Title: Jaws
Author: Peter Benchley
Narrator: Erik Steele
Publisher: AudioGo
Duration: 9 hours, 37 minutes
Copyright: 2009
Genres: horror, thriller, nautical
Filed in: Audiobook Reviews
Review copy provided by AudioGo.
FROM THE PUBLISHER: Jaws is the classic, blockbuster thriller that inspired the three-time Academy Award-winning Steven Spielberg movie and made millions of beachgoers afraid to go into the water. Experience the thrill of helpless horror again - or for the first time! Jaws was #48 in the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movies, and the film earned the coveted #1 spot on the Bravo network's 100 Scariest Movie Moments countdown. This timeless tale of man-eating terror that spawned a movie franchise, two video games, a Universal Studios theme park attraction, and two musicals is finally available on audio for the first time ever!
©2002 Peter Benchley; (P)2009 BBC Audiobooks America
AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: In the small town of Amity, on New York’s Long Island, a young woman goes for a midnight swim. The next day, her half-eaten corpse is found washed up on the beach. Over the next few days, three more people disappear into the ocean. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it is June, the very beginning of tourist season. The little town of Amity relies on its thousands of summer guests, and if they decide to go elsewhere this year, the little town will fold up and blow away.
Police Chief Martin Brody has lived in Amity all his life, and he’s never seen anything like this. After the death of the young woman, his first impulse was to close the beaches, at least for a few days. But he let the mayor, more concerned about scaring off the summer people than anything, talk him out of it. That decision haunts Brody more and more as the death toll rises, and now he’s determined to keep everyone out of the water, even if it means his job, or the financial ruin of his town.
Matt Hooper spent his childhood summers on Long Island with his parents, and is what the residents of Amity call “summer folk.” Now he is a marine biologist and has spent his entire adult life studying and chasing sharks. He always dreamed of finding the big one to really make his career. Unlike Jaws, he may have bitten off more than he could chew.
Is there anything more terrifying in human experience than an over-sized monster from the depths of the ocean? The unplumbed bottoms of our world’s seas could be home to just about anything, things never before seen by the eyes of man. Many authors over the years have capitalized on that unknown quantity, but none struck a chord with us the way Peter Benchley did with Jaws.
One thing I found a little odd about this audiobook, was a rather long interlude in the middle of the story where Brody’s wife has an affair with Hooper. It turns out Mrs. Brody dated Matt’s older brother a long time ago. That entire long scene had absolutely nothing to do with the story, and I’m not sure why it was there.
Other than that, Jaws is a wonderfully suspenseful tale. Benchley starts off with a bang, several shark attacks in rapid secession. After the lull in the middle, the author finishes strongly with Brody, Hooper, and the colorful and mysterious old sea-captain Quint out on a boat chasing Jaws. But who is chasing whom?
NARRATOR: Erik Steele did a fine job in his narration of Jaws. His reading sounds very natural, he does a pretty good job of differentiating the character’s voices, and he reads dialogue well too.
FILM ADAPTATION: Let me see now, it seems like there was a movie about this a few years ago, but I can’t quite remember. Something about a large fish, or perhaps a whale, or homicidal dolphin?
Yes, of course, everyone remembers this movie. Jaws hit theaters in June of 1975, and I’m guessing that fewer people swam in the ocean that summer than in any other year in history. Jaws starred Roy Scheider as chief Brody, and Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper, and featured a musical score by John Williams that will never be forgotten.
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If you like this audiobook review, you can purchase the audiobook here:
Get “Jaws” by Peter Benchley (Unabridged Audiobook) from AudioGo.
Interested in the movie?
Get "Jaws" special 30th Anniversary Edition on DVD from Amazon.com.
This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audiobook.
Audiobook review by Steven Brandt
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Oh I loved this movie!
ReplyDeleteda duh da duh...who can ever forget that music!
Haunting as the tale itself.
Growing up on the East Coast, yeah we always thought about JAWS lurking in the waters. The most that ever bit me were daggone crabs, and we caught a sand shark one time. But yes, we could see schools of sharks out there in the water and the lifeguards would just keep people out of the water until the dolphins came and made their appearance.
This movie/book brings back a lot of Ocean memories.
Wonderful review!