Book Review: First Family

There have only been two audible books that I have listened to and stopped part way through.

First Family by David Baldacci was one of them. I started this book in early April and just had a horrible time getting into it. This is a book falling just shy of 15 hours and by around 2 hours into it I gave up. So a few months later I was a few weeks away from getting my next Audible credit so I decided to give the book another chance and listen to the entire book promising myself to get through it. I have never read any David Baldacci in the past but have heard raving reviews, and although the reviews on this book were mixed I was still expecting a decent story. That just was not the case.

This is the first book I can honestly say I really did not enjoy on Audible. In fact the only thing that I did like was the stellar voice acting, it was truly superb. Outside of that the story had a few side stories to go along with the main narrative that could have been thrown out all together. You get literally half way through the book and they take a good hour or so exploring an avenue that really had a very poor tie in to the rest of the novel. I just didn't understand a lot of the underlying complexities to a plot line that was dense enough on its own merits. What really bothered me way Baldacci's heavy handed approach with the books message about hatred, which he spells out in far to great of lengths. To top it all off there is a very subtle love story intertwined into all of this that for me worked but it was so minute in comparison to the scope of the book that it fell flat in the end.

If you cannot tell already I was really disappointed with First Family. I thought the first time I listened through the opening chapters that maybe I just wasn't in the mood for the book, but having given it the good old college try the second time through I have to say that this is one of the most disappointing audible purchases I have made since being a member over a year ago.