loopyker's #CBR7 Review #08: The Princess Bride by William Goldman

"IF YOU ENJOYED THE MOVIE, YOU'LL CERTAINLY ENJOY LISTENING TO ROB REINER, THE MOVIE'S DIRECTOR, READ THE BOOK."  was what the online library listing promised me.  They even shouted it.  They couldn't have been more wrong.

I would like to be really clear about this.  I don't want to get yelled at.  This is a review for the audiobook.  Very different from the movie.  I love the movie.  It became an instant favourite when I saw it over 20 years ago.  I've enjoyed it many times since.

I also read the book many years ago.  It was disappointing.  Some of my favourite lines from the movie are not in the book. But, there is more back-story detail added which can be entertaining.  If there wasn't the comparison, I would probably have thought it was a good book.  But, I would wonder what the big deal was with the fans of the movie, if I went only by that.

So, with this in mind, I already had lower expectations for the audiobook.  But Rob Reiner directed this popular movie.  Surely he must know how to read it well.  No, no he does not.  Which is ironic.  The story starts as someone reading the book to a sick boy.  Peter Falk does this well in the movie.

In the movie the boy rolls his eyes at the idea of being read a fairy-tale type book.  But, as fans of the movie know, even though on the surface it has romance and a princess (to-be) and a prince, this is a story for any age and any gender.  There are heroic challenges and fights, good versus evil and "true-love" with a little magic thrown in and mostly, with a lot of humour for both young and old.  It is just a lot of fun.

However, you would not know it by the way Rob Reiner reads it.  He rushes through much of it like he has something else to do and just wants to get this over with fast.    It is so rushed it can be hard to follow even who is talking without the appropriate pauses or even subtle voice differences.

A huge disappointment.  This is one of the few times where, without a doubt, I recommend the movie over the book.  And with even less reservations, I recommend both over the audiobook.  Don't bother with the audiobook.  Anyone who just listens to that will miss what the fans like in the others.

1 star for the audiobook
3 stars for the book
5 stars for the movie


Title: The Princess Bride (audiobook)
Author: William Goldman
Narrator: Rob Reiner  (movie's director)
Publisher: Phoenix Books, Inc. (Feb 06, 2007)
Duration: 2 hours, 32 minutes

Other formats: paperback/Kindle ebook
Print Length: 480 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (October 8, 2007)
(original published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (USA) 1973)
ISBN-10: 0156035154
ISBN-13: 978-0156035156
Kindle ASIN: B003IEJZRY

Note: A lot of formats say "abridged".  This is part of the joke, that William Goldman says he is abridging another book.  It makes it confusing to know if there is a real abridged version of William Goldman's work.

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Rating system:
1 star (didn't like); 2 stars (OK); 3 stars (good); 4 stars (very good); 5 stars (favourite)

Also check out Cannonball Read for a variety of book reviews from many others.

loopyker’s #CBR4 Review #19-21: Various mysteries by Elizabeth Peters

Elizabeth Peters (real name Barbara Mertz who also writes under Barbara Michaels), is best knows for her popular Amelia Peabody mysteries.  Those are amongst my favourite mystery books, but Elizabeth Peters has written many other books.  For this review I'm combining three of her other books that aren't any other series.  My feelings and criticisms are very similar for them all, so it seems pointless to write the same review three times.

While the Amelia Peabody series begins in the 1880's, these other books have contemporary settings, but are now out-dated having been published in 1968-1977.  Amelia is ahead of her time, but the women in The Jackal's Head, The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits and Devil-May-Care perhaps were modern in the early 1970's.  That's when I was born, so I'm not really sure.  However, for present day, they come across as annoying, old-fashioned and not as likeable as they probably were originally.  They fight against the constraints that society places on women, but then often end up falling into silly and frustrating stereotypes despite that.

I listened to The Jackal's Head most recently.  Looking it up, it is the oldest one, which probably explains why I liked it the least.  It takes place in Egypt, a setting familiar to Peabody fans.  A young women returns to the place that destroyed her father's reputation and led to his death.  She masquerades as a tourist but meets childhood friends as she searches for answers to clear his name and her cover is quickly blown.   The eventual archeological finds go much more into fantasy than what I can remember from the Peabody series.

Surprisingly, compared to the other Elizabeth Peters books I can recall, there are two attempted rape scenes in The Jackal's Head.  They are kind of left ambiguous as to how far the attacker actually got.  I think we are supposed to understand that he didn't succeed, but in the first she is left unconscious and bruised.  I do not like reading/listening to sexual violence in books, so this was disappointing for me and I wasn't expecting it after being familiar with so many of her other books (Peabody and otherwise).  I suspect that this is a product of the time it was written.  If I recall correctly, Anne McCaffrey included a rape in an early fantasy story published around this time which she later regretted and changed in a rewrite when the short story became a full-length novel.  (and I can recall being very disappointed in that since I read the original before knowing about the rewrite)

Anyone familiar with Peters books will not be surprised at the ending of this book either.

The setting is slightly different in The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits.   A young women travels to the pyramids in Mexico City in search of her missing father.  Again, this was disappointing for Peters.  There is a strong anti-drug message that is unexpected and lacks creativity.   I think this is one of the most dated of her older work and doesn't hold up well now.  I can't even remember anything remarkable enough to comment more specifically about now and don't even remember the ending.  I don't think I cared too much by then. 

Refreshingly, Devil-May-Care, takes place in Virginia.  A young, wealthy woman house-sits for her Aunt and gets some much needed time away from her fiancé.  She unwittingly uncovers some secrets about the old families in the area - but she's not even sure what she found and everyone wonders if the strange things happening in and around the house are paranormal or real-world tactics to try to keep the secrets hidden.

Out of the three books, this was the most recently written, and you can tell.  It still is not as strong as many of her other books, and a little too predictable but definitely better than The Jackal's Head and The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits.  In all cases there were instances where I was just rolling my eyes at the talks the women have with themselves about how they are modern women, while still having such sexist attitudes. 

I don't recommend any of these if you have not already enjoyed Elizabeth Peters in other books.  I would only bother with The Jackal's Head and The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits if you really, really want to just read everything by Peters and don't expect much.

The audiobook quality and narration were good.  However, these might read better in print when you can skip quickly through the annoying parts.  

Author: Elizabeth Peters

Audiobooks:
Narrator: Grace Conlin
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

The Jackal's Head
Duration: 6 hours, 35 minutes
ISBN: 9781455100057
Release date: Mar 08, 2005  (first print book published 1968)

The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits
Duration:  7 hours, 46 minutes
ISBN:  9781433264900
Release date:  Nov 29, 2005  (first print book published 1971)

Devil-May-Care
Duration:  7 hours, 28 minutes
ISBN:  9781455101177
Release date: Jan 09, 2007  (first print book published 1977)

loopyker's #CBR4 Review #09: Answer Me, Answer ME by Irene Bennett Brown

In my online library, a quote described Answer Me, Answer ME as “An excellent portrayal of a young woman's search for her true identity, a compelling story with just the right elements of mystery and romance.” Sounded like a potentially good, young adult book to me. I was sadly disappointed.

I listened to the audiobook, but I don't think that made a difference to my experience of the story. I can't imagine even the best narrator in the world making me anything but sorry I wasted my time. The only difference is that I didn't notice that the second “me” in the title is written “ME” until looking it up to write this review.

A young woman, Bryn Kinney, is on her own after her grandmother's death. Now at only 18 years old, she is wondering if her grandmother, the woman who raised her, was really in fact her biological grandmother at all and if she has any other family out there somewhere. She has never known who her parents were, so she sets off an a quest to search for answers about her past.

I did not connect with this book at all. I kept expecting something interesting to happen, for there to be some twist for that “mystery” element, but it didn't happen. No, you don't know who her parents are right away, but when things are revealed it is very anti-climatic and if you are paying attention you can figure most things out well ahead of time. As for what I didn't figure out, I didn't feel a strong enough connection to Bryn to really care about. The “romance” mostly meant that a guy was there and wanted to date her, but the big romantic tension was that she felt she couldn't socialize and look for clues to her past at the same time.

In general, there were no real conflicts in other areas either to create the tension necessary for a good story. And what attempts at conflict there were, seemed false to me so I just couldn't get into caring about the character at all. 

Young adults reading this now will also find the technology very out-dated and I expect they would have trouble relating to a search for family without the use of Google and other online options. It is getting harder and harder all the time for even someone my age to relate to that. In a lot of stories, a passing reference to this type of thing isn't a big deal, but in this book there is a lot of talk about how she is actually searching for information by following tips from a book. Many of those tips are still valid, but the lack of Internet searches is more glaring than usual. But maybe I wouldn't have noticed so much if I had been interested in the rest of the story more.

Answer Me, Answer ME 

Author: Irene Bennett Brown

Reading level: Ages 12 and up

Audiobook:

Narrator: Laurie Klein

Publisher: Books in Motion (December 16, 2008)

Duration: 6 hours, 23 minutes

ISBN: 9781605481456

Paperback:

208 pages

Publisher: iUniverse (October 20, 2000) (original publication 1985)

ISBN-10: 0595145051

ISBN-13: 978-0595145058