Lillian R. Melendez

This book didn’t leave much of a lasting impression on me. It’s one of those mystery novels that tries to juggle multiple stories but does so poorly.

Gloria goes on the run with her sister to avoid somebody who is clearly trying to do her sister harm. Meanwhile, it’s around the time of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and a group of hackers is trying to commit identity theft. Good old super-hearing Gloria can’t help but overhear hackers loudly talking into the phone in public about their plans everywhere she goes.

Somehow there’s always a cop within reach who believes her story about the hackers trying to steal people’s identities. So they go up to random strangers and request to search them based on the accusations of some woman they just met.

Nothing about the story seems the least bit believable.

The narrator is just awful. He does a good job of reading the story, but that’s it. The majority of the time, he reads every single character with the same boring tone of voice. Every now and then, he’ll give a character personality. But sometimes characters voices, tones, inflection or accents will change randomly. So it’s often difficult to tell who is even talking.

The audiobook itself isn’t much better. A large percentage of Audible books seem to have issues with dialogue repeating or echoes. This book has more than any other story I’ve listened to. They’re often lumped together. If you hear the same line twice, changes are a few minutes later, it will happen again.

After reading 50+ books in 2 1/2 months, my standard for what I call a bad book has changed. This book isn’t terrible, but I’m not going to be listening to or reading it ever again.

NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.… (més)

Gloria Rank has been blind since birth, but being blind didn’t slow her down. She learned how to get around very well. Through senses other than sight, she manages to take in much of her surroundings. She is a radio host. She and her partner have just hosted a show about Identity Theft with Benjamin Taylor, a security expert and president of Wired Security. As soon as she parts ways with Benjamin, she tries to locate him once again as her sister, Anna, becomes a victim. A hacker has not only stolen a lot of money from her, they’ve also stolen her identity. Not only that, Anna appears to be in physical danger from the hacker. The man that someone killed outside her apartment seems to tie in with Anna somehow. At first the police suspect Anna, but then they realize she’s is a victim. They try to send Anna to a secure place, but it becomes unsecure very quickly and Gloria takes it upon herself to help her sister by teaching her to use her other senses to avoid danger.

I really liked the premise of this story. It didn’t dwell on Gloria’s handicap, but rather focused on her strengths. I really admired Gloria’s can-do attitude, even when her sister was fighting against her efforts. Gloria knew that Anna was not safe, and so she insisted that Anna listen to her. The dialogue bothered me because it was too formal, even between the sisters. For instance, most people contract ‘do not’ and ‘will not’ into ‘don’t’ and ‘won’t’. Such was not the case in this story. Many of the scenes were unrealistic. They were too coincidental and logistically weak. The characters were not given enough depth for the reader to feel a warm connection with them. Rating: 2.5 out of 5.… (més)