Review: More Bedtime Stories for Cynics

More Bedtime Stories for Cynics by Kirsten Kearse
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This one was free from Audible, and it was only a little more than two and a half hours.

I say it was still over-priced and too long.

There’s no way I’d have finished this if I hadn’t started it as part of a long run and finished the run with only a little more to hear. (Trust me, I was on double-speed by the end.)

For starters, it’s self-indulgent throughout. Each of the narrators seems to have been told just to go for it, to be as over-the-top as possible. As a result, the performances are all over the place in terms of style with the only common thread that each narrator seems intent on showing in a different way that she or he is mocking her more serious work.

Then there’s the matter of Nick Offerman being way over-exposed. I like his comedy less than many people, but I still like it. He’s at his best when he’s laconic, though, when he counter-punches with a quick and subtle jab. Here he’s the emcee, and he’s not merely unfunny but playing against his own strengths as he does so.

And, finally, this is just badly written. One starts out with “It was a dark and stormy night” and then goes on for the next couple minutes to qualify that hackneyed phrase. Hello, 1974 is calling and wants its not-so-funny-then meme back.

There’s only one story I’d characterize as even remotely inspired – a hardboiled retelling of Snow White where Doc, the dwarf, runs an illegal organ stealing operation. A couple others are just short of adequate, one where a woman-turned-frog discovers that unleashing her rage works just as well as waiting for a man to kiss her and another where a teacher in an inner-city magic school writes a series of letters chronicling the end of his idealism. That leaves ten that left me shrugging my shoulders and waiting for something like a laugh.

I’ve been fortunate to read some great things lately so, if nothing else, this one reminds me that I still have certain standards. And this doesn’t come close to those.


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