The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Official Blurb

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo is an adventure novel and one of the author's most popular works. He completed the work in 1844. The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and in the Levant during the historical events of 1815-1838 (from just before the Hundred Days to the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). It deals with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy and forgiveness. The book is considered a literary classic today.

My Review

If I start by saying that I'd been holding off listening to this book until a single-reader version came along, you'll realise it is a book I wanted to hear, and that I wanted to hear done properly. This is actually the third version of the book put out by Librivox, but the first solo version.

It is 56 hours long. Fifty Six! The reader, David Clarke is excellent and pitches a great French accent that brings the text to life.

I stopped listening after 18 hours. Even David's wonderful reading could not induce me to continue listening to this so-called classic. With reference to this book, the word "classic" means long. It does not mean good.

It started so well, with the protagonist being imprisoned for a crime he did not commit and a great prison escape. Then...then...Well then lots of boring stuff happened to characters that I didn't feel for nor care about. Was the author paid by the word, it sure felt like it Rambling, disjointed, lack of plot, lack of emotion and in the end, after an investment of 18 hours I realised life's too short for this book.

Reading 3/3
Production 2/3
Story 0/3

Total Score 5/9 (Only count this score, if you think it fair when I didn't finish it!)

Listen to the first chapter 

Download it from the Librivox

Darkfever

Official Blurb

Enter the world of Karen Marie Moning's New York Times bestselling Fever series with her first ever audiobook podcast, Darkfever. MacKayla Lane's life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she's your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman. Or so she thinks...until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death-a cryptic message on Mac's cell phone-Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister's killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed-a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae....

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister's death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac's true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book-because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands....

My Review

Yuk.

Oh.. you want more?

This is a part of the urban fantasy boom that's been going on for a few years and this is one of my few dips into this particular pond. It's not a genre I dislike it's just not one that I normally choose.

So when this started I was impressed with the reader although the intro/outro guy got right on my nerves from the first chapter.

The lead character is presented as a Barbie girl from the south and sadly ends up having about as much character. The story is presented as a kind of diary and sufferes terribly from too much diaretric eccentricity and naval inspections.

For example, I don't care what the characters are wearing and the author seems in love with the idea of dressing her barbie doll character and friends. For goodness sake nearly every scene seems to start with the character getting dressed and telling us about their socks, shoes and shirt etc etc etc , who cares(!) where's the plot?

So as you can gather, I didn't like it. It had it's moments of action and occasional horror but between these were far too many "filler sections" that padded out the story and consisted mostly of inane drivel.

Harsh? Yep, but I really disliked this story, and resented what started out with such promise turning into mush.

Reading 2/3
Production 2/3
Story 1/3

Total Score 5/9

Download it from Podiobooks ( but only if you dont like yourself! )

Listen to the first chapter