I'm Entangled!

Mind blowing! Graham, where is the sequel????? The suspense is killing me! Talk about a cliffhaner, this is one for the record books.

22 people found this helpful

Great Story

What did you love best about Entangled?

What drew me to this book was the background behind it and the wonderful work of Graham Hancock. I first heard about this from his feature on the Joe Rogan Podcast where he explained in short where he came up with the motive to write the book. He said while drinking Ayahuasca one time he had asked the spirit of the plant what it wanted him to do, and, apparently, it asked him to tell this story. Some may think that sounds like a great marketing platform to sell the book, but from what I know of Graham Hancock I would doubt his motives would be so self-serving.. others may not agree, but this of course is all just opinion. If this story indeed originated from the spirit of the ayahuasca plant than I would think it relatively true or at least based in truth.

I've personally had many thoughts of visiting South America and the Amazon to see a shaman of an indigenous culture in order to experience ayahuasca in a proper setting, and this book gave me great insight into what one could expect of such an experience. I'd say one of the best things I took away from this was the insight into the direness of an ayahuasca experience itself, and how seriously it must be taken.. I knew this beforehand, but wasn't sure why exactly, and this book does a great job of laying that out towards the end with an actual shaman's perspective in the matter.

What does Khristine Hvam and Graham Hancock (Introduction) bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The introduction by Graham sets it up nicely for what you can expect and how to filter it. I found the reader to be reminiscent of my childhood listening to a teacher or librarian reading a book to children in animated language and impersonations.. sure, a bit corny, but would you rather a monotone bore or to simply read it yourself? If yes, than there are other sites you can purchase the print version and for much cheaper. People often like to find fault in something even if there isn't much to complain about; I don't see the point.. I haven't read the print version, but granted it is the same script and nothing was left out, I find nothing to subtract any stars over.. great book, great reader, great recording quality, what more would you want?

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I read a few reviews denoting the gratuitous violence plagued throughout and how it turned many off to the story. I would retort that these people should pull their britches and stop being such p#ssies lol.. honestly though, as Graham explains in the introduction, these are things that humans have indulged in since our nomadic inception. An element of wickedness has stirred in man for ages and this story reaches time periods long lost in human/earth history.. it is undoubtedly exposing a side of ourselves we hoped to cover in veils of contemporary advances of culture and technology, tho they are still very much a part of our behavior and some of the driving force behind our 'peachy' advances. It reminds me of something Vast Aire once said, 'if you don't like the smell of burning meat, then get the f#@$ off the planet,' lol a thing that's sad but true. Violence and negativity have a mainstay in our lives and on our planet if only as a small factor in the best of us, so to ignore it would be doing the universal truth a disservice, just as well, ignoring something has never done anything to alleviate it, so why shouldn't these topics have a central position in our culture if we ever hope to conquer them?

The point is, yes, the book describes these elements in strong, gut-wrenching detail, but if we don't shine a light on them and explore their roots pretending like we live in a utopian society where there's only a few bad apples floating around, we lose sight of the reality that we all play parts in watered down, somehow socially acceptable versions of the same thing all the time.

On another the note, the book was written in a thriller fashion with each chapter leaving you on the edge of your seat, ping-ponging back and forth from one character's story to the other often leaving you mad that you have to leave the current character in their current predicament waiting a whole other chapter before you get back to see what happens to them. Overall, I thought this was a great way to tell the story, and often stayed out later than I wanted to listening to more of the story to see what happens.

31 people found this helpful

Truly amazing!

Can't wait for the second half of this book, and all his future novels. Audible needs to add more of Graham Hancock's work!!

8 people found this helpful

INTENSE YES, BUT GREAT BOOK, STORY & MEANING

What did you love best about Entangled?

This book is intense, I agree, but it was supposed to be. And he does warn you of that from the beginning. And really without all of that the book would not be as good or prove the real point of showing the real evil in this world, as he states, it is our own past and present and humans themselves that have already done these things and do them now, sad but true, it is nothing new. There is also so much more to this book, the real meanings under this and was written with a purpose and smartly done in my opinion. Giving a story like he did, entangled between the 2 lives, but also being able to show so much more beyond a normal story would take you. I would recommend this book to anyone that is ready for it, meaning, I know there are many maybe not ready to read something like this just yet, but I hope more will be able to once they read and develop a better understanding of things and life and are open enough to really benefit from it. This is now for certain one of my favorite books in my collection and I am waiting eagerly for the next book to follow this for I do admit I was bummed a little at the end, but that just proves how good it was for me, I wanted to keep hearing more and I am waiting for the next one to keep going with this story!!

7 people found this helpful

More to this novel than meets the eye...

I finished listening to the audiobook of Entangled earlier today. It is an astonishing, beautiful, heart rending, magical, and truthful tale told with mastery. I felt "on the edge of my seat" throughout the entire novel, and I am dying to know what happens next!

To Mr. Graham Hancock: You are a remarkable individual, and I am grateful for the work you and your wife have accomplished. I greatly admire your hands on research, and I love your interviews, lectures and writing. Please keep it coming. I absolutely love Entangled! And have you considered making it into a movie? It would be amazing on screen! Please bring out part two as quickly as possible!

Warmly,
SO

11 people found this helpful

Love/Hate

The book was interesting enough for me to want it to be finished. It was also aggravating enough for me to want it to be finished. Several ham-handed literary techniques were a downward drag on the story. For example, I understand the necessity of switching from one time era to the other, however however building drama and then switching, building drama again, switching, over and over became very tire some. Something that bothered me even more, the author never missed a chance to infuse the story with blood gore slashing and other vile subjects.He never missed a chance to say their bodies were smeared with blood. The story could have done without 80% of the constant description of blood and guts. It seems as though the author was indulging his own prurient interests. Again, it was abusive. Sadly the reader was without talent in terms of creating vocal characters. She would have done better to just read the story. While I am somewhat of a Hancock fan, I will not buy another of his novels.

6 people found this helpful

Best Novel I've Ever Read

Would you consider the audio edition of Entangled to be better than the print version?

I haven't read the print version, and having listened to the audio version, I would not anticipate reading it. That said, I absolutely loved listening to this book! Graham Hancock's way with words paints a tapestry in your mind that is hard to imagine as possible while reading the printed page.

What did you like best about this story?

I love the story, it is fantastic!

Which scene was your favorite?

I have no particular favorite scene, I loved the way the story rolled between time periods seamlessly.

Any additional comments?

This is a must read book!

2 people found this helpful

Trite torture porn for people who take burning man wayyy too seriously

This story is ugly, violent, and full of obnoxious and dated stereotypes and cliches. Hancock tries to delve into the nature of evil, but clearly has a child’s view of this, despite delighting throughout the book in describing gruesome acts of violence against children. I think he enjoys describing rape, murder and cannibalism a *wee* bit much, and this impression is reinforced by his shrilly defensive forward to the book, wherein he pleads with us to believe him when he says that his descriptions of violence are only there because they are somehow true to history. Well, we all know how well Hancock understands history.

And the book is just loaded with boring, lazy, bigoted tropes: an “ugly hook-nosed” scientist with an excess of facial hair named “Shapira”, the main gay character being brutally and gruesomely murdered, unimaginative and anachronistic representations of prehistoric cultures (Hancock’s well-known laziness with facts and history is on full display here), the ridiculous tinfoil hat name given to the enemy race (“the Illumani”), the suspicious way a literal minor child becomes romantically interested in “Matt Aubrey” a British, middle-aged apparent burnout who ends up being a wealthy James Bond type and an obvious stand-in for Hancock himself.

Aside from these flaws, the book as a whole is poorly-edited. It gets off to a decent start, and then starts to drag on and on with relentless and unnecessarily long descriptions of unthinkable violence that do nothing to move the story along. The nature of the “magic” involved in the time-travel and “entanglement” is poorly-defined and self-inconsistent...kinda like the internal logic of a psychedelic trip.

And then the book just kinda...ends. I get that it’s supposed to be the first in a series, but there are none of the hints a more competent writer (or editor) would insist upon to prepare the reader for this part of the story to end. The story has no shape. In the end, it’s kinda like hearing your friend describe a really bad trip they had at Burning Man.

1 person found this helpful

Too gory, too violent

The supernatural aspects were very interesting but the endless violence and gore was just too much. I won’t be getting the sequel.

1 person found this helpful

Action-Adventure YA-level but over-the-top violent

Graham Hancock can write exciting fiction. I skipped War God, suspecting that there would be a lot of human sacrifice in the book and I still remember details of such a book I read decades ago from a fiction book I checked out from a library in 7th grade. Horrific.

I see the influence of Dr. Rick Straussman's book DMT which was heavily referred to in Graham Hancock's book Supernatural, and I can only suppose that the intricate OBE travels beyond our space and time were influenced by Graham Hancock's own years of experience with marijuana and ayahuasca.

The plot/storyline is intricate and exciting, but there is a lack of depth and the subtle touches that can be so delightful to a reader/listener. The horror of rape and torture and abuse is so heavy-handed that it serves to desensitize, which may be the opposite effect the author states he desired in a foreword before the actual story starts. And, it is disturbing that the book is written and narrated at Young Adult level, but has so much rape and torture and cruelty at the same time.

I tried to muscle through the unpleasantness but did have to use the Fast-Forward skip option on my iPod a bit to get back to the story and skip whatever cruelty Graham Hancock wanted to expose my mind to.

No more fiction from Graham Hancock for me. I really enjoyed his books Fingerprint of the Gods, Magicians of the Gods, and Supernatural . . . but the fiction is beyond dark.

The narrator has a bright and intelligent voice and enthusiastically reads the story out loud to the listener, but does not "do" character voices that some other narrators can.

1 person found this helpful