Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to listen to this book on audio.
Ok. So the narrator was good but not great. But I was very glad for a narrator because I do believe were I to read this book without one I would have had to give a DNF. The premise is rather interesting and the last 50 or so pages of the book rocked. But…
The book has a host of characters that peters off into nothing with back stories etc. that simply waste time. The driving force for this experiment gets lost in the sexism which very soon becomes a character of it’s very own. I kid you not. The book drags on through back story to another back story to another and very few of these are ever explored, built on or serves much of any role at all. Still the book is not bad. A good editor with a will to cut out a lot of unnecessary story lines will be able to make this a best seller. The premise is very good, like I said the last 50 or so pages were amazing.
In the beginning.. No that is not this story. This book is a play off where Barbie is excused for her role and prosecuted for her role. She is made off the be young. Inexperienced. (Not by a long shot) Brought up with morals and a strict code where woman serves their man and he remains the head of the house. (Seriously? Mom and dad divorced but stayed in one house to keep their daughter from throwing a temper tantrum. When she does find out that exact thing happens and they ….. Oh please. She is a spoilt rotten piece of human filth who never actually was an Advocate if I understand the process at all. She never passed her bar exams. So her brilliant mind was but a one tract mind into filth and degradation of others. I liked that the book tried to provide two sides to a story though. Do not get me wrong and the reader is given enough info to make up their own minds regarding her being a victim or not.
She was about as victimized as her mother. A women who claims to have been raped by Dirk on more than one occasion but she keeps sleeping over in domiciles where he has free access? Did she lay charges against him? Two days after selling her and her daughters story to Huisgenoot for apparently a large amount of money she shoves a journalist out of her way. Why? Did he not offer you enough money? I do not know the specifics of what happened here to this woman, I was struck by how this woman stuck with her daughter during the real time trial etc. Now I simply do not know. Was she more of a negative influence on the young Barbie than we will ever know. Did she act out of love or out of guilt?
One thing is sure. The so called Barbie was such a force to be reckoned with that her parents stayed together in one house so as to not ‘upset” her. Can you imagine two grown people fearing their child’s response that much? I cannot but it has aided me in the belief that Barbie was never, ever, a victim of anything.
Then lets get onto the other mother in this book that drove me distraction. This will be Jeannine du Plessis’s mother.
This woman is about as stable as a roller coaster in Cuba. She was the first person ever to abuse her daughter and that was through one of the worst forms of neglect I have come across in a while. She picked everything above her children. Then gave her daughter to the couple for a weekend knowing that there is allegations already against the couple but figuring what exactly. Well if they rape her I can get some money out of this? I do not know what went on in this woman’s head but it cannot be a pretty place. Her daughters suicide is more her own fault than it would ever be that of the so called Adv Barbie and I am glad that the family found the news of the woman’s suicide shocking and that they sent their condolences. Oh please. Playing for the audience again. Sorry I do not believe you are capable of feeling anything apart from wanting your way in everything.
Then we have Laurie Pieters, co author of this book. Without her the book would have been a copy and paste exercise for sure but…. The ease with which certain things happened around her and with her as key player suggests to me a deeper relationship with the two advocates or at the very least a larger understanding. I would love to hear that full story one day but I learned to respect Laurie Pieters’ ability to cope under high pressure circumstances.
In all a very difficult book to read due to it’s contents but still worth the read to get past the precepts that sexual predators are men and that woman nurture. When woman do not nurture they grow very dangerous and manipulative.
All resemblance to an everyday run of the mill story is null and void in this book.
It caught my attention savagely and kept it. I could not put it down. A page turner as people love to call a book that grips them is not sufficient in the case of this book.
Once you understand that the true terror lies in the obsession of love the chill that runs down your spine is simply not enough. You need more terror. You need to know. And every time you have your mind made up regarding what is what and whom is bad and whom is good a bit more information is given to confuse you but never to confuse the plot.
I found this book brilliant and literally felt abused and battered by it near the end. Privacy… what a laugh. Privacy is for the holier than though, those who ignore their own human frailty. And with a loss of privacy in this book in any case comes a psychological twist.
What would a mother offer to ensure the safety of her child?
Apparently, everything.
I would highly recommend this book to any reader who loves a psychological thriller but be warned. You will be taken on an emotional roller coaster.
Renée Knight worked for the BBC directing arts documentaries before turning to writing. She has had TV and film scripts commissioned by the BBC, Channel Four and Capital Films. In April 2013 she graduated from the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course. She lives in London with her husband and two children. ~ Transworld Publishers
Thank you, Goodreads, for this information.
Blurb, once again thank you to Goodreads for the following information as well as the photo of the author and the book cover.
WHAT IF YOU REALIZED THE TERRIFYING BOOK, YOU WERE READING WAS ALL ABOUT YOU?
A BRILLIANTLY CONCEIVED, DEEPLY DISTURBING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER ABOUT A WOMAN HAUNTED BY SECRETS – AND THE PRICE SHE WILL PAY FOR CONCEALING THE TRUTH
When a mysterious novel appears at Catherine Ravenscroft’s bedside, she is curious. She has no idea who might have sent her The Perfect Stranger – or how it ended up on her nightstand. At first, she is intrigued by the suspenseful story that unfolds.
And then she realizes.
This isn’t fiction.
The Perfect Stranger recreates in vivid, unmistakable detail the day Catherine became hostage to a dark secret, a secret that only one other person knew – and that person is dead.
Now that the past Catherine so desperately wants to forget is catching up with her, her world is falling apart. Plunged into a living nightmare, she knows that her only hope is to confront what really happened on that terrible day… even if the shocking truth might destroy her.
day… even if the shocking truth might destroy her.
Renée Knight worked for the BBC directing arts documentaries before turning to writing. She has had TV and film scripts commissioned by the BBC, Channel Four and Capital Films. In April 2013 she graduated from the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course. She lives in London with her husband and two children. ~ Transworld Publishers
“Joseph D’Lacey rocks!” —Stephen King Mason Brand has fled his life as a celebrated photographer and renounced his past. He is living rough, as a hermit in the Welsh hills, when something happens to him among the mossy oaks. He begins to hear “the calling.” Years later, Mason is living with sight of a colossal landfill dump, and he hears “the calling” again. This time he will heed it, and it will lead him, for he is called to assist in a terrible birth—out of the waste of human society comes a thing, and its enemy is human. Tackling the issue of the environment and landfill sites, this chilling fable of eco-horror asks what happens to all the unwanted things we bury, because they just won’t go away.
I don’t know what to say about this book. In awe seems such inadequate words for the description. A good book, it’s not. A fantastic, inspiring, wonderfully written, imaginative, can’t-put-it-down book is more like it. I have never read anything like this before and am very curious about his other books. He has written 31 so far. I could describe about the three-dimensional characters and Joseph’s ability to transport you to another world, but in plain text, you got to read this. Plain and simple.
Die boek titel is presies wat die storie binne vertel. Die ondenkbare. Op soveel vlakke word dit duidelik gemaak. Ek het die soenoffer eerste gelees van Isa Konrad en dit was n uitsonderlike boek. So was ek bietjie bang gewees vir die teleurstelling vn enige van haar ander boeke en het vir n rukkie nie van haar boeke gelees nie. Op n dag besluit ek basta met dit, ek vat een. Ek besluit toe op die ondenkbare. Die storie het vir my bietjie stadig begin en half n huppel in die woud trant gehad, tot die ondenkbare gebeur het. Wel die 1ste in elk geval. Daarna het dit net vermenigvuldig en verdiep. Isa se speel met woorde is fantasties. Elke keer dink jy, dis dit. Dit is die groot sonde, dit is die ondenkbare, tot n hoofstuk verder. Die diepte bly dieper gaan. Dit bly myn tot in jou siel in, en daar gaan plant die storie homself en groei. Ek sal die boek aanbeveel vir enige iemand wat op soek is na n wereld klas skrywer.
If you struggle with a disorganized, cluttered home, decorator and author Shannon Acheson is here to help. She will help you create the space that best serves the rhythms and routines of your family through checklists, cheat sheets, charts, and fun coloring sheets. Clutter isn’t just about the stuff. It’s about how you feel in your home–and in your mind.
Thank you Goodreads for the information above.
So I requested this book and a few others from Netgalley. I am not a fan of the Netgalley reading app and will not request more books to read but will most certainly request more audiobooks.
So my wife and I started. And it was FUN. Not what I expected. We recorded the first few days on TikTok so here is a link of one of those short video’s.
The book does not state that it is fit for all. Or a one size fits all. It gives the reader quite a bit of space to adapt and adjust the basic principle to their schedule and their homes.
I loved the fact that the writer writes this book from a Christian POV. And shares text from the Bible to motivate the reader. That was quite an original premise for me.
So in total even though I did not manage to read nor work through the entire book, I found it very helpful and above all a fun book to use to work on that pesky clutter.
University courses on literature and environmental issues may include climate change fiction in their syllabi.[2] This body of literature has been discussed by a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Dissent magazine, among other international media outlets.[3] The role of fiction in communicating climate change has been the topic of study.
All of this info is from Wikipedia read full report here!
This genre is also known as Climate Change Fiction and is in general figured to be a lesser known sub genre of fiction.
Now until today I have never heard the abbreviation or the name itself but have read dozens of fiction books about this topic. So now I wonder. Is the sub-classification system of any real use?
What do you think?
This stunning image is from …. here. Where the author has a nice blog post about this very genre and topic. It is really good. Go read it.
Review: The Presence – John Saul By: Hantie Hartzenberg I listened to this book via the Audible App from Amazon. Fantastic app guys!! I listened to this particular book, because I also listened to The God Project, also by John Saul. The God Project(2014) was a fantastic book. This book, however, not really so fantastic. It was good, don’t get me wrong. The plot has plenty of suspense. But the word ‘suddenly’…. I cringed every time I heard the word. Overused. Now the book was written in 1997. It was probably a fad at that time to substitute a whole sentence of observations and feelings of the characters with the word suddenly. No matter, the characters was wonderfully explained, rounded and one thing John Saul can do very well, make them human. An everyday person like you and me. On that ability I give him a full 5 stars. The end I did not see coming. I had to know. No spoilers, sorry. On the storyline I give 3.5 stars. The story was great, but not his best work. Thank you for the story, John. I did enjoy it. On the narrator – Phil Gigante – You did a fantastic job on the narration of this story. You really did bring it to life. Some of the voice variations, I think, could’ve been very difficult, but you pulled it off. On your storytelling abilities I give you a full 5 stars. Well done. Thank you again to Amazon for the Audible app. It’s really an easy to use app with a wide variety of books.
With thanks to Goodreads: The Presence John Saul 3.76 3,382 ratings 156 reviews “Enough smoothly crafted suspense to keep readers turning pages long after dark.”– The Seattle Times
Beyond the sparkling Hawiian beaches, masked by the deceptive beauty of the rainforest, evil awaits sixteen-year-old Michael Sundquist and his mother, Katharine, and anthropologist who has come to the Islands to study the unusual skeletal remains unearthed on the volcanic flanks of Halekala, Maui. Yet far below the black depths of the Pacific a mysterious substance snakes through undiscovered fissures in the ocean floor, as nature itself seems to portend the terror to come. Then, with the sudden, unexpected death of Michael’s friend, a disturbing truth dawns: the corporation that is funding Katherine’s dig has a far greater investment than she ever imagined–an investment in medical terror. And her son may be part of their hideous grand plan. . . .
Lien verkyk haar aan die posters teen die mure. ‘n Wit koepel en potblou lug en ‘n nog blouer see op ‘n Griekse eiland. Ou geboue in Jerusalem in die sonsondergang. ‘n Straatkafee in Parys met die Eiffeltoring op die agtergrond. Om weg te kom, is moontlik. Dié vreemde plekke het name. ‘n Mens kan daaraan vat. Sy kry hoendervleis.
Vir Lien Jooste het haar matriekjaar onverwags in ‘n nagmerrie ontaard. Dinge by die huis kan nooit weer dieselfde wees nadat alles oornag uitmekaar geval het nie. Om weg te kom, lyk vir haar na die enigste uitweg. Weg van die huis, weg van die aaklige skool waarin sy onverwags beland het, en veral weg van haar ma. Maar om weg te kom, kos geld. Geld wat sy nie het nie …
Lien se lankstaanskoene is die aangrypende verhaal van ‘n matriekmeisie wat te midde van ‘n familiekrisis leer dat ‘n mens meestal slegs twee keuses het: óf jy sink, óf jy swem
Lien se Lankstaanskoene
Resensie
Deur Hantie Hartzenberg
Ek het n paar jaar gelede die rolprent gekyk en dit was aangrypend. Ek het die jaar die boek gekry in n klein verlate tweedehandse boekwinkeltjie en besluit dit kan nie skade doen om die boek te lees nie. Dit het nie. Inteendeel, die boek het soveel meer impak gehad as wat die rolprent ooit kon bemeester. Net soos in die rolprent vertel die skrywer van ‘n meisiekind wat teen wil en dank nie net oorleef nie, maar vir haar broer en ma sorg. Dit is en sal altyd een van daai boeke bly wat jy sal saamdra tot in der ewigheid toe.
Die boekiie, nie baie lywig nie, is n vinnige en genotvolle lees. Dit vloei maklik en die woordgebruik is maklik verstaanbaar vir enige persoon. Oud en jonk. Hierdie boek is nie eksklusief vir jong mense nie, so die ouer van dae kan met n geruste hart hierdie een lees en geniet.
Die karakters in die boek is doodgewone jan allerman. Hulle doen presies wat ons almal sou doen, sou ons in daai situasie vasgevang word. As jy al daar was, dan sal jy presies weet waar Lien se astrantheid vandaan kom.
DIe skrywer, Derick van der Walt, is ongelukkig oorlede, maar dis n persoon wie se hand ek graag sou wou skud. Al is dit net om te se wel gedaan. Die boek het inderdaad n verskil gemaak. Gaan lees meer oor die skrywer en oor sy ander publikasies op die skakel hier onder.