Bluebeard vs Telling Tales: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Authorship, Biography & Memoir
Bluebeard
“Never trust a survivor… until you find out what he did to stay alive.”
More
Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn.…
Telling Tales
More
Young writers have historically played a pivotal role in shaping autobiographical genres and this continues into the graphic and digital texts which characterise contemporary life writing. This volume offers a selection…
Side by side
The verdict
- Readers rate Bluebeard highest: Bluebeard 4.2 · Telling Tales 3.6.
- Telling Tales is the quickest read — about 2 hours vs 5 for Bluebeard.
- Telling Tales has the widest readership — 560 ratings behind its score.
How to choose
Scores by source
| Bluebeard | Telling Tales | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | — | 3.6 (560) |
| Hardcover | 3.9 (109) | 4.0 (25) |
| Google Books | 3.0 (1) | — |
| Apple Books | 4.5 (102) | — |
Reception
| Bluebeard | Telling Tales | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 109 | 560 |
| Editions | 29 | 6 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | — |
| Wikipedia attention | 2797 | 18 |
| Pages | 293 | 156 |
Questions readers ask
Which is rated higher: Bluebeard or Telling Tales?
Bluebeard has the higher combined reader rating across sources (Bluebeard 4.2/5, Telling Tales 3.6/5).
Which is shorter to read: Bluebeard or Telling Tales?
Telling Tales is the quickest read. Estimated at 225 words per minute: Telling Tales (156 pages, ≈ 2 h 53 m); Bluebeard (293 pages, ≈ 5 h 26 m).
Which is harder to read: Bluebeard or Telling Tales?
Estimated difficulty, based on era, reader shelves and length — Bluebeard: Moderate; Telling Tales: Moderate.