{"id":3948,"date":"2024-08-21T15:00:38","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T21:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=3948"},"modified":"2024-06-05T21:54:18","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T03:54:18","slug":"book-matilda-1988","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/21\/book-matilda-1988\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Matilda (1988)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft \" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/S\/compressed.photo.goodreads.com\/books\/1610038993i\/39501573.jpg\" alt=\"Matilda\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/>Matilda<br \/><\/u><\/strong>Year: 1988<br \/>Author: Roald Dahl<br \/>Length: 260 minutes \/ 4.33 hours<\/p>\n<p><em>Matilda<\/em> was one of those books I didn&#8217;t grow up with. I have no nostalgia for this story, so when I finally got around to listening to the audiobook version, it disappointed me. I know I&#8217;m not the intended audience, but what exactly was the lesson being taught here? The main villain was so over the top with her cruelty that I legitimately wondered what Roald Dahl&#8217;s home life was like when he was growing up. Sure, sticking up for yourself is a great moral, but come on.<\/p>\n<p>I think the biggest issue I had with this book comes down to how they narrated the audiobook. There&#8217;s the way normal people narrate audiobooks, then there&#8217;s how people narrate audiobooks for children. The overacting made it difficult to listen to, but not for the reason you&#8217;d think. Matilda was such a soft-spoken character that all her lines were whispered. In contrast, all the villainous adults were voiced with shouting. This gave the volume dial on my car whiplash as I kept turning it up to hear what was being said, only to have the narration turn around and blow out my speakers.<\/p>\n<p>As for the plot itself, only one character was likeable. Since everything was from Matilda&#8217;s point of view, all adults were bumbling buffoons, and all her peers were slobbering idiots. The kind teacher was the only one who gave the precocious child a chance to prove how extremely intelligent she was, but her backstory was so eye-rollingly tragic as to be laughable. Honestly, most of this book felt like I was a witness to child abuse, and that&#8217;s with its somewhat happy ending.<\/p>\n<p>A too quiet and too loud audiobook about an annoyingly precocious child, I give <em>Matilda<\/em> 2.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-768x292.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-640x244.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MatildaYear: 1988Author: Roald DahlLength: 260 minutes \/ 4.33 hours Matilda was one of those books I didn&#8217;t grow up with. I have no nostalgia for this story, so when I finally got around to listening to the audiobook version, it disappointed me. I know I&#8217;m not the intended audience, but what exactly was the lesson [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,54],"tags":[1935,3787,55,1305,3785,3788,8,3786,3789,3790],"class_list":["post-3948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-0-stars","category-book","tag-1935","tag-abuse","tag-book","tag-children","tag-matilda","tag-precocious","tag-review","tag-roald-dahl","tag-too-loud","tag-too-quiet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3954,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3948\/revisions\/3954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}