Les Misérables, Volume 5

(4 stars)

Ronald Newcombe

The text lives up to its fame. A beautiful and epic tale. The reading ranges from excellent to dismal. Audio quality varies considerably. Not every volunteer has adequate equipment or understands how to make a good recording. Considering that these are the sincere and best efforts of volunteers, the listener must be grateful. Just know that some readers abilities are excellent. Many are not. My recommendation to the volunteers is to at least learn the correct pronunciation of the words, character names and non-english phrases. This alone would compensate a great deal for an inability to vary pitch, pace and power. I would still recommend this reading and am thankful to all the volunteers.

A Remarkable Story

(5 stars)

Monsieur Marius

I first saw the 2012 movie and was interested in reading/listening to the book. Never (NEVER) through the whole book, was I confused, or lost. I will admit that the French pronunciation was a little off at times. But hey, nothing's going to be perfect! The movie was not far off from the book. And the singing defiantly adds...something extra to the story and meaning of the characters. But the book is defiantly just as good.

(3.5 stars)

pacejohnm of Delta, Utah

Some of the readers are detestable the way they butcher pronunciations, but Victor Hugo's Les Miserables...?..."A MASTERPIECE"!!!

The Conclusion...

(4.5 stars)

potuc

Although the ending is incredible, I am once more forced to remove half a star from the easy five that the story itself warrants. While many of the readers are good, some are very difficult to understand, due to an unfortunate combination of strong accents and poor recording equipment. I don't fault these people of course, those are things you can't really be blamed for. The only legitimate worry I have here is the French pronunciations. Most readers get them at least slightly wrong, and in different ways, making it fairly difficult to keep up with the French locations or individuals they are reading about! To end on a positive note, the overall experience was quite something, and I would certainly recommend the entire Les Misérables series to anyone reading this review.

wonderful

(4 stars)

distantshipdreams

The book is very exciting at the beginning, its many moments of despair, victory, and anguish are quite entertaining. The later chapters wrap up nicely, but are much slower than the first half of the volume. Many of the readers were great. Their pronunciation was on key, and their voices brought the characters to life. However, a handful of the readers were monotonous, and hard to understand. Their prononciation of French words were bad, but there was nothing that kept me from fully misunderstanding them. Overall, the book is great, I'm glad I have read it. But there is very little continuity from reader to reader.

overall the story of Les Miserables is a good one. give it a shot.

(3.5 stars)

Secretspy42

The reading of most readers is excellent, and the story is great. I’m glad I have listened all the way through. However, I’m sorry but the places where there is an entire book dedicated to very detailed history or poetry or such are very boring to me so I must admit to doing a bit of fast forwarding.

awesome awesome awesome

(5 stars)

jaded_grl

volume 5 was excellent. the readers did great, except one whose volume went up & down & microphone would squeal. the writer did not go off track much so it kept the story flowing in good detail. very emotion conclusion of anger and sadness happiness. very good story. differs n minor details from musical, but the book is better & makes u appreciate the musical more.

Roy Thomas

(3.5 stars)

A LibriVox Listener

We'll read by the volunteers. Kudos! Two suggestions however; 1) some French text was never translated into English by the readers. 2) variations in pronunciation of French words made it difficult to keep up without having the text before me. Thank you volunteers for your time and efforts.