Dark Story...Odd Narrator

As horror stories go, this one is pretty dark. And I write this as a hardened horror novel addict. The premise is promising, intriguing and different, and the story stays strong despite a slight lull in the middle. But fair warning, it gets pretty grim. The writer continues to allude to it and you, the reader, keeps saying, "Worse? It gets worse for these people?" and it does. it just keeps getting worse for the fair residents of Black Spring. So if you like your horror stories mottled with actually horrifying things, you will be satisfied.

Now, the narrator...pretty rough on the ears. Nasal at best, it's the characterizations that are brutal. Half of the characters are women and each one sounds whinier and more repugnant than the next. I would prefer he just varied his cadence as opposed to trying to sound...I don't know...feminine? It was not a great audio experience.

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84 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Wow i'll be sleeping with the lights on for a bit!

I am a huge fan of the horror genre, any medium, i.e. movies, audiobook, etc. Of course my all time favorite writer is the King 👑 but after you've read them all a few times you start to notice that there are only a few authors in this genre who are anywhere close to the level of talent of SK. Until I found this book!!

character development was great! at the end of the book I was left wondering about the fates of many supporting characters. This, to me, is a sign that I actually cared about what happened to them! You are only able to connect with so many characters when each of them is drawn in vivid color.

The concept of the book was awesome and really original IMO. I love the idea of the town living with the knowledge that they are haunted by the BP Witch and even cover her up so that the rest of the world doesn't SEE...pun intended.

Do yourself a favor and get this book. it's worth two credits in my opinion!

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40 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Narrator problems and a story that didn't deliver

I had hoped for more from the ending given the slow buildup. Unfortunately the reveal didn't fit so well with the rest of the plot pieces. Also, the narrator chose to make all women sound like poor parodies of a New Jersey accent and teenagers sound like voice cracking cartoons. Really ruined the atmosphere.

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23 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Great concept

I really liked the concept of this book. The story was original and while often dark and brutal, I enjoyed witnessing the plight of the town of Black Spring. However, the narration was the worst I have ever experienced. It was so bad it was distracting and constantly pulled me out of the story, especially the voices of the young and female characters. I feel like there were whole parts of the book I missed because the painfully nasal voices were so cringy I had to tune out just to get through it. On top of that, the narrator's mouth noises were incredibly annoying. It was so disappointing, and realllllly impacted my enjoyment of this book.

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18 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

One of the worst books I have ever listened to...

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Honestly, this book was unsalvageable. As a horror novel, there was only one scene where I felt dread. Other than that, it plodded along with no direction or point. The characters are incredibly one-dimensional.

I mean, to give you an idea of how horrendous this book was, towards the end, it actually includes a line that reads "the pate flowed from her womb like afterbirth." This is in regards to a female butcher character.

The threads of the story do not connect to create a cohesive story. And it was boring. More often than not, I found myself zoning out while I was listening, only to find that I didn't miss much, nor did I care that I was missing anything.

Would you be willing to try another one of Jeff Harding’s performances?

I like to think I'm a fair listener, but one of my biggest issues with this book was his performance. All of his female characters were read as if they were naggy 80s cartoon characters. It's hard to take a character named Griselda Holst seriously when she sounds like a villainous witch from some Disney cartoon. This same inflection is then given to all other female characters. His characterization of teenage boys is not much better - giving them the quality of a cliche cartoon bully.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No. This is probably one of the worst books I've read/listened to in recent memory.

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16 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

A movie worthy book

I gave this book 5 stars all around due to not being able to stop listening to what would happen next.The "witch" creeped me out,yet intrigued me at the same time.This one is right up there with Stephen King's scary books.

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14 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Excellent impulse purchase!

Bought this on a whim and loved it. Only thing stopping it from getting 5 stars was that the narration wasn't excellent. Not bad, but not excellent. Very absorbing listen...i listened in 2 sittings while clearing out my closet!

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12 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

A masterful tragedy

Don't expect a happy little ending, but do expect a fantastically woven tale about the deprave depths of the human heart and its everlasting consequences.

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9 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Disturbing

Very interesting and riveting story, which made me listen to the end, although I really have to admit that often enough I found the rather detailed description of some scenes very disturbing. And at no point in time would I have foreseen the end of this story and am rather stunned still (just ended it ;))... Not to spoil it I will not comment on that further.

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5 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Sometimes Less Is More

I bought this audiobook based solely on a recommendation in Stephen King's Twitter feed. Heck, if Stephen liked it, it must be great! Not true. I fought to the end, finding only small nuggets of enjoyment. I think Thomas Olde Heuvelt is a good writer who had an interesting short story idea that just didn't quite stretch out into a novel very well.

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5 personnes ont trouvé cela utile