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4 out of 5 stars
By
Diana - Audible
on
04-17-12
What a start!
I started listening to The Informationist while taking the train home on a Friday – usually the time I close my eyes and unwind after a full week. But this time my imagination was captured by Taylor Stevens’ tough-as-nails, mysterious new action heroine: information specialist Vanessa “Michael” Monroe. Some say her character is a bit over the top – too much of a butt-kicking Angelina Jolie – but what I find most interesting about her is Stevens’ own cult history past woven into Monroe’s intimate knowledge of the wilds of Africa. Hilary Huber’s cool and sultry tone fits Monroe’s character, and I’m looking forward to more from them in The Innocent.
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14 of 14 people found this review helpful
2 out of 5 stars
By
John C.
on
05-12-11
Strong premise & character descend into melodrama
The book sets a great atmosphere and the protagonist is initially captivating. The narrator does a good job and the book despite it's flaws is entertaining until it becomes laughable in the end. A fitting description might be Terminator melts into Romancing the Stone.
The flaws:
The book repeatedly pulls it's punches. The lead is always "about" to get violent, but keeps warning people not to mess with her instead. The action takes a nose-dive while the protagonists wrestles with school-girlish issues of love. All but one of the potential villains have less than a page of character development in the entire book making them irrelevant to the reader. Despite the title, it is never demonstrated that the main character has any particular ability to obtain or analyze information. Her only ability in this regard seems to be that she grew up in Africa and knows the lingo. To add insult to injury the character to be rescued becomes an unimportant afterthought and the main character decides that embarrassment might be punishment enough for the people who tried to kill her and her friends.
The bottom line is that the author set out to create a Lisbeth Salander like character with no idea of what motivates such a character and little idea of what the genre expects. The extreme weakness of the protagonist at the end (i.e. indecisive, illogical, passive, and naive) would make Jack Bauer and Mitch Rapp hurl. And back to pulling punches, the author blends three different endings together instead of choosing a solid one. It's akin to "It's okay that I let my son's killer go free, because he died in a car accident a few weeks later."
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59 of 63 people found this review helpful
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful
5 out of 5 stars
By
Anthony
on
02-05-12
Excellent Audio Book
Great Audio book to listen, this is my first experience with Listening Audio and I am now hooked with it
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1 of 1 people found this review helpful
1 out of 5 stars
By
Clare
on
02-22-12
Can't believe the reviews!!
I love strong female characters and this is just the kind of book I devour. The story rocks along at a good pace and is set in interesting parts of the world, but the lead character is totally unbelievable and ruins the book... Worshipped like a god, learns a language fluently in a week... and if that's not good enough, her knife skills are apparently better than her startlingly impressive linguistic abilities!! Why?? It was not necessary!!
The story was reasonably well written and had a good storyline, but was ruined by the laughably preposterous main character!! Shame, could have been great!!
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