Valley of the Dolls 50th Anniversary Edition

By: Jacqueline Susann

Narrated by: Laverne Cox

Length: 17 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

At a time when women were destined to become housewives, Jacqueline Susann let us dream. Anne, Neely, and Jennifer become best friends as struggling young women in New York City trying to make their mark. Eventually, they climb their way to the top of the entertainment industry only to find that there’s no place left to go but down, into the Valley of the Dolls.

©1966, 1967, 1997, 2016 Tiger LLC, Bernard Geis Associates (first hardcover edition); Bantam Books (first paperback edition); first Grove Press edition; Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

It's OK

It's an old favorite and guilty pleasure. However, the narrator's lisp finally worked my last nerve and I stopped listening.

Hmmm

I absolutely love this book and Laverne Cox, but her narrative was awful, I really struggled listening to it, but I managed.

After 30 minutes...

After 30 minutes of listening to this disaster, I logged back into Audible HOPING to find another recording of this story, NO LUCK. I didn't read the reviews or even pay attention to who the performer was. When I began listening, I was taken aback. First, I thought, "this is a drag queen," how strange (I am part of the LGBT community, this is just an honest review). Drag queens put on a show, they have an act, I think this story is okay without an act. As it went on, I found that I couldn't focus on the story because I couldn't get past the little girl lisp! Come on! I don't think that someone with a real lisp would even be hired to read books aloud - IT IS IRRITATING. Furthermore, this performer barely differentiates between character voices and all characters have a lisp! Logging back into Audible, I found that the performer is not a drag queen, but trans, and while Cox is fine on OITNB, she has NO BUSINESS reading books. Review after review says the same thing. The performance is embarrassing for Cox and Audible, and it is so distracting, that I am trying really hard to focus on the story. I rarely review books on Audible, but this one needs to be redone.

What was Audible Thinking?????

I read this many years ago (more than once) and had not thought about it in years. I listen to books on my daily commute and thought it would be fun to "read" this again. Since I knew the story I did not look at the reviews. From the first few minutes, I started wondering why this narrator was chosen. The voice, inflection and intonations were so off the mark for characters portrayed and that I "knew". I listened through but found the narration a huge detriment to my enjoyment of this story.

Narration!!!!!!!

OMG! Okay, for the 1st half of the book the narration is actually passable. Not really the voice I would have chosen for these particular characters, but she does an ok job. Then, inexplicably, about halfway through, the narrator portrays all dialogue of all characters in a high pitched whiny sing song voice. It's a shame to ruin this classic novel in this manner. It was really jarring and took me completely out of the story. I guess that's why you can add Audible narration to the kindle book for a buck 99.

Beautiful book read by a beautiful book!

I’ve read this book before, and seen the film. But hearing Laverne Cox reading it was truly a delight!

I loved every single line and every single character even more listening to it!

Thank you so much Audible and thank you so much Laverne Cox

This Classic Story Holds Up / Marginal Narration

This classic story is wonderful, however, Laverne Cox's performance leaves much to be desired. When she is reading the prose, she does a lovely job. She's passionate and her voice is pleasant and easy to listen to. When she tries to read the dialog and perform the voices, she is less than good. Particularly bad is her voicing of Neely, who, even when she is supposed to be seventeen, sounds like a shrieking shrew. Her interpretation of Jennifer is insipid. The rest of the dialog is either put forth in such an overacted manner that is it cringeworthy or just bad. I would love to hear her read the book without trying to act out each character. I think she would do a great job with this wonderful story. Instead, I feel like I got a very bad high school play.

Great book not a great narrator

Love this book! Absolutely love Laverne Cox but listening to some of the voices she chose to use for the characters? Like nails on a chalkboard. Unfortunately a swing and a miss, too bad.

Review

The voice was a bit whiny a little distracting but over all the reader did a great job.

Great story

Honestly, I wish I would have read this book as a teenager. It probably would have changed my life. Laverne Cox did a good job narrating this. There were parts where she made characters mothers sound like different ethnicities than their daughters though and that was kind of funny. But other than that I have no complains a.