Why all the criticism of the reader?

Just finished this. It was funny and thought provoking (if a bit depressing at times).
I very almost did not take on this title off the back of the scathing criticism of the performance. This would have been a huge shame. Yes Hannah Curtis does indeed pronounce Aldeburgh incorrectly, as other have helpfully pointed out, but aside from that her lively reading is excellent and gently humorous tone entirely appropriate for the material.

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A novel novel - exploring some interesting ideas

A slightly dull narration spoiled what could have been a good listen.
I do recommend this story to any couple considering joint suicide to avoid the tribulations of getting old, or the sorrow of living without your soulmate.

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wise words from the guru

A must listen for everyone who grows old! Lionel at her best. she was having fun with the Brexit references and her own cameo!

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Brilliant!

Oh I just loved this book. The concept, whilst unavoidably morbid is delivered in such an original, at times heartbreaking and other times hilarious way I just couldn’t stop listening and was genuinely sad for this book (which is all about endings) to come to and end! Excited to explore more by this fantastic writer.

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didn't enjoy the narration at all

really put me off the book and made unlikable characters even more unbearable. I also find it incredibly irritating when narrators do not know how to pronounce place names. Why is no one there to correct them?

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Multiple realities

I nearly returned this book during the first segment. I persisted and am glad I did. Not realising that the first story was one of many possible realities for the central couple, I found their initial incarnation unsatisfying. I should have known that Shriver wouldn't let me down.

This is a clever book, imaginative and uncompromising with real nuggets of wisdom. I really love Shriver's writing and am glad to live in a reality where she's still producing books like this.

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Reasonable story but too long and poor production

I quite like the structure of this book, the first half is the story and then the second half is a number of alternative endings to the first half. It's quite a good device and makes for an interesting story and interpretation, but for me, at least two of the alternative endings should have been cut altogether and some of the others should have been edited down to be shorter.

The reader has a pleasant enough voice but there are so many mispronunciations that it begins to grate a bit. Ideally the reader should know how to pronounce fairly commonplace words, but if not the production team should pick up the error and get that section re-recorded.

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Good story - poor reading

Good concept but ruined by such poor voicing. Plodding, no separation of characters. Intonation just wrong.

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Whimsy with a bite

I really enjoyed this but then I do fit the demographic (being someone 'Death is starting to take an interest in' to steal an image from Amis) Shriver uses a punchy concept - like the Billy Idol song title - to pull together the strands of a number of modern anxieties and preoccupations; Brexit, the pandemic, immigration, to name a few; and then spin them off as a set of whimsical hypotheses. What if they 'cured' old age? What if Britain was swamped in illegals? What if you could be cryogenically frozen - and so on.
Some of it inevitably works better than other bits and the mirroring of images and tropes throughout the different versions sometimes felt contrived. On the whole, though, it kept me entertained to the end. The reader's sing-song intonation, better suited to Austen than the more Muriel Spark-like qualities of Shriver's writing, sometimes jarred; and often gave the impression she didn't really understand the more mordant undertones of what she was saying. But it was at least palatable and that's saying something with audiobooks.

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3 people found this helpful

Great book but poorly read

Found the narrator a bit irritating. Her pronunciation and emphasis on some words completely wrong. Notably: Aldeburgh, Dignitas, Laos....and a few others

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3 people found this helpful