. The content is great. It's the kind of story that I can get interested in. But, the woman reading sounds like she can't get through it fast enough. She sounds like she's at the front of the class reading her book report. There's no real inflexion or anything. it's just read the words quickly. Sometimes so quickly that she sounds as if she's running out of air before she can get the sentence out. In addition, they felt is was a good idea to include the other author on teh recording. My understanding was that he was going to read parts of the book. As of right now, his contribution as been to read, what I'm gathering is the bold print at the beginning of a new chapter. So, sometimes it's simply ONE WORD! As I said, I'm interested in the content, so my goal is to fight through this. But, I think if I were going to recommend this book, I'd say it would be wise to read it instead. The positive is that I have a new found respect for the professional book readers that make these recordings. Sometimes I think they over dramatize the books. But, they are WAY better than the alternative. I apologize to the authors of this book for this review. I'm certain that they are great journalists and people. But, I would want to know if I was them! Pay someone to read your book.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Did anyone edit this?

The story was interesting and I really appreciated all the info and court records. But the editing was terrible. I’ve listened to lots of books where the narrator occasionally repeats lines and I am pretty understanding about. But towards the end of this book I was just like 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ did no one listen to this before publishing? Sometimes they repeated lines 3 or 4 times? Would definitely recommend re-releasing with editing and professional narrator because content was interesting.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Authors should not read their own books

The narration is awful - why some authors either choose or are asked to read their material is puzzling if the end result sounds as amateur as this selection. Michael Brodkorb and Allison Mann alternate narration and both struggle or rush through reading as if a gun was to their heads. It made some passages difficult to get through. Mr. Brodkorb in particular is poor narrator, coming off as mechanical and dis-impassioned, even though it's his tale to tell. The whole book was incredibly difficult to listen to, but the story is so fascinating that I pushed past my irritation to get to the end. I'd recommend the book, but not the audiobook.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Good story, need better narrators

Important story to understand but sadly the narration was stiff and lacking. As someone who listens to a lot of audiobooks /podcasts, I think that having a professional narrator would have made this story more interesting. Maybe reading it on your own in the hardback version would better.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Interesting story

But the editing is poor. There is one whole chapter near the end that was not edited at all. Flubs, stops, repeats were not edited out. At times the male narrator is reading so fast he is slurring his words. It is a relief when the female narrator resumes her sections.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Unedited in audio format

The case is interesting and the writing isn't terrible. I'd say this is about par with the normal true crime book you'd pick up. The issue I had is the audio version is read by the authors, so their delivery is very monotonous, and it's clearly unedited. It's very, very common to hear the authors repeat sentences at least twice. There was one instance where one sentence was repeated FIVE TIMES. Hell, one time you can clearly hear Michael start to curse or whatever because he couldn't get the passage right before it's cut off. I think you could cut an hr off the time of this book by simply cutting all the repeated passages.

This isn't the authors fault -- unless they *insisted* on reading the book for whatever reason (why authors, why?!) I'm not saying the book is bad or the writing is bad. I'm saying this was terribly edited in audio format and shouldn't be available until these issues are fixed. If you're fine with the authors delivery and them repeating sentences over and over and over and over and over again, go for it.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Excellent Read

I purchased this book because I happened to hear the an interview on NPR and I liked the repore the authors had together. The subject of parental alienation did not exist in my vocabulary before last Tuesday. I still don’t understand why she did what she did but I guess maybe she doesn’t know herself. The narration wasn’t a 10 but close. I Like that the authors read it themselves. You can hear the emotion in their voices when reading parts of the experience that left some impact. This book is a solid 5 stars.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Awesome storytelling

While you would think reading tons of court transcripts would be unbelievably boring, Michael and Allison made the telling of this outrageous story just the opposite. They went above and beyond for this family and in their quest for the truth. I have the utmost respect and admiration for them both. They were professional even in the most bizarre craziness I’m sure they had ever beared witness to. Outstanding job!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Audio updated!

If you previously downloaded The Girls Are Gone audiobook that contained the chapter with some audible redo errors, please re-download the audio of this book. This is Ian Levitt with Studio Americana. We recorded and edited this audiobook and have revised the files to fix the erred lines in one of the later chapters. Listeners will now hear the corrected version when downloading. Again, if you downloaded the audio previous to December 6th, please re-download to hear the updated version.