full of surprises

I enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it to my friends who enjoy true crime stories. It's about a couple whose 2 daughters go missing and for almost 3 years there was a struggle/fight, to find those girls. as much as I enjoyed the story, I strongly recommend getting different readers. these people were terrible! Reading so fast that their words became a jumbled mess! It sounded like they were chewing a huge wad of gum at least part of the time. so many mispronounced words that I had to figure out what was said. one of the readers even apologized, several times, so he knew he wasn't reading well.

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1 person found this helpful

Compelling story; mediocre narration

Riveting, compelling true story that is let down by narration that is rushed, delivered with scant emotion, and marred by repeated sentences and do-overs. Was there even an editor for this project? I can’t believe that the producers let this be produced as it is.

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Riveting

I’ve listened multiple times and will listen again!
It’s amazing how some reviews are so prejudiced but don’t let ignorance stop you from reading a great book.

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Interesting Story not great audio

I appreciate the authors reading their own book, but in this case I believe this could've benefited from a professional voice artist and some editing. That being said, the story was compelling enough to keep me hooked till the end. The wife's campaign to disrupt justice and keep a father from his children was deplorable. The attorneys that went along with and supported this campaign should be disbarred for obstruction, but surprisingly (or not) one of them is actually aiming for a supreme court position!

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Intriguing story, but ...

These authors are well outside their wheelhouse with both the story and the self- narration. An otherwise intriguing true story is presented as a towering mess of slurred rapid reading aloud of an excruciating level of court record detail. There is little in the way of character development outside of those court documents. The authors don't seem to be familiar with the standards of most true crime reporting, and do admit that this is not their area of expertise.

Without sharing any spoilers, the real point of this book is exposing the activism and activists (by name) who are interfering with certain cases in the family law courts of Minnesota . It’s an expose' of the lengths that some of the activists will go to to disrupt and change the trajectory of how family law is administered.

This book is driven by the emotional and political involvement of the authors, as they readily admit. The authors make no secret of their bias, and occasionally even characterize people they don’t like as “cowardly “, conniving and indifferent to the minor children. They make a strong case for their bias, but of course any reader not familiar with the case has to consider if there is more to know than is presented in this book.

As someone who knew nothing about these issues or this case beforehand, this book is a troubling look at how families can be torn apart by the agenda-driven behavior of adults who should be more concerned about the welfare of the children involved.

The narration by the authors is nothing but a flat-toned, slurred, rapid reading aloud. It is often hard to follow and sometimes hard to understand. Most of the names are hard to distinguish, and there are more and more names as the book continues. The narration is not up to professional standard, and not at all what I expect from an Audible book.

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Great plot line, dry reading

I completely devoured this book. The twists and turns of this case were incredible and unbelievable. The amount of harm and selfish acts this mother put the rest of her family through, seemingly out of the blue and for no reason that anyone can understand was heartbreaking, and terrifying. The fact that this journalist and lawyer came together and were able to really put the focus on to this case that needed to be put forth without exploiting the family was incredible and meaningful. You can just tell that between these two authors they were affected by this case as much as those involved in it. And in some cases they actually did get pulled into it more than you would expect and even at some point put their own lives at risk for these children.

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Unedited in audio format

The case is interesting and the writing isn't terrible. I'd say this is about par with the normal true crime book you'd pick up. The issue I had is the audio version is read by the authors, so their delivery is very monotonous, and it's clearly unedited. It's very, very common to hear the authors repeat sentences at least twice. There was one instance where one sentence was repeated FIVE TIMES. Hell, one time you can clearly hear Michael start to curse or whatever because he couldn't get the passage right before it's cut off. I think you could cut an hr off the time of this book by simply cutting all the repeated passages.

This isn't the authors fault -- unless they *insisted* on reading the book for whatever reason (why authors, why?!) I'm not saying the book is bad or the writing is bad. I'm saying this was terribly edited in audio format and shouldn't be available until these issues are fixed. If you're fine with the authors delivery and them repeating sentences over and over and over and over and over again, go for it.

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1 person found this helpful

Awesome true crime story!

I was hesitant to purchase this book by reading solely the description but I was very pleasantly surprised once I got started. It is very well written and extremely in depth. The night I started it I stayed up way too late listening to it. I listened every spare second while I was working and at every smoke break I got to take. I finished it in two days. It was well worth the money and I’d recommend to anyone that enjoys true crime.

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Listened to end. Frustrating Reading; Good story

Fascinating story. Increasingly compelling. Eventually can't wait to learn that the villains (and they are villains) are dealt with (finally) appropriately. Of course, they are not. Good lesson about the mess we make when we romanticize family. The great weakness (and frustration) of the text is the performance. First, there are repeated editing errors. I lost count of the number of times sentences were repeated. If at all possible, it should be reedited to eliminate those. However, the quality of the reading voices is the weakest element. Both readers mispronounce words and have difficulty with pacing and with precise enunciation. The male voice was very hard for me to listen to; I appreciate vernacular speech and idioms, but not words rushed together and, especially, the absence of clarity of words. Lots and lots of mushiness. Both readers care about the story and the book, which they co-authored. Both needed either more rehearsal or to hire professional readers to truly honor the story they dedicated themselves to ensuring was made public.

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Good book but read to fast.

The person reading this book was reading at a very fast pace making it very hard to fully catch all the details.

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