Why am I writing about the late Harold Robbins? Well, the truth is, I'm always with a book but, my husband is not much of a reader. However he does love to listen to audio books on road trips and in more recent years we've taken to listening to one we can agree upon every few months. In 2019, Harold Robbins was his pick (an author he read earlier in life). Since I had never tried Robbins, I agreed to try him out and honestly the first few we picked were quite entertaining I must admit.
Here are the ones we listened to in 2019:
This past week we listened to one more by Robbins:
(terrible - 1.5/5 stars)
Dreams Die First was a free Audible Download and now that we finished it I understand why it was free - I wanted to give up but we persisted - this one was rather raunchy - LOL Have you ever read or listened to a Harold Robbin's book? I really enjoyed: A Stone for Danny Fisher.
My Thoughts - In Dreams Die First, it's the 1960s and in California and LasVegas sex, drugs, corruption and porn seem to be everywhere. Gareth Brendan is a young guy whose wealthy uncle gives him control of one of those underground newspapers that offers provocative pictures of women and, the publication becomes almost an overnight success. I'm not going to write too much more only that it was pretty bad. This was my worst experience with a Harold Robbins book to date even though their were some very laughable moments. Overall it was just too over the top for me. Although my husband liked it more than me, he agreed that this one was a bomb compared to other Robbins books, although Derek Shetterly gave quite a good performance considering what he had to work with.
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In July of 2019 The Hollywood Report wrote an excellent overview of Harold Robbins and his life calling him "one of the most debauched party-givers Hollywood has ever seen: "He was Gatsby." In case you're interested here is the entire article.
Book Series in Order offered a complete list of his books and a pretty decent bio of the somewhat forgotten man known for his racy books and tales of power and corruption.
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On a more positive note, I get to select all our joint audio book listens for the remainder of 2021:) Our next audio that we hope to begin tomorrow is Robin Cook's new book: Viral. (It has to be better.)
