Your audiobook is waiting…
The Infatuations
People who bought this also bought...
-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate; she works an easy job at a hip art gallery and lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
-
-
I love it...
- By Claudia Gallegos on 07-12-18
-
The Sellout
- A Novel
- By: Paul Beatty
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.
-
-
Brilliant book, fantastic narrator!
- By Bonnie B. on 07-27-15
-
Eileen
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father's caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys' prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city.
-
-
Strange, unsettling, but engrossing
- By S. Yates on 01-09-18
-
The Mars Room
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Kushner
- Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Featuring original music by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon! It's 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility, deep in California's Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: the San Francisco of her youth and her young son, Jackson. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the absurdities of institutional living, which Kushner evokes with great humor and precision.
-
-
Amazing novel !
- By Amazon Customer on 06-08-18
-
Thus Bad Begins
- A Novel
- By: Javier Marias, Margaret Jull Costa
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Madrid, 1980. Juan de Vere, nearly finished with his university degree, takes a job as personal assistant to Eduardo Muriel, an eccentric, once-successful film director. Urbane, discreet, irreproachable, Muriel is an irresistible idol to the young man. But Muriel's voluptuous wife, Beatriz, inhabits their home like an unwanted ghost, and on the periphery of their lives is Dr. Jorge Van Vechten, a family friend implicated in unsavory rumors that Muriel now asks Juan to investigate.
-
-
Fascinating plot, superb performance, psychological depth
- By Doctor George on 12-05-16
-
Washington Black
- A Novel
- By: Esi Edugyan
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Washington Black, or "Wash", an 11-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master's brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning - and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Christopher and Wash must abandon everything.
-
-
Now what do I do?
- By Mary L. Doyle on 10-04-18
-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate; she works an easy job at a hip art gallery and lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
-
-
I love it...
- By Claudia Gallegos on 07-12-18
-
The Sellout
- A Novel
- By: Paul Beatty
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.
-
-
Brilliant book, fantastic narrator!
- By Bonnie B. on 07-27-15
-
Eileen
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father's caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys' prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city.
-
-
Strange, unsettling, but engrossing
- By S. Yates on 01-09-18
-
The Mars Room
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Kushner
- Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Featuring original music by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon! It's 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility, deep in California's Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: the San Francisco of her youth and her young son, Jackson. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the absurdities of institutional living, which Kushner evokes with great humor and precision.
-
-
Amazing novel !
- By Amazon Customer on 06-08-18
-
Thus Bad Begins
- A Novel
- By: Javier Marias, Margaret Jull Costa
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Madrid, 1980. Juan de Vere, nearly finished with his university degree, takes a job as personal assistant to Eduardo Muriel, an eccentric, once-successful film director. Urbane, discreet, irreproachable, Muriel is an irresistible idol to the young man. But Muriel's voluptuous wife, Beatriz, inhabits their home like an unwanted ghost, and on the periphery of their lives is Dr. Jorge Van Vechten, a family friend implicated in unsavory rumors that Muriel now asks Juan to investigate.
-
-
Fascinating plot, superb performance, psychological depth
- By Doctor George on 12-05-16
-
Washington Black
- A Novel
- By: Esi Edugyan
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Washington Black, or "Wash", an 11-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master's brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning - and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Christopher and Wash must abandon everything.
-
-
Now what do I do?
- By Mary L. Doyle on 10-04-18
-
Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
-
-
Good!
- By Juliette Sigmond on 02-08-17
-
Florida
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Lauren Groff
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over a decade ago, Groff moved to her adopted home state of Florida. The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida - its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind - becomes its gravitational center. Storms, snakes, and sinkholes lurk at the edge of everyday life, but the greater threats and mysteries are of a human, emotional, and psychological nature. Groff's evocative storytelling and knife-sharp intelligence first transport the listener, then jolt us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty....
-
-
Listening to this again
- By mommyof2 on 08-06-18
-
Less
- By: Andrew Sean Greer
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You are a failed novelist about to turn 50. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: Your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question: How do you arrange to skip town? Answer: You accept them all.
-
-
Endearing, funny, but sometimes overly clever
- By Lili on 07-30-17
-
Asymmetry
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Halliday
- Narrated by: Candace Thaxton, Arthur Morey, Fiona Hardingham, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, "Folly", tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. A tender and exquisite account of an unexpected romance that takes place in New York during the early years of the Iraq War.
-
-
This is not a fair review. Doesn’t work in audio format.
- By Elizabeth on 02-16-18
-
Priestdaddy
- A Memoir
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Patricia Lockwood
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met - a man who lounges in boxer shorts, who loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972". His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.
-
-
Holy Smutty Metaphors!
- By Mel on 05-18-17
-
My Struggle, Book 1
- By: Karl Ove Knausgaard, Don Bartlett - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Struggle: Book One introduces American listeners to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable.
-
-
A Perfect Reading for This Book
- By Scott on 04-14-15
-
Never Let Me Go
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.
-
-
Be patient; it will pay off
- By Kc on 05-23-05
-
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
- A Novel
- By: Ben Fountain
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents - caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew - has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America's most sought-after heroes. For the past two weeks, the Bush administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide victory tour to reinvigorate public support for the war. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of a Dallas football team, slated to be part of the halftime show.
-
-
Fortunate Son
- By W Perry Hall on 04-09-14
-
Nutshell
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Rory Kinnear
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of Atonement, Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a perspective and voice unlike any in recent literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master. To be bound in a nutshell, see the world in two inches of ivory, in a grain of sand. Why not, when all of literature, all of art, of human endeavour is just a speck in the universe of possible things?
-
-
The Long Version, and the Short.
- By Ilana on 09-19-16
-
Motherhood
- A Novel
- By: Sheila Heti
- Narrated by: Sheila Heti
- Length: 5 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Motherhood, Sheila Heti asks what is gained and what is lost when a woman becomes a mother, treating the most consequential decision of early adulthood with candor, originality, and humor. In her late 30s, when her friends are asking when they will become mothers, the narrator of Heti’s intimate and urgent audiobook considers whether she will do so at all. In a narrative spanning several years, casting among the influence of her peers, partner, and her duties to her forebearers, she struggles to make a wise and moral choice.
-
-
I admire that she gave herself so much permission.
- By Ingrid on 06-03-18
-
Flights
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time.
-
-
Curious and beautifully written
- By Alejandra on 10-24-18
-
The Refugees
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the coruscating gaze that informed The Sympathizer, in The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will.
-
-
Good collection of short stories
- By Thomas More on 03-19-17
Publisher's Summary
From the award-winning Spanish writer Javier Marías comes an extraordinary new book that has been a literary sensation around the world: an immersive, provocative novel propelled by a seemingly random murder that we come to understand - or do we? - through one woman’s ever-unfurling imagination and infatuations.
At the Madrid café where she stops for breakfast each day before work, María Dolz finds herself drawn to a couple who is also there every morning. Though she can hardly explain it, observing what she imagines to be their "unblemished" life lifts her out of the doldrums of her own existence. But what begins as mere observation turns into an increasingly complicated entanglement when the man is fatally stabbed in the street. María approaches the widow to offer her condolences, and at the couple’s home she meets - and falls in love with - another man who sheds disturbing new light on the crime. As María recounts this story, we are given a murder mystery brilliantly reimagined as metaphysical enquiry, a novel that grapples with questions of love and death, guilt and obsession, chance and coincidence, how we are haunted by our losses, and above all, the slippery essence of the truth and how it is told.
Critic Reviews
“Blindingly intelligent, engagingly accessible—it seems there’s nothing Marías can’t make fiction do. No wonder he’s perennially mentioned as a potential Nobel laureate . . . Marías’s rare gift is his ability to make intellectual jousting as suspenseful as the chase scenes in a commercial thriller. He’s tremendously stimulating to read; arresting turns of phrase enfold piercing insights.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“A haunting masterpiece . . . The lasting challenge to literature is to achieve a satisfying marriage between high art and the low drives of a simple plot. The Infatuations is just such a novel . . . Marías plays with perception, memory, and guilt like a toreador. With every flourish of his literary cape, the enthralled reader is never allowed to forget that, in the end, the author will make a killing. Just as Macbeth is a thriller that’s also a great tragedy, The Infatuations is a murder story that’s also a profound story of fatal obsession . . . Great Spanish novels don’t come along too often. Don Quixote was first published as long ago as 1620. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Infatuations soon acquired an equally devoted following.” —The Observer
“Extraordinary . . . [A] masterly novel . . . The classical themes of love, death, and fate are explored with elegant intelligence by Marías in what is perhaps his best novel so far . . . Marías has defined the ethos of our time.” —Alberto Manguel, The Guardian
“Marías [is] a consummate stylist . . . The cadences of his exquisite sentences are preserved in translator Costa’s English, the clauses balanced like a loaded scale . . . It is magic, stupendous, and not done for effect.” —Booklist (starred)
“Absorbing and unnerving . . . For all the currents that ripple across its surface, The Infatuations is powered ultimately by the pressure of good old-fashioned suspense . . . A labyrinthine exploration, at once thrilling and melancholy, of the meanings of one man’s death—and a vivid testimony to the power of stories, for good or ill, to weave the world into our thoughts and our thoughts into the world.” —The Sunday Times (London)
More from the same
What members say
Average Customer Ratings
Overall
-
-
5 Stars19
-
4 Stars16
-
3 Stars20
-
2 Stars11
-
1 Stars7
Performance
-
-
5 Stars16
-
4 Stars11
-
3 Stars10
-
2 Stars12
-
1 Stars14
Story
-
-
5 Stars15
-
4 Stars17
-
3 Stars15
-
2 Stars12
-
1 Stars3
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- stl1111
- La Grande, OR, United States
- 08-19-13
Skip this one!
This book had positive publicist reviews and still sounds very interesting. I am a patient listener and more than willing to give a book lots of time to develop. But I couldn't listen to this narrator more than 4 hours. She sounds distraught and overly emotional at all times - even when not appropriate to the story. She's awful! I was driving and eventually listened to my young grandson's music rather than tolerate her another minute! This book may be one that is worth reading but don't bother listening.
12 of 13 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Julie Ann Mendez-deLeon
- 08-21-13
Narration was awful.
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Probably not. I expected more from the reviews, but was disappointed.
What could Javier Marías and Margaret Jull Costa (translator) have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
The story was alright but the author is redundant--essentially repeats himself ad nauseam
same ideas over and over. Nor are the ideas themselves particularly novel or new.
What didn’t you like about Justine Eyre’s performance?
Her vocal range is very limited. The quality of her voice was forced, breathy, and her diction is poor. The sound quality was not so great.
Was The Infatuations worth the listening time?
I could have skipped it.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jami E. Nettles
- 09-04-13
Narration makes the book impossible to listen to
I can't remember ever being so put off by a narrator, unless it was something technical such as a ridiculous fake accent or slow pace. This narrator simpers and whines her way through various characters in a way that totally trivializes the book. The themes of this book should provoke thought and reflection, but instead I just wanted the main characters to grow up - I couldn't imagine them feeling any emotion other than self-pity. What a shame.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- j
- 01-15-14
Unlistenable narration - can't go beyond 30 mins
What would have made The Infatuations better?
Maria's is a fine writer, but listeners deserve better than Eyre's "vocal fry."
What didn’t you like about Justine Eyre’s performance?
Her "vocal fry" is an affected, annoying vocal pattern. It's hard to take seriously as well. It's the same technique employed by Jane Kozlowski's character on "30 Rock," which is a parody. Too bad- j. eyre did a good job in "Mad Men."
Any additional comments?
I'll buy the Kindle or paper edition to finish it. Wish I could return this one.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jean Tribble
- 09-04-13
Was the book awful or boring or just not my cup...
What would have made The Infatuations better?
This book may have been tolerable with a better narrator. This woman was a whiner. I will not listen to another book with this reader
What could Javier Marías and Margaret Jull Costa (translator) have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Maybe the book lost something in translation. The story would go on and on saying things like - maybe he did this or maybe he did that or maybe he even did the other. This happened over and over again. It was so boring.
How could the performance have been better?
The narrator was the worst I have ever heard.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
I was sad and disappointed that I wasted my time on this book.
Any additional comments?
This book was reviewed on NPR. Maybe this book was meant to be read instead of listened to.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Caroline
- 01-01-14
Terrible narration; I don’t know about the story
I had to give the story a rating or else I couldn’t write a review, so I am giving it an average 3 stars. I have no idea of whether the story will be any good. I simply can’t go on listening, about 30 minutes in. The narrator is terrible. She swallows the words and doesn’t articulate clearly; it is just too much hard work to understand what she’s saying as I drive or walk. Her voice is very off-putting. I don’t have the return option on this one, or I certainly would do so.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cate
- 12-11-13
Great book ruined by HORRIBLE narration
Is there anything you would change about this book?
The narrator. Worst I've ever heard.
What didn’t you like about Justine Eyre’s performance?
Ms. Eyre's narration was off-putting from the start. Less than a minute into the book I wanted to return it, but when I found that process less than straightforward and it was not a convenient time to call customer service, I decided to tough it out and try to endure the narrator's voice, hoping that the story would be compelling enough that I could ignore her. This was impossible. I listened to a few chapters like this and finally couldn't take it anymore. She sounds as though she's trying very hard to be dramatic, and as a result her speaking voice is very unnatural. Her voice has a tendency to drop into a low, creaky register which is grating, and the rest of the time she alternates between a slightly quavering, nervous sounding tone and a whiny one. When she speaks for the characters, who are all Spanish, she sometimes finds it necessary to speak in an accent, other times not. In my opinion, since the book is being read in translation, there is no need to imagine them speaking accented English, but if we must, the accent should at least be plausible. Her inconsistent application of the accent is weird enough (since all characters are Spanish, not just some of them) but the accent she applies to them is vaguely German.
It's sad - I heard a great review of this book and was very excited to read it, and now that I've switched to the kindle version I'm enjoying it much more, though the whole point of buying the audiobook was that I don't have lots of time to sit and read. It really is well written and well translated, but to listen to this woman read it would have ruined it for me. I was so excited to get the book that I neglected to read reviews first - others warned of the narration problem. I should have listened. Don't make the same mistake!
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Penny K
- 11-27-13
Listen to a sample before buying!
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
I am a lover of Javier Marias novels. I might have stayed with this listen beyond the first ten minutes, had I been able to tolerate the narrator's voice. She sounded drugged!
Would you ever listen to anything by Javier Marías and Margaret Jull Costa (translator) again?
Absolutely, with an alive narrator.
What didn’t you like about Justine Eyre’s performance?
The timbre of her voice is rather pleasant, but she gives the reading absolutely no life!
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
I really could not say. I gave the story only one star because I would have to have read the text to rate it fairly.
Any additional comments?
Yes. I want to return this book, and I understand that I need to give it less than two stars in order to do so. I wish there were a way to do so without jeopardy -- for instance, a "can't judge" option, when one can not get past the opening, for one reason or another.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Oenophile
- 09-26-16
Outstanding story
Maria's
1st the book: There is little denying that Javier Marias is a literary giant not just in the Spanish speaking world. His earlier book 'Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me' left an indelible imprint and a desire to want to read more of his works. The Infatuations is a book on the often destructive power that love and desire has on some people. Marias has an unconventional writing style ignoring some of the norms of diction. Yet that style is what sets his narrative apart from other authors. Pamuk was on the right track when he declared that Marias should be awarded the Nobel.
The narrator:
Justine Eyre does a wonderful job bringing this excellent piece of literature to life. Her slightly mezzo type voice gives the story the necessary darker tones it requires.
I immensely enjoyed immersing myself in the experience.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- R
- 01-07-16
Try to Listen Despite the Narrator's 'Vocal Fry'!
This is an amazing novel — it captivated me like no other audible book has. I agree, the narrator can have a grating voice, but if you can get over it, her voice sort of works for the novel. For the sake of the book, try to hear it that way!
The Infatuations is brilliant, eerie, mysterious book, filled with many truths and wicked insights (wickedly accurate). I enjoyed it very much and wish more of Javier Marias' books were translated and on audible.