Reviews

Treasure Island (A Stepping Stone Book) by Paul Wenzel, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lisa Norby, Fernando Fernández

amyeewing's review against another edition

3.0

I much preferred Stevenson's other works to this one. While a pleasant read, it was pretty shallow. It suffered the misfortune of being read after my having seen countless retellings and reimaginings. I struggled to get through a novel that I felt I already knew everything about but written in an older style. It also was a bit of an eye opener as to the attitude of the general public towards non-White, non-Christian, non-British folk. Not very complimentary.

jasperburns's review against another edition

4.0

Listening to books from Audible already seems like cheating as "reading," and this was all the more true for this rendition of Treasure Island. This was less of an audiobook and more of audio theater—rather than reading the text it was fully acted out with sound effects and everything. So I cannot comment on the prose, but the story was certainly entertaining. I had no idea how much of pirate lore was born from this book. For those who haven't read it, this is the book that creates "Captain Long John Silver," the stereotype of the peg legs, of X marks the spots, parrots for pirates, and more. The protagonist, a child named Jim Hawkins, is a great example of moral rectitude, and seeing the adventure from his eyes was enjoyable.

View my best reviews and a collection of mental models at jasperburns.blog.

mjoyced's review against another edition

5.0

I had expected less of a thriller and more of a children's story, but I was wrong. The novel is a great adventure story, but is almost gothic with it's gruesome fight scenes and terrifying characters. I wouldn't want to be alone in a room with any of the pirates.
The audio performance is a great production. The actors are perfect, the background music and sounds create the ambiance of a ship, or port, or tropical island, which keeps you in the scene.

missbookiverse's review against another edition

2.0

What a bore! I don't know why this book is described as thrilling and adventurous. I found it hard to get past the language. Sometimes because of the dated style, sometimes because of unknown vocabulary. But apart from that I expected a hunt for treasure – turns out this hunt makes up about 2 out of 34 chapters near the end. The rest is a "gang war" between 2 groups of people of which most lacked distinct (or interesting) characterization. I really wanted to like it but I had too much trouble getting through it in the first place. I guess it paved the way for many latter pirate stories and adventure novels but I'd rather stick to some more exciting, modern adaptions then.

lisamshardlow's review against another edition

2.0

This was ok. It was an Audible Audio and I think the only reason I was able to finish it was because of the performances given by the different voice actors. I didn't think the story was really that good.

the_enobee's review against another edition

4.0

Always wanted to read this and finally got around to it. Great production from Audible, and I can see why this is a classic.

bigbookslilreads's review against another edition

3.0

RTC

_ash0_'s review against another edition

3.0

I like to read/watch about Pirates (thanks to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series). I somehow feel their life was very adventurous and treasure hunting is something that really excites me. This book was good but probably I had lot of expectations from it. I wish I could say it was great but I did not enjoy reading this book very much.
Treasure island reminds of this (from Las Vegas):


The pirates' show in front of this Casino was too good. One of my most favourite shows. Now I know what inspired the show.