interesting idea, poor execution

the concept was interesting but the execution wasn't great. hard to follow and disappointing

2 people found this helpful

Love the author, loathe the narrator

Stephen Graham Jones is one of my favorite authors. He’s witty, sardonic, smart, and has a great read on culture, whether that’s pop culture, Blackfeet culture, or middle American mainstream culture. I’ve been looking forward to this book, and it makes a great double bill with Grady Hendrix’ “The Final Girl Support Group.”

Unfortunately, they chose the worst narrator possible for this project. Eric G. Dove always sounds like he’s mocking Dan Rather. His accent is so broadly middle America that he sounds like a parody of himself half the time. His women are too high pitched, and in this project he sounds like he’s contemptuous of all the female characters, and many of the male ones. He over acts.

The characterization is carried by the fine writing. I don’t need Dove acting it out like a high school theater production.

I’m going to try to go a little bit further with this, but I’m afraid I’ll just have to return the audiobook and get a print copy, before Dove ruins the novel for me.

1 person found this helpful

Author was great, narrator not so much

With a primarily female cast the male narrators performance is lacking. His voice rings false with each additional character. The females he portrays are all breathy and whiny and the males are bland and repetitive. The most irritating part is his base announcer voice that is used throughout. Almost as if the narrators lines are supposed to sound like car commercial or an overly excited color commentator. The experience could’ve been much greater with a decent female voice leading this performance.
Definitely pick up a copy of the book just about this audio version.

I couldn’t finish.

The story does seem right up my alley but…. The way the story’s told, in an almost screenplay sort of a way, just makes it really hard to follow.
Even tho the narrator has a nice voice he cannot make a good female voice. Just sounds whiny to me.

This is sadly going in the return pile.

Meh

A meta-slasher story somewhat in the style of Scream sounds like something I would have loved, but this one missed the mark for me. I appreciate what the author was trying to do here, but the writing just felt all over the place and messy. I had trouble staying interested in what was happening.