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Guardian

Guardian

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Quiet good
Review: I love reading this book, the story keeps you interested all the time, at first the plot of the book makes you think that is a monster on the mountain, but at the end when you see why he was a monster you will think if that could be possible.
It has two ro three things that you wouldn't do if you were MaryAnne Carpenter, but maybe that is part of the book to keep you interested in the story, apart of that is a very well written book.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: average....
Review: I read this book a while ago...and I liked it until the end...the ending was weak....and I thought that it was very childish..something that you would expect out of a book written for a 13 year old...not sure if I would read another book by this author...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: engrossing and then horrifically sad, sensitive beware
Review: I would have liked to give this book a lower rating than a 4, however, it is so well written then you can picture the events and during the story you grow to understand and like the characters so much, that it deserves at least a 5 just for that reason. No one can deny that Mr. Saul is a very good writer. The reason I reduced the rating is because of content. As I said, you come to genuinely care about the characters. There are a lot of children in the book, those are the characters I most cared about. The problem is that children start to get killed in particularly horrific manners -- one sweet child who died in the book, could have been spared and the book would have been fabulous. The death, a grisly one, was not necessary to the plot, and did not help in the building of the conclusion.

I was so upset by this book at the end that I swore I would never read another book by Mr. Saul.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Silly
Review: I'm amazed looking at the other reviews for this book that they are all so good. I was very disappointed in this book. I have read several other John Saul books and this is by far the worst I've read. I found it slow moving and the premise weak. The ending seemed as though the whole exercise of writing the thing had been so painful he just wanted to be done with it.

I will say that it's been many years since I last read a John Saul book and I may have just grown out of them.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Easy read, but the story lacks substance.
Review: I've read quite a few of John Saul's novels and I have to say I think I'm growing tired of him. This book just doesn't do it for me. His storytelling skills are remarkable but the plot of this book lacks intensity, interest, and believability. I know Saul can do better than this. If you are looking for a better JS book try God Project or Nathaniel. I give this 2.5 stars.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Haunting Tale of Physical and Emotional Isolation
Review: The werewolf is a neglected denizen of the horror genre and when written about at all is usually written about badly. Mr. Saul elevates his subject from comic book level to the level of the serious novel and does it expertly. All books of this sort require some suspension of disbelief, but the tale in this case is told so well that not that much effort is needed to be satisfied, indeed, caught up in it. This is not simply a jumps-at-you-in-the-dark story. The locale, the characters, are all drawn well, not merely sketched, and the author's strategy is very effective. He pulls you in before he scares you, which is quite an accomplishment in horror fiction, one of the most difficult types of fiction to write w-e-l-l. Mr. Saul writes well. A good book to curl up with in the cold of Winter. Even better if it's snowing outside. A haunting tale of isolation, both physical and emotional. A fine novel and a page-turner.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Haunting Tale of Physical and Emotional Isolation
Review: The werewolf is a neglected denizen of the horror genre and when written about at all is usually written about badly. Mr. Saul elevates his subject from comic book level to the level of the serious novel and does it expertly. All books of this sort require some suspension of disbelief, but the tale in this case is told so well that not that much effort is needed to be satisfied, indeed, caught up in it. This is not simply a jumps-at-you-in-the-dark story. The locale, the characters, are all drawn well, not merely sketched, and the author's strategy is very effective. He pulls you in before he scares you, which is quite an accomplishment in horror fiction, one of the most difficult types of fiction to write w-e-l-l. Mr. Saul writes well. A good book to curl up with in the cold of Winter. Even better if it's snowing outside. A haunting tale of isolation, both physical and emotional. A fine novel and a page-turner.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This book got to me !
Review: This book pulls you in. Like most Saul books the characters are REAL. You meet them and relate to them in the first half of the book. You like them and pray nothing will happen to tear their fragile world appart. That was a first for me. After the first half of the book my opinion of Maryanne compleatly changed. This book is REALY GOOD. I deducted one star because I cried.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I've found another favorite Author friends...
Review: This book was great, and it might take me awhile to get over it. I actually CRIED!(never done that before). I love the way Saul created monsters you could actually feel sorry for. The action near the end of the book was so gut wrenching and intense I practically speed-read from one page to the next to see what happens. I also love the ending, maybe Saul had a sequel in mind??

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: IT COULD HAVE BEEN A CONTENDER...
Review: This is a book that might have had a chance had the author not been so self-indulgent. The book was milked for more than it was worth and stretched to the breaking point. It needed better editing, as it was overlong and repetitive. Though the premise was mildly interesting, it falls far short of its intended mark, due to its overall lack of tension. It is not one of the author's better books.

It begins promisingly enough, when MaryAnne Carpenter, who lives in New Jersey with a philandering husband and their two children, Alison and Logan, gets a call telling her that her best friend and her wealthy husband have both died accidentally, leaving an only child, Joey. As he is her godchild, MaryAnne travels with her children to Idaho, where the Wilkensons lived on a magnificent ranch. There she discovers that she has been named as Joey's guardian.

While there, she notices that Joey is a loner, a strange child who becomes stranger with every passing moment. Joey himself senses that there is something different about him. here There is even a suspicion that Joey himself may have been responsible in some way for the deaths of his parents. Meanwhile, mysterious murders begin to take place in the rural countryside in which Joey lives. Evil seems to be all around them, as a malevolent force begins to strike at them. Who or what is it? Could it be the mysterious stranger who is spotted from time to time? Or is it someone or someething else?

The book seems to degenerate into ludicrousness, as the reader is expected to believe that MaryAnne, knowing what she knows, is allowing her children, with and without Joey, to wander around the ranch where the Wilkensons mysteriously died. She permits this, even after savage murders have taken place very close to the ranch. The book further degenerates when the characters seem to be mere fodder for the predator that is out there in the wilderness, waiting for the moment to strike yet again. This book could have been a contender, had its editor seen fit to pare it down to a point where there might still be some tension left in the book.

This audiobook, however, is very well read by David Regal in a somber, somewhat sepulchral, tone that suits the tenor of the book and adds to its ambiance. The pacing of the reading is excellent, and the voice transitions of each character are fairly effective. The sound quality of the audiobook is also excellent. While the narration deserves four stars, the content of the book merits only two. I am, therefore, awarding this book three stars.


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