Greetings all,
I’m always happy to share reviews, so it’s with great joy that I present this four-star (sort of) review for Stealing Freedom. This was a review by Margaret for the Audible version of the story, so I have to copy-paste it below for you to access.
4/5 for narrators ability, 3/5 for having two
This is the first book I have read/listened to by this author. It is a very poignant, original book. It was written before 2020, but resonates now due to recent government and law enforcement actions. The book constantly reminded me of the recent excessive military responses to peaceful protesting and false, inconsistent and contradictory narratives provided to the public from governmental bodies. In this story, everyone over the age of seven must wear a collar that would punish people for speaking or publicly displaying emotions (hugging, smiling, negative facial expressions). Drones and cameras monitor everyone every moment of their day to ensure no one rests longer than allowed, spends more than allotted time in the bathroom, etc.. Everything was regulated. It was possible to purchase words, a cost that was prohibitive to most people to the point our main character purchased six words to say to her daughter and that is the first she had spoken to her in two years. Knowing this was no way for people to live and believing they had the ability to do something about it, the main character and a few other people attempt to shut down the servers that operate the collars. They do it at extreme risk to their lives. Their plan reminded me of the movies Ocean Eleven and Now You See Me. I really liked the ending part with the main monitor and his final moments.
This is the first book I have listened to by these narrators ( Lisa Negron, J.M. Needham ). They both do well narrating. She narrates the parts that have Laurie and Laurie’s conversations (even if it is with a male) and he narrates the parts from the perspectives of the male characters when they are not having a conversation but just re-counting their thoughts or actions. Since no one can speak, the narrative often switches perspectives many times within the same chapter. This meant the narrator switched many times throughout the chapter. Lisa did a fine job giving voice to both male and female characters and had very nice pacing and cadence. I think it was quite unnecessary to have a second narrator. I found it uncomfortable for the first half of the book until I got a little more used to it. The only reason it was not fully disruptive, was both narrators were good at what they were doing. There are no explicit sex scenes, excessive violence, or swearing. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review. Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.
As you can see, she would like feedback, so if you have the time and want to help a reviewer, please pop onto her link above and offer your thoughts. Just as I love feedback, some reviewers also seek and desire feedback.
I’m noticing a trend of reviewers be less happy about a team of narrators. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I love having a male for the male POVs and a female for the female POVs. What are your thoughts?
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Thanks for reading,
Matt
M.L.S. Weech 