Book description
The Monster Baru Cormorant: A Masterclass in Pretentious Misery
Seth Dickinson's sequel manages to be both tediously predictable and exhaustingly convoluted-a literary equivalent of watching someone drown in slow motion while they insist they're learning to swim. Our heroine Baru continues her descent into morally ambiguous territory with all the subtlety of a brick through a window, leaving readers to wonder if there's a single ethical boundary she hasn't already trampled into pulp.
The geopolitical machinations that supposedly make this "breathtaking" are about as fresh as last week's garbage fire. Dickinson throws so many betrayals at us that they start feeling like routine maintenance rather than shocking revelations. By page two hundred, you'll find yourself mentally checking out whenever another character inevitably double-crosses everyone within a five-mile radius.
What's particularly galling is how the audiobook format exposes every pretentious inflection in Dickinson's prose. The narrator's dramatic pauses during "philosophical" monologues become increasingly painful as the story lumbers toward its inevitable conclusion. You can practically hear the author winking at his own "complexity" while delivering the same heavy-handed metaphors about power and corruption that your high school English teacher probably rejected as too obvious.
The Empire of Masks serves as a flimsy villain precisely because Dickinson spends more time admiring his own cleverness than developing actual stakes. Watching Baru compromise her soul feels less like character development and more like watching someone methodically destroy their own credibility. By the time she's literally tearing the world apart, readers will probably be thanking their lucky stars for the escape.
This isn't Game of Thrones-level intrigue-it's Game of Thrones-level cynicism without half the entertainment value. Save yourself the audiobook credit and spend those credits on something that doesn't mistake being tedious for being profound.
High Woo
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Contrary Mary
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Classy Luck
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Natural Gold
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Mud Pie Man
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xFRST
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Fist Wizard
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ForumFlare
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Playing a wide variety of audio formats
Works on all devices with iOS 13 and newer
Huge amount of features for a small price
Frequent updates to add new features and improve existing ones
Advanced playback controls
Live sound processing
Changing the timbre of the reader's voice and noise reduction
Translated into more than 20 languages
If you love listening to fiction audiobooks, ListenBook has features to make the process easier.
Edit book data: title, author, cover
Use equalizer to make the sound comfortable for you
Adjust the playback speed
Enjoy dark and light app themes
Supported formats: MP3, M4B, AWB, FLAC, OGG audio files and many more (must be DRM free)
Auto-Bookmarks make it easy to find your place
AirPlay support allows redirection of audio output.
VoiceOver support
Dark mode for night owls
Convenient bookmarking system helps you mark the most important places.
Unlimited bookmarks for each audiobook
Put your own cover on the wager
Share your audiobook with friends
Lock-screen control
Customise app with extensive options
Sleep timer with shake to reset, set custom notification sounds, and a few unique options
Auto rewind depending on paused time, customize rewind times to your liking
Removing background noise from recordings made in classrooms and meetings
Changing the timbre of the reader's voice for a better listening experience