Good so far but strange narration!

I am only part way through this audiobook so far, and am enjoying the story, however the more I listen and think about it the weirder I find the narration.

It's hard to explain. The non-dialogue bits are fine; slightly whimsically read and I quite like it. The dialogue parts however are quite peculiar. In all other audiobooks I've listened to the narrator "acts" the speeches rather than just narrating them, using the intonations and expressions as if they were actually being spoken. Dialogue/conversations/speeches in this audiobook are not performed this way; instead they are read, often very quickly with no pause before the speech, as if they are still being "narrated" rather than spoken by a character. It can make the book quite hard to follow and it is often difficult to distinguish between general narration and characters speaking.

I hope this makes sense! It's difficult to put my finger on why I find it harder than other audiobooks to follow. The excerpt in the sample doesn't really demonstrate the issue as much as it could, because in that short clip the voices are "acted" more than elsewhere in the book.

By no means would I advise people against the book for reasons of the narration; I just find it requires a lot more concentration than others I have "read".

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3 people found this helpful

disappointing.

What would have made Girl Reading better?

fewer chapters. gave up on 6 and 7.

What could Katie Ward have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

chose a character and showed the change in that person's lifetime from having a portrait painted to the first photograph and the impact it had on society.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

jane walker did a reasonable job in reading this book as I understand there were no quotation marks in the book to indicate when a person was speaking or just thinking.

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

the initial idea was good but it didn't work. there were some good observations but they didn't save the book.

Any additional comments?

the chapters ended abruptly leaving the listener wondering what happened next and the beginning of the next chapter (story) was just as abrupt which was disconcerting.
I started the first and second chapters twice the rest flowed a bit better.

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Interesting - clever but with some reservations

This book has a very interesting format following a number of girls from very different time periods and very different lives.

All of the stories involved reading and the capturing of a picture of each of them in the process of their reading.

I liked the different stories and following each for me was fine. The last story adds a different dimension and was linked to the previous one and the others and I thought it was really quite clever.

The reservations were with the narration - as another reviewer says it was clear and well read but.. and my but was around the transitions - within and between stories - there were no clear gaps - if you "blinked" you found yourself in the next story and things were not making sense at all. Also, you realised that you could not answer the question - what was the ending of the previous story? This happened to me about three times and it was very irritating. I think that what was needed was more pauses.

Overall I did not feel that I wasted my time in listening to this and would recommend it although with the warnings about the narration.

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Awful narration

I don’t know if there was an issue with my download or the recording, but the first sentence of each paragraph seemed to be missing or else “swallowed” by the narrator. For example a line would start “... said that” so never knew who was speaking.
I tried listening to other chapters but all had same issue. Felt like I was only getting half the story so gave up.

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Experimental and Refreshing

"Girl Reading" is a strange animal - neither novel nor anthology, it falls somewhere in between. Ostensibly these short stories appear linked only by the central image of a girl or woman posing with a book, either for an artist or a photographer, but this would be cheapening the novel by several degrees. Each story occurs at a different time in history; we see the humble, pious woman of the 1300s; the society woman of the 1700s; the businesswoman of the 1800s and the political woman of the 21st century. In essence, it is a chronicle of the emancipation of women. The final story also offers another, unexpected parallel between the stories - but I won't say anymore. Spoilers!

Written entirely in the present tense, the narrative style is also worthy of note; I'm one of those readers that needs the prose to be sophisticated, at least as much as the story. "Girl Reading" reveals the worlds it inhabits by use of carefully-chosen details, never over-saturating the reader with unnecessary words. Though it requires concentration to fully enjoy this refreshing sort of style, it's a very rewarding way of engaging with the characters and the author alike.

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2 people found this helpful

I'm Sorry, didnt enjoy it

I choose this as an extra book between my credits. I used the 'reccommended reads' email as a guide as it had some good reviews (also had a couple of bad ones) but i chose to listen to the good reviews and boy, I wish I hadn't. Each chapter is an individual little story and I think of the 6 (?) I only enjoyed 2 or 3. The first one I had to restart 4 times before it finally caught and I had to thoroughly concentrate in order to 'get it'. And there was another chapter I just gave up on (something I have never done before with Audible). Sorry but I didn't enjoy this and I certainly wouldn't reccommend it.

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1 person found this helpful