very captivating!!

Alot of characters but great suspense and many twists!! kept me interested the whole time.

2 people found this helpful

perfect murdet-suspense

Brilliant new concept for this genre. Many surprises but no holes or contrivances. Compelling characters. Reader helps with that. Make a movie or TV minii-series.

1 person found this helpful

Good Story; Stupid Characters

This book comes very close to being a 5-star book. I had to give it 4 stars because of the ridiculous decisions made by the main characters.

No Spoiler Here:
At one point in the story, a main character asks herself, "Why did I come up with such a stupid plan?" I laughed out loud. That is exactly what I want to know. Someone is seeking revenge on behalf of another individual. Who could it be? Well, I am sure that 90% of all readers of this book guessed who it was! Why wouldn't the main characters see it?

I do admire O'Brien's writing style, and he knows how to build suspense. The "old wrong" that needed to be "righted" was pretty interesting and believable. So I give the story 4 stars.

(It was not even a little bit scary. I am still looking for SCARY stories!)

The narrator has the annoying habit of adding a syllable to the end of most sentences. So he says "What was that Noise-uh?" instead of "What was that noise?" I learned to tune that out, or the whole listening experience would have been annoying in the extreme.

1 person found this helpful

O'Brien does it again!

I discovered Kevin O based on an audible suggestion and I'm glad I took a chance.
In this book, I was a little concerned with the female lead near chapter 30 as she seemed to be so smart but couldn't figure out what was obvious to me but in the end, all was as it should have been. I will pick up his other books.

1 person found this helpful

I am really, really sorry.

The reviews of "Awesome", and "You won't be sorry", led me to purchase this book expecting a really interesting ride. I just fast-forwarded to the end (at about the two thirds mark) because I could not stand any more of the following: ridiculous choices made by some of the characters (supposedly in mortal fear for themselves and their families), such as inviting a complete stranger you met on the street into your home to babysit your children; involving a potential suspect's father in your top secret investigation; not involving the police because the crimes had all taken place in different jurisdictions; tortuously detailed paragraphs along the lines of, "She stepped on the brake pedal until the car slowed to a crawl. With her hands at two and ten o'clock, she swung the steering wheel to the left to pull into the driveway. She brought the car to a halt in front of the garage doors. Reaching into a zippered pouch on the side of her purse, she pulled out the remote garage door opener. Pointing it at the garage doors, she pressed OPEN". And all of this contrived tedium was narrated in a snore-inducing drone. Definitely sorry for the wasted credit.

5 people found this helpful

I'm Sorry Alright

If you waste a credit on "Tell Me You're Sorry", you'll be sorry alright. I plodded through 3 hrs of this turkey, hating nearly every minute of it, before I finally pulled the plug. This hot mess will have you saying, "God, this is awwwful!" every 5 mins. or so. The story, the performance, the everything about this, is boredom personified.

I wish I could find a silver lining, something positive to say, but honestly, I couldn't possibly care less who killed whom, let alone the why of it. And the narration...gah! It was like adding insult to injury. This guy can't do character voices, period. Everyone ends up sounding snobbish with only slight variations, even when they're supposed to be sympathetic. His performance was as ghastly as the author's work so, I suppose, in a horrible twist of fate, they were perfect for each other.

There are too many great novels out there to waste your time or money on this tripe. I don't know if this author has other works to his credit or not, as you couldn't pay me to try another one of his creations, but this one is simply awful.

4 people found this helpful

This wasn't the book for me

Other people clearly enjoy this book, but it was not for me.

I think that O'Brien writes very interesting characters. There was work put into making several of the characters interesting and well designed. As the book has to switch perspectives often this is a strength in the novel. I liked spending time with many of these flawed people. Though I would have liked to spend a bit more time exploring and mining the old grounds keeper character.

Michael Kramer remains one of my favorite voice actors and he really tried to communicate a lot of emotion and personality. He tries hard to give a lot of the characters very distinct voices. All credit to him for putting in real effort.

I found the pacing of the story made the story boring. For me too much was revealed early on in the book about how these malefactors were committing their crimes. Having it essentially revealed in the first quarter of the book meant I could spend far too much time thinking of all the ways their complicated plans would fail. I was regularly frustrated with the pacing in this book. A story like this relies on ratcheting tension, and for some people knowing how the crimes are done while the protagonists do not for some readers builds tension as characters ignore what readers know are important clues. Sadly, this narrative technique doesn't work for me.

That said one of the chapters in this book, a flash back chapter to explain the motives of the malefactors, was extremely discomforting. I suspect the author wanted to explore ideas of consent and perspective, but the entire chapter felt tawdry and exploitative. I don't think this story needed this level of detail and perhaps the book would have been better with more ambiguity that cruel summer night.

I cannot recommend this book, but I can understand why others liked it.

Intriguing storyline with a well-paced delivery

Tell Me You’re Sorry features an intriguing storyline with interesting characters and a well-paced delivery. Though it seems like main characters Stephanie and Ryan should have been more deeply emotional considering what they had been through, I suppose overwhelming sorrow would have been a drag on the advancing plot. Their lack of lingering, intense sadness did not negatively impact the story or my engagement as a reader, and I actually finished the book faster than expected because I was eager to discover what happened next. And next. And NEXT! This was my first Kevin O’ Brien novel, but it certainly will not be the last.
One side note: I might have preferred a female narrator for this audiobook since the story was mostly told from a female point of view, but Michael Kramer did well overall.
Unexpected surprise: A minor character is named after the organizer/leader of my book club. So fun!

Loved this book from beginning to end

Love this Author
All his books are 5 stars
Catches your attention from beginning to end
O

Great story.

Keeps getting more and more interesting. I loved that twists and turns, and enjoyed every moment while listening to this book.