I'm Not Broken: Surviving the House of Demons

By: Jessica Reale

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Her body is thawing, and the smell of death is oozing from her. I want to be sick, but I say nothing. I watch like I was told. Good girls, listen. I want to rub my legs clean; I want a shower. Startled when my mom announced she was done. I finally see. Even though I was watching, I did not truly see. I say nothing. I sit and watch. Wishing for heaven too.
Survival is all I can think of, I must do as they say, or I will be next. I am trying to be strong but failing many times. Will I leave the summer alive? will I get to start 8th Grade? I was finally able to tell on my parents. Now I am traveling in the foster care system. I await trial. I am scared, but I will testify against them. For Alexia’s memory. She deserves at least that much from me, as I failed her in many ways. Now I spend the next few years navigating life with no family.
Will I become a happy, successful adult, or will I end up a failure and worthless like my mother always said I would…

Trigger warning, child abuse, death

A story of true resilience

I hate to say it again, since it has already been said in every single other review… But Jessica deserves a real person reading this story. It is horrific and beautiful all at the same time. A perfect example of how truly resilient the human spirit can be. And living proof that we do not have to allow the trauma that we suffer to dictate who we become. We don’t have to stay broken. Such a strong woman to have gone through something like this and still managed to come out kicking and fighting. The virtual voice makes it sound almost like a children’s book. But if you can get through it, it is so very worth it. It’s definitely a story you will not forget.

Also, the Sword and Scale podcast brought me here.🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

winner

I love that she won after all that she had been through.wish her great success in everything she does.

This book deserves to be read by a human being

The artificial voice was so bad that I had to force myself to listen to this book. The story itself is heartbreaking.

Story is worth a listen, AI generated audio was emotionless.

I would have loved to hear the author read her own story, or even a narrator, but the auto-generated narration made it feel like it was reading bullet point facts. The author deserves her story to be read with a human voice, with emotion, with inflection, with life behind it. I would have given a 5 star review except the narration was lifeless. Audible, do better by your authors!

the storyline was good but.

The storyline was good, this poor girl endured horrific abuse. however they used virtual voice for this one and if you can get past the very monotone sounding voice is a good story.

Narration is horrible!

I m sure the story itself is good. However the computer generated narrative was just weird. I struggled to get through the first hour, then gave up.

Great book, bad AI narration

This is a powerful telling of overcoming horrific abuse and the growth from child victim to survivor.

My problem was not with the writing but the AI narration. Yes, it has gotten better, but it still sounds fake. The worst instance in this audio book was machine inflections. At one point, the author was discussing the abuse and ended with "What's next?" Instead of the gravity that short sentence deserved, it came out sounding like a happy, excited utterance; like what's next? Ice cream, a trip to Disneyland? Disturbing and distracting from the quality writing. Also, the tone of the narration was ok at first, it sounded like the author as a young child, and appropriate. But as time passed the voice stayed child-like, instead of aging along with the author.

AI voice

I could not listen to the fake voice after 30 minutes. The story was hard enough emotionally to listen to without the robot narration.

Proud she persevered!

While I enjoyed the overall book the writing style and the narration made it almost seem like bullet points. I have no doubt that an actual narrator would have brought the story to life, but it is still an empowering story.

Leaving a life of destruction

heartbreaking story of something that should have never happened. yet she has overcome and still overcomes something so painful. bless her soul 🙏