Why this narrator?

I'm not sure why they keep using this guy for Bentley Little books. He constantly sounds like he's half asleep and barely making through the story. The books would be more enjoyable with a different narrator. I won't purchase any more books from this author if this guy does the reading.

5 people found this helpful

Little delivers but little performance.

If you've read Bentley Little you know what is his work is like. 'The Academy' is no different. Taking the most mundane scenarios and twisting in the most over-the-top evil is what I enjoy about Little's works. Granted, it is easy to get annoyed with character traits and actions, however, it gives the same kind of fun as watching a horror film and yelling at the screen for the people to STOP DOING THAT!

'The Academy' is a fine jaunt into the world of charter schools (and being married to a school principal, I hear about the real corruption of charter schools all the time) and the whole story falls straight into stereotypical Bentley Little.
BUT, the major hindrance to this audio book is the narrator. David Stifel is bad...very very BAD. He sounds like a mentally challenged Canadian learning English as a 3rd language.

His "girl" voices? These are cringe worthy to the point of wondering whether he as EVER heard a woman speak. And considering there are many female characters, it gets AWFULLY aggravating.

Teenagers? Well they sound like 3 year-olds just beginning to sound out words.

Inflection? Even when the author has WRITTEN what the inflection is (i.e. "he said incredulously") it appears Stifle does not know what directional words actually mean.

I can't over-exaggerate how atrocious this narration is. I wish I had just read the paperback. My own mind fills in the audio/visual aspects of Little books so much better. A warning to those seeing the name "David Stifel" as a narrator, avoid the book. Read it on your own.

4 people found this helpful

too much of the same thing

the "evil institution" formula
is getting tiresome. The first half a dozen books with this formula were entertaining but after several they are getting so predictable that they're hard to finish. I hope that he goes a different direction something more original would be nice.

4 people found this helpful

Worst Narrator David Stifel (Seriously. Don’t buy anything narrated by him.)

A friend of mine recommended Bentley Little’s books to me and I’ve been listening to them all over the last couple of months. This isn’t one of his best stories, but it shares the pacing and style of his others (which have become a relaxing background for my drives and cooking dinner each night.)

This is maybe the third of his books narrated by David Stifel and feel I would almost be in a space of negligence not to mention how awful he is.

The best way to describe Stifel’s narrative style as if he were an alien who had never met a human being but listened to Orson Welles’s original War of the Wolds radio show a hundred times to figure out how to sound like one. His inappropriate inflections and repeated mispronunciations of common and pop culture words and phrases is strange and obnoxious. (In this book, he described a punk rock woman’s t-shirt as displaying the band logo of The Rah-mo-NAYZ. Just to illustrate his misunderstanding of things even an older man should know. Current icons are even worse.) He narrates every young person in a high pitched tinny voice typically reserved for toddler voices, that (if I had any suspicion at all that he knows what’s going on in the book he’s narrating) would almost sound mocking. But it’s not. He just has no clue what an 18-year-old person sounds like.

Stifel also over-pronounces basic plosives to the extent that’s often adds an extra syllable between words the end and then start in them (for example, “wanted treats” becomes “WAN-ted-uh-TREAT-suh”). And don’t even get me started on “Administrative Coordinator”, which, sadly, is a phrase repeated DOZENS of times in this book. I could actually die if I had to hear him say it one more time.

Every female voice (rather than just softening his tone like most male narrators do) is whiney, twangy and makes the character sound as if they’re on the verge of tears at all times, while every expression of emotion that would make sense with a particular specified inflection comes off as either impatience or exasperation with no nuance or range in between. Sarcasm is a ridiculously old-timey lowering of his vocal pitch until it literally sounds like he’s just waiting for a funny trumpet to play “WAH-wah-waaaaaaahhh!” in the background.

There are so many more problems, but my hands are beginning to cramp from typing them out.

I’m taking the time to write all of this because some audiobook producer needs to hear it. The number of books this man has narrated is UNFATHOMABLE. Sitting through one of his performances was kind of funny. Sitting through a second was a bit annoying. After the third, I will never EVER buy another book narrated by him.

The fact that David Stifel has booked and recorded so many gigs makes me feel like no one screens them before putting them up in Audible. Take some pride in the product you are selling. I’m sure David’s trying his best, but someone who knows better needs to encourage him to retire. He’s ruining one of my favorite pastimes and many authors’ hard work.

3 people found this helpful

Welcome to Hell high!

this was a very good book as good as others by this author, it was very well written, freakish in some parts but really good. he messed up at the end though mentioning Frank Linda's husband watching Bill Maher. come on Bentley you can do better than that. the narrator did a good job, loved how he did all the characters and brought them all to life. made me feel like I was there.

2 people found this helpful

Too many lose ends

While I love the paranormal aspects of Littles books, there are often way too many things, usually of a explicit sexual nature, that are thrown in for shock value and have no value to the story. In this story, there was also graphic disgusting gore that had no later tie in or explanation as to how it related to the rest of the story. It was all for shock value. I’ve commented on this before, but given this book just came out in 2020, I guess Little doesn’t care what his audience thinks. So this is my last Little book!

2 people found this helpful

Movie!!❤❤

IT'S GOTTA BE A MOVIE ❤❤❤❤
SCARY BRILLIANT!!❤❤ THE REVIEW THAT NEEDS 15 WORDS TO POST CAN F- OFF!! 🎯💯🤣🤣🤣🤣

worst of Little's so far

all of Bently Littles books have sexual content in them which most of the time I found random so slightly comical. but this one is about high school students and the school faculty. it's really hard to get through. this book keeps bringing up either teachers being naked and students having to do certain things with the teachers, even asked a parent to pose naked for student to draw. it's alot of forcing the students to do wierd and uncomfortable things and nothing is being done about it. most of his books have a good thrill to them but this one is just plain wierd and makes me not want to even give anymore of his other books a chance.

The Academy

I am a recent convert to Mr. Little’s works. I thoroughly enjoyed this audio version. My commute is so long in the morning and evening and as much as I really like to turn a page, this satisfies my needs for stories. I’ve listened to two of Mr. Little’s books so far and I’m hooked.

Bad narrator, story just an excuse to rant

The story was okay, but it'd be better if it weren't that 80% of it is just the author ignorantly complaining about charter schools and religion. Also the narrator's voices for the characters are terrible