To the Power of Three

A Novel

By: Laura Lippman

Narrated by: Alexandra O'Karma

Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

There are excellent reasons why New York Times best-selling author Laura Lippman has won the Edgar®, Agatha, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, and every other major award the mystery genre has to offer. To the Power of Three is just one of those reasons. Lippman's brilliant and disturbing tale of three inseparable high school girlfriends in an affluent Baltimore suburb who share dark secrets literally until death, To the Power of Three is this "writing powerhouse" (USA Today), who has "exploded the boundaries of the mystery genre to become one of the most significant social realists of our time" (Madison Smartt Bell) operating at the very top of her game. Not merely crime fiction, but fiction that gets to the deep psychological, emotional, and human roots of a terrible crime, Lippman's novel is one that will not be easily forgotten - a must-listen for fans of Kate Atkinson, Tana French, Jodi Picoult, and Harlan Coben.

©2009 Laura Lippman (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

This isn't how teens sound

Would you try another book from Laura Lippman and/or Alexandra O'Karma?

I love Laura Lippman but Alexandra O'Karma made every teen girl sound the same (depressed, bored).

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

I stayed interested and wanted to find out if I'd guessed correctly. (I had.) There was no jaw dropping plot twist but the story was entertaining and characters interesting.

Did Alexandra O'Karma do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

No. As stated above, every teen girl sounded the same, used the same cadence, inflections, etc. I have 6 kids and I work with adolescents, so I know that even best friends don't sound that much alike or that depressed.

The story is wonderful, the narration is painful

This was probably one of Ms. Lippman’s best stories and is certainly one of the worst narrated books.

The narrator sounds half dead, has no inflection and you can hear her swallowing, licking her lips and breathing like an obscene phone caller. It was painful to listen to.

She also takes such long pauses I frequently thought the narration stopped all together.

Read the book, skip the audio.

Disappointing, terrible narration

When I purchased To the Power of Three I didn't realize it was published in 2005. I've read a lot of Laura Lippmann books and liked them all. Thank goodness I didn't read this first. There's a reason it was just released in audio— it's slow. Maybe even dull. "Maybe" because the narration is so dull it's hard to tell if the book itself is dull or just in need of editing. It's even possible that with the right narrator the audio version could have improved upon the print version. But alas, the chosen narrator is just awful. Slow. Dull. Monotonous. Sleep-inducing. Same voice for every character.

To make things worse, the production quality is also terrible. For long stretches we hear the narrator's deep inhales and gulping swallows. Some chapters run into each other without pause and others break with such long silences I found myself checking to see if I'd hit the pause button accidentally.

I was ready to stop and return the book multiple times but just couldn't believe a Laura Lippman audiobook could be this hard to listen to! And periodically the narrator's pace would pick up a bit and the embarrassing, wet background noises would disappear, giving me hope after all! For awhile. Then back to the slow monotone and personal moments.

Take my advice— pass on this one. Audible, I wasted a credit on this. You should have insisted on a do-over before stocking this Laura Lippmann novel. I feel taken advantage of.

Worst narration ever.

The narrator suffers from dry mouth and possibly asthma, since you hear her every inhalation. It was really annoying, but I like Laura Lippman's writing so I listened to it all. Had I realized another narrator read an abridged version, I probably would have bought it instead.

Good story, horrible narration and production

I love this author but it was a struggle to finish this book. I listened to it at 1.45 speed and while it sped up the droll monotonous sentences, you could still drive a truck between phrases. I often would look at my phone in between to check to make sure it was still playing the pauses were so long.
Plus the constant sound of licking lips and breathing got awkward and frustrating.
I wish I had read this one in book form, I probably would have enjoyed it much more.