Da Vinci in Love

By: Maysam Yabandeh

Narrated by: Joseph Bevilacqua

The identity of the lady portrayed in Mona Lisa, the masterpiece of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the secret behind her mysterious smile, is one of the biggest unanswered questions in art history. This is the story of her, and her romance with her creator, the young Leonardo.

The story takes us from the land of true lovers, India, to the far east, the heights of mysterious wisdom in China, and sheds some light on the puzzling love story of Mona Lisa and her painter, Leonardo Da Vinci.

©2019 Maysam Yabandeh (P)2019 Maysam Yabandeh

Well, that was a rollercoaster

What can I say, the book is something else. I liked it, with all its twists and unique ideas. The only thing I didn't like is the fact that in every story the author left me hanging a little. I realize that's solely for comedic purposes, as the book is full of satire, but I felt like something was taken from me (I wouldn't be surprised if that was what the writer intended to do).

Overall, a fun book with its unique sense of humor that leaves you with a couple interesting ideas in mind.

Not quite sure what I just listened to

I didn't know what to expect going into this book and I was still surprised. This is a strange story with unexpected direction and tone changes that really keep you on your toes. It keeps you really engaged and invested in seeing where it's going to go.

The narrator has great energy and makes the funny parts really pop.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

Fun but short ride!

The very first thing I noticed about this short story when I began to play it was how good of a production value it had. The narration and background music/effects were terrific. The story held my interest, and I found myself chuckling out loud in a few spots. Ultimately, when I got to the end, I was left satisfied, but I wouldn’t have been angry if the production had gone on longer.

Funny, entertaining, with surprising twists

This is a modernized old-times story narrated in a very entertaining fashion. Be ready for funny and surprising twists along the way. Definitely a good story to listen to while driving on a long commute!

Funny, Relatable, Suspenseful

The humor in the story was quite fresh and interesting. The situations that the main character was facing are quite relatable to my life experience. The narration was also great specially when he does woman voices.

Wasn't Crazy About It

A story within a story within a story. If that's what you're looking for, jump right in. I can't say that I was terribly impressed with it. The narrator did a terrific job with the accents and really brought the story to life, but I feel like the story overall was really lacking. If you're looking for any depth, development, or fleshed out characters, you won't find that here. Then again, you have under an hour to really understand it, so not much time at all. Overall it's not horrible, but not something I would listen to again.

The story wasn’t for us, sorry

What in the world did we just listen to? This book has almost nothing to do with the real story Leo DaVinci and and the Mona Lisa, which was how the book was presented to us via the description on the back cover and the author’s email requesting that we provide an honest review. The promised (marketed) historical accuracy is the reason why we went along with listening to it in the first place. And that wasn’t given to us.

The love story was also another reason we wanted to give this a try, but that wasn’t the case in this book either. The modernization of Leo DaVinci just didn’t work for us—the execution of this story wasn’t one that we enjoyed.

This book had no clue which direction it wanted to go in and what type of book it wanted to be. The humor was non-existent, the writing was dense, and we had no clue what the point of this short story was supposed to be except being a story within a story.

We’re okay with saying that this book was not for us. It could be for someone else, which we hope this review doesn’t navigate you away if this is something you think you’ll like.

We will say that the narrator was decent. We weren’t a fan of his highly enthusiastic and quite stereotypical Asian accent. But other than that, his voice was strong and attractive. We’d like to hear him in another audiobook—just not this one for a second time.