PJ123

Preachy, pretentious, and mostly dull

Revisado: 01-09-25

I started out this book with high hopes, but got more and more tired of it as it went along. It seems Jada considers herself, a teacher of sorts, and the little “lessons“ at the end of each chapter (after a pretentious gong) felt condescending and unnecessary. I don’t need Jada Pinkett to give me exercises and teachings to be a better or more spiritual person. I just wanted to read her story.

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Terrible narration ruined this for me

Revisado: 10-01-24

I couldn’t listen past the first few chapters. The narrator vacillates between flat and boring to over dramatic and annoying.

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Brutal, sad, endless running and being captured over and over again

Revisado: 09-06-24

I can’t really say why I didn’t like this book. It’s absolutely an important story. It made me cry, it was so full of difficult truths about this country’s ugly history. I listened to the end only because I felt compelled to, hoping against hope for a happy ending.
But there was something about it just didn’t work for me. It was endlessly repetitive, Jim being captured, and then escaping, in danger then escaping, another capture and escape… running into Huckleberry, losing him, running into him again, losing him again, somehow ending up on the same boat, and then losing each other …. over and over.
Generally, when I read a well written book, I have pictures in my head of the characters, settings, and surroundings. But for some reason, the writing was such that I just couldn’t picture anything. There wasn’t much description of what each person looked like, of settings or scenery. It felt very sparse, there were just a lot of details missing for me. I wish I could say what’s missing, I really can’t. All I can say is that I was super disappointed in this book.

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Couldn’t finish it

Revisado: 08-21-24

I was really excited to read this book but found (like many others) that it’s yet another argument that the author is often not a good narrator. Some can pull it off, but others really do themselves a disservice, as I feel this one did. I think it would be much more enjoyable to simply read this, to hear the story as it happened without the overly dramatic delivery. It got so annoying, I had to stop listening. There would be so much more power in the story if the narrator would simply tell the story, without trying so hard to make everything so dramatic and meaningful.

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Great narration but a bit slow in parts

Revisado: 07-22-24

I absolutely love Graham Norton‘s books. His characters are really unique, and the tone of his stories and wonderful characters remind me a little of Roald Dahl’s writing. But this particular book moved slowly and I got a little impatient with it. I can imagine how hard it must be to make a story interesting when very little is changing for a long time, but after a while, I was just ready for whatever was going to happen to just happen, please. (Being vague to avoid spoilers)

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Some lovely writing but slow moving at times.

Revisado: 07-07-24

I enjoyed this book until about 3/4 through when it started to feel slow. Bouncing back and forth between three chapters of Bob’s life was fine for a while, but towards the end, I started to wonder if they were ever going to merge or connect in any way. That did happen to some degree, but for me, in the end the book felt unremarkable.

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The female narrator ruined this for me

Revisado: 11-09-23

I am about to return this book because of the female narrator. She is so self conscious in her reading, with strange choices for the words and sentences she chooses to emphasize. It’s read in a cutesy tone, as if she is reading to children. At first, I didn’t like the male narrator, but I came to enjoy his voice, which reminded me a bit of Tom Bodette. I might’ve been able to get into the story if I wasn’t gritting my teeth every time I had to listen to the present day narration done by Ms. Simone. I feel for the author, this narrator ruined what seemed like it was a well written story.

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Predictable and too long

Revisado: 10-06-23

I wanted to like this book, and it’s not that it isn’t well written, it is. The narration was great, too. It’s just that there are so many clues and the end is so predictable. Without giving any spoilers, as each character was introduced I quickly figured out their connection to the story, and just had to wait till the book finally reached the point where it revealed what I already knew. It went on forever, and although some details were a surprise, for the most part, I saw things coming way ahead of time. I ended up fast forwarding to the end and confirming all of my guesses. I’m sorry I wasted my time and a credit on this book.

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Unbelievably predictable

Revisado: 06-27-23

I am baffled by all of the reviews that mention a surprise twist at the end. It’s shocking to me that every person who read this didn’t see it coming as soon as the protagonist woke up in the hospital with amnesia. I finally had to skip to the end, I found this book so annoying.

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Unbelievably predictable and goes on way too long

Revisado: 05-23-23

Honestly, I cannot understand the great reviews for this book. The first half had me really interested. But it went on and on and became so predictable at every turn, that I was rolling my eyes and laughing at how corny it became.
If you don’t want to read any spoilers stop reading here.

If you read this and didn’t know that Ashlyn and Ethan would fall in love (It was so obvious the moment they met), that Hemi would show up at the event at the end, that Zachary was his son the moment you heard she had one, that Cece switched the notes, or that Belle‘s father orchestrated his wife’s death, then I’m sure this book was way more fun for you than it was for me.
But all of those things were so easy to see coming from miles away, that the book became ridiculous. It’s such a tired plot- someone does something bad, and then falls in love with the person they’re betraying, then tries to explain, change and do what’s right, gets found out and dramatically rejected, then, a series of misunderstandings, and finally a reconciliation, and a happy ever after ending. I’ve read this many times in different forms, and it’s so tired and overwrought. I’m actually embarrassed that I listened to the very end.

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