Good Story, Poor Narration

What made the experience of listening to The Birthday Girl the most enjoyable?

Good story line, pace kept moving along, believable characters.

What did you like best about this story?

The building up to Mersia ( the main character in the story) telling about her past.

How could the performance have been better?

The Narrator tried to put on voices for the characters and failed miserably. He clearly has no idea what a 15 year old girls sounds like and the italian and russian accents he attempts are just awful and seem to fade out within the same sentence.

Any additional comments?

If you can put up with the Narrator, this is a good story.

3 people found this helpful

Just couldn't listen to the narrator any longer

I listen to audible books every day and of course I have my favourite narrators...doesn't everyone? Occasionally I decide, having listened to the sample, that a new narrator is worth a try...sometimes I come across a real gem...but not with Martyn Read I'm afraid. Very shortly into the story I found his "female" voice so irritating I had to delete the book! Happily, the other Stephen Leather book I have is read by Sean Barrett so I will listen to that instead. :-)

2 people found this helpful

Shockingly bad

I tried twice to listen to this but gave up both times. The story is one of those where the characters are always lighting and putting out cigarettes every thirty seconds because the writer can't think of anything else for them to do - never a good sign. Everything about it comes across as implausible and the narrator's accents are dreadful. In short, it's completely unlistenable and you should give it a miss if you have any taste whatsoever.

That said, maybe it gets better after the first half hour. ;^)

2 people found this helpful

Unusual story line

An unusual story line. Fairly fast paced and quite exciting. The ending I found a little implausible

1 person found this helpful

TawdryI did not enjoy this book at all.

Not 1 ot the characters to me seemed real or plausible. The story was that of a bad soap opera. I never ever give up on a book , but this 1 I kept looking at the timer to see how long I'd got before it came to an end.

1 person found this helpful

Terrible Narration

Really difficult to listen to as the narration was so bad. Whiney childlike voices for the 15 yr old girls. Scottish accent terrible.

The Narrator was extremely annoying

The narrator was really annoying when he change voices when you put on a female voice it was Patronising. the story is excellent however I was unable to listen to the book fully as a narrator put me off

Excellent

Well written and well read, lots of twists and turns on the base story line.

disappointed I love Stephen Leather usually!

In the first instance the characters voices and accents were not great. The amount of sex was very out of balance with the story line. Too much booorrring

Good book appallingly narrated

Appalling narration, it took three times as long as it usually takes as I kept having to take breaks, would have been OK if it had just been read without any attempts at accents or genders. It made Dick Van Dyke’s cockney accent in Mary Poppins almost sound authentic in comparison. Just about the worst narration that I have ever listened to. I abandoned it on several occasions, but went back as Leather is such a good author.