Gave it a shot under the premise of 1) famous readers, 2) humor, 3) short stories, as I thought all of those things might go well with listening in the car. I listened to the first and the second and was just so turned off by it that not even Sir Patrick Stewart could keep my attention for the second story.

The sound background is awful and allowed to dominate the story telling. The music is artificially dramatic, like in the worst-tv-movies, and the loudness of it interrupts the storyteller. In fact, in some instances, the story teller literally pauses to allow for some dumb swell of synthetic music.

The two stories I listened to were pretty close to terrible, one loosely based on the Frog Prince(ess) and one on Mr. Acid Reflux or something. They aren't streamlined and have unclear messaging (female solidarity? rage? unconventional lives?). These aren't funny; they are sad. The Princess mulls on settling for an insufficient love to escape her life; the man in the second story has severe estrangement from his own life. These aren't cynical--these are real and sad.

Alas, Offerman can't save it either. His 'introductions' are rambling and meant to be humorous, but fall quite flat (I think in the second one, he is pretending something-or-other). Thankfully, it was free. I'll be wiping this from my phone immediately.

True story: I stopped and switched to Whispers Underground for the seven thousandth time, just to get the bad taste out of my ears. ( )