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Book Logging: Audiobooks
(4 of 4)
Audiobooks started but not finished:
Anderson, M.T. The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge - Audiobook read by Gildart Jackson. I gave up on this one for two reasons. The first was that there were parts of the book that needed to be read/viewed as a pdf but that I could only access if I downloaded a new program. That meant that I lost three of the first eight chapters (the other five were about 25 minutes of reading). The second reason was that someone made the choice to have all of the goblins sound like Chinese villains from a 1950s B movie. I just couldn't.
Arikawa, Hiro. The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Audiobook read by Philip Gabriel. Translation by George Blagden. I bounced off of this pretty early, less than half an hour in. Part of it was me feeling like the different points of view didn't have separate voices, in the prose style sense rather than in the performance sense. I'm not sure how much is the translation or performance and how much is that that (unappealing to me) smoothness is a feature of the author's style.
Beasley, Kate. Lions & Liars - Audiobook read by Robbie Daymond. This is a short(ish) book aimed at kids. I found myself out of sympathy with the POV character at about 20% of the way through the book and chose to stop reading.
Capetta, Amy Rose. The Brilliant Death - Audiobook read by Carlotta Brentan. I gave up on this halfway through. I was interested in the idea of shapechanging as part of the main character's magic, and I liked the reader. I just felt like the bits and pieces of the story were semi-random and like the POV character's reactions to them were weirdly shallow given the first person narrative. Maybe I'll come back to this one but probably not.
Cavallaro, Brittany. A Study in Charlotte - Audiobook read by Graham Halstead and Julia Whelan. I gave up 2-3 hours in when I realized that I really wasn't enjoying the book and didn't care at all who the murderer was. This has descendants of Sherlock Holmes (the titular Charlotte) and John Watson meeting at a boarding school in the US. I didn't reach anything read by Julia Whelan, but the Overdrive catalogue lists her as a reader, too, so I assume she must read something in there.
Chokshi, Roshani. The Gilded Wolves - Audiobook read by Laurie Catherine Winkel and P.J. Ochlan. I only got about halfway through this. I liked the characters and was interested in the world, but the plot felt like a slog, and the actual performance by the readers gave me whiplash because the dialogue was all in heavy accents (the characters are from a variety of different language backgrounds) and personal styles to fit the different characters while the rest of the narration was incongruously flat, nearly monotonous. It wasn't that the two readers had different styles; it was that the dialogue didn't fit properly with the rest.
Day, Sylvia. Spellbound - Audiobook read by Tanya Eby. I listened to 35 minutes of this and didn't really like the characters or find any bit of their interaction sexy (a serious problem for erotic romance). The worldbuilding wasn't particularly coherent either. Given that there was less than 4 hours left to the book, I don't think that the things that irritated me were going to turn into pearls.
Freeman, Dianne. A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder - Audiobook read by Sarah Zimmerman. I think I gave up on this because of vicarious embarrassment, but it's been a long time, so I'm not 100% sure.
Gailey, Sarah. River of Teeth - Audiobook read by Peter Berkrot. I've now tried this both as an audiobook and in paper. I think it's just a bad match for me. Nasty things in the water are phobia fodder for me, and I'm not otherwise taken with the conceit of the setting. I had hoped that the brevity of the book and interest in the characters might carry me but apparently not.
Gibb, Stuart. Spy School - Audiobook read by Gibson Frazier. This was kind of terrible. The prose read as if the author thought that complicated sentences were going to confuse readers. The plot read if as the author wasn't doing more than paint by numbers. I didn't like the narrator. I didn't believe in events as they were happening; I had no reason to want to. It's a pity because a kid learning to be a spy can be a blast if the author puts in the work.
Hearne, Kevin and Delilah Dawson. Kill the Farm Boy - Audiobook read by Luke Daniels. I got less than twenty minutes into this and hated every moment. The humor really, really didn't work for me, and it was tedious on top of that.There wasn't character development or world building or anything to hold my interest.
Hernandez, Carlos Alberto Pablo. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe - Audiobook read by Anthony Rey Perez. I ended up not finishing this because I kept looking at Sal's choices from an adult point of view and desperately wanting him to not to hurt anyone. He was making choices that fit with his age and circumstances, but the first 2.5 hours of the book felt very train-wrecky. I can see not-me people really enjoying the book, and it would likely work better for its target audience (40-ish years younger than I am). The POV character is able to pull things-- and people-- into his world from other universes. His judgment about how to use that is... not great.
Hoang, Helen. The Kiss Quotient - Audiobook read by Carly Robins. I liked the characters, and I liked the reader. I didn't finish this because it's really awkward listening to long, explicit sex scenes while there are other people in the house. I just couldn't manage it, and the explicit bits are actually weight-bearing in terms of character and plot advancement. Why is it that books with long sex scenes come in when Cordelia's on vacation?
Howard, Kat. An Unkindness of Magicians - Audiobook read by Madeleine Maby. I gave up after the first hour (out of nine hours) because I couldn't track or differentiate the POV characters. Not remembering who wanted what or how they were and weren't connected with each other made the book not work as a narrative. The story may be great; I couldn't tell.
Johnston, E.K. Ahsoka - Audiobook read by Ashley Eckstein. There was nothing wrong with this book. There also wasn't anything brilliant. I stopped listening to it because I had three audiobook holds come in on Overdrive. I listened to two and a half hours out of the seven. I'm pretty sure that the rest would have been perfectly serviceable but without anything to grab me and make me pay attention.
Kahn, Joshua. Shadow Magic - Audiobook read by Ramon De Ocampo. I didn't even get an hour into this. I think it might well work for the target age group (middle grade), but I didn't buy the main character in context. He seemed really weirdly unaware of how his own world worked or of what the immediate dangers were. I'd have believed in him if it was a portal fantasy that pulled him from our world because that would have explained a lot of his behavior.
Kraatz, Jeramey. Space Runners 1: The Moon Patrol - Audiobook read by Andy Paris. I found the characters kind of flat, and I didn't feel like the plot made much sense. I listened to five out of eight hours and just-- It wasn't actively bad. It was just not very engaging for me, and I kept realizing that I'd lost several minutes of the narrative.
Lim, Elizabeth. Spin the Dawn - Audiobook read by Kim Mai Guest. I got a couple of hours into this, and if I'd had longer, I'd probably have listened to more. This is a fantasy with a girl pretending to be her brother in order to try to save her family by becoming a court tailor. My impression, from the blurb, is that there were going to be courting gift dresses for the king's bride-to-be made from sunlight and moonlight and such.
McAnulty, Stacy. The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl - Audiobook read by Ana Isabel. I don't actually remember why I stopped reading this one. It may have been vicarious embarrassment as it's about a kid attending school for the first time in 7th grade for socialization purposes.
Nimmo, Jenny. Chronicles of the Red King 1: The Secret Kingdom - Audiobook read by John Keating. I listened to half of this, but it was kind of weirdly tedious. The characters lacked interiority and intention in the way that a lot of fairy tale characters do. I listened to as much of the book mainly because it was something that I could listen to while other people were in the house.
Peck, Richard. The Teacher's Funeral - Audiobook read by Dylan Baker. I gave up on this fast because I didn't find the reading style congenial. It might well work for a not-me person. I have liked other similar books by the author, so maybe I'll try it in paper.
Poston, Ashley. Heart of Iron - Audiobook read by Adenrele Ojo. The story ticks along rapidly enough that I could almost suspend my disbelief about the behavior of the characters. It's an SF setting with spaceships and an empire. My main complaint was the teenage characters reacting to things as if they were students at my daughter's high school instead of people who'd lived for years in the situation/cultures that they had. It wasn't a dealbreaker, but it was like a pebble in my shoe as I listened. I gave up fairly near the end when I realized that I wanted to start yelling at the characters not to do the in-story equivalent of going into the basement alone when they knew there were monsters in the house.
Thomas, Dylan. A Child's Christmas in Wales and Other Poems - Read by author. I couldn't follow this very well. The author's voice was in the range of sounds that just flatten out to mumbles in my ears. I could tell that he was enunciating, but I couldn't follow the words. I don't think that the accent was my problem.
Weir, Alison. Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen - Audiobook read by Rosalyn Landor. I got through 5 CDs out of 18 and was only irritated with everyone. I felt very sorry for Katherine. All the men in her story seem to be utter assholes. I still didn't quite like Katherine as portrayed here. I don't know that it's out of keeping with the records we have, but she kept walking into complications and hoping that everything would untangle itself. That is certainly a thing that real people do; I just find books that center on it to be anxiety inducing.
Winthrop, Elizabeth. The Castle in the Attic - Audiobook read by a full cast. The performance (and possibly the sound mixing?) here is very choppy, and I found listening to it difficult because I couldn't adjust and settle. I also found myself not much engaged by the story. I don't know if that would have worked better with a different vocal performance or if it was me not being a good fit for the book. I found myself pretty utterly out of sympathy with the protagonist by about ten minutes in and gave up after an hour (the book runs a touch more than three hours).
Audiobooks started but not finished:
Anderson, M.T. The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge - Audiobook read by Gildart Jackson. I gave up on this one for two reasons. The first was that there were parts of the book that needed to be read/viewed as a pdf but that I could only access if I downloaded a new program. That meant that I lost three of the first eight chapters (the other five were about 25 minutes of reading). The second reason was that someone made the choice to have all of the goblins sound like Chinese villains from a 1950s B movie. I just couldn't.
Arikawa, Hiro. The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Audiobook read by Philip Gabriel. Translation by George Blagden. I bounced off of this pretty early, less than half an hour in. Part of it was me feeling like the different points of view didn't have separate voices, in the prose style sense rather than in the performance sense. I'm not sure how much is the translation or performance and how much is that that (unappealing to me) smoothness is a feature of the author's style.
Beasley, Kate. Lions & Liars - Audiobook read by Robbie Daymond. This is a short(ish) book aimed at kids. I found myself out of sympathy with the POV character at about 20% of the way through the book and chose to stop reading.
Capetta, Amy Rose. The Brilliant Death - Audiobook read by Carlotta Brentan. I gave up on this halfway through. I was interested in the idea of shapechanging as part of the main character's magic, and I liked the reader. I just felt like the bits and pieces of the story were semi-random and like the POV character's reactions to them were weirdly shallow given the first person narrative. Maybe I'll come back to this one but probably not.
Cavallaro, Brittany. A Study in Charlotte - Audiobook read by Graham Halstead and Julia Whelan. I gave up 2-3 hours in when I realized that I really wasn't enjoying the book and didn't care at all who the murderer was. This has descendants of Sherlock Holmes (the titular Charlotte) and John Watson meeting at a boarding school in the US. I didn't reach anything read by Julia Whelan, but the Overdrive catalogue lists her as a reader, too, so I assume she must read something in there.
Chokshi, Roshani. The Gilded Wolves - Audiobook read by Laurie Catherine Winkel and P.J. Ochlan. I only got about halfway through this. I liked the characters and was interested in the world, but the plot felt like a slog, and the actual performance by the readers gave me whiplash because the dialogue was all in heavy accents (the characters are from a variety of different language backgrounds) and personal styles to fit the different characters while the rest of the narration was incongruously flat, nearly monotonous. It wasn't that the two readers had different styles; it was that the dialogue didn't fit properly with the rest.
Day, Sylvia. Spellbound - Audiobook read by Tanya Eby. I listened to 35 minutes of this and didn't really like the characters or find any bit of their interaction sexy (a serious problem for erotic romance). The worldbuilding wasn't particularly coherent either. Given that there was less than 4 hours left to the book, I don't think that the things that irritated me were going to turn into pearls.
Freeman, Dianne. A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder - Audiobook read by Sarah Zimmerman. I think I gave up on this because of vicarious embarrassment, but it's been a long time, so I'm not 100% sure.
Gailey, Sarah. River of Teeth - Audiobook read by Peter Berkrot. I've now tried this both as an audiobook and in paper. I think it's just a bad match for me. Nasty things in the water are phobia fodder for me, and I'm not otherwise taken with the conceit of the setting. I had hoped that the brevity of the book and interest in the characters might carry me but apparently not.
Gibb, Stuart. Spy School - Audiobook read by Gibson Frazier. This was kind of terrible. The prose read as if the author thought that complicated sentences were going to confuse readers. The plot read if as the author wasn't doing more than paint by numbers. I didn't like the narrator. I didn't believe in events as they were happening; I had no reason to want to. It's a pity because a kid learning to be a spy can be a blast if the author puts in the work.
Hearne, Kevin and Delilah Dawson. Kill the Farm Boy - Audiobook read by Luke Daniels. I got less than twenty minutes into this and hated every moment. The humor really, really didn't work for me, and it was tedious on top of that.There wasn't character development or world building or anything to hold my interest.
Hernandez, Carlos Alberto Pablo. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe - Audiobook read by Anthony Rey Perez. I ended up not finishing this because I kept looking at Sal's choices from an adult point of view and desperately wanting him to not to hurt anyone. He was making choices that fit with his age and circumstances, but the first 2.5 hours of the book felt very train-wrecky. I can see not-me people really enjoying the book, and it would likely work better for its target audience (40-ish years younger than I am). The POV character is able to pull things-- and people-- into his world from other universes. His judgment about how to use that is... not great.
Hoang, Helen. The Kiss Quotient - Audiobook read by Carly Robins. I liked the characters, and I liked the reader. I didn't finish this because it's really awkward listening to long, explicit sex scenes while there are other people in the house. I just couldn't manage it, and the explicit bits are actually weight-bearing in terms of character and plot advancement. Why is it that books with long sex scenes come in when Cordelia's on vacation?
Howard, Kat. An Unkindness of Magicians - Audiobook read by Madeleine Maby. I gave up after the first hour (out of nine hours) because I couldn't track or differentiate the POV characters. Not remembering who wanted what or how they were and weren't connected with each other made the book not work as a narrative. The story may be great; I couldn't tell.
Johnston, E.K. Ahsoka - Audiobook read by Ashley Eckstein. There was nothing wrong with this book. There also wasn't anything brilliant. I stopped listening to it because I had three audiobook holds come in on Overdrive. I listened to two and a half hours out of the seven. I'm pretty sure that the rest would have been perfectly serviceable but without anything to grab me and make me pay attention.
Kahn, Joshua. Shadow Magic - Audiobook read by Ramon De Ocampo. I didn't even get an hour into this. I think it might well work for the target age group (middle grade), but I didn't buy the main character in context. He seemed really weirdly unaware of how his own world worked or of what the immediate dangers were. I'd have believed in him if it was a portal fantasy that pulled him from our world because that would have explained a lot of his behavior.
Kraatz, Jeramey. Space Runners 1: The Moon Patrol - Audiobook read by Andy Paris. I found the characters kind of flat, and I didn't feel like the plot made much sense. I listened to five out of eight hours and just-- It wasn't actively bad. It was just not very engaging for me, and I kept realizing that I'd lost several minutes of the narrative.
Lim, Elizabeth. Spin the Dawn - Audiobook read by Kim Mai Guest. I got a couple of hours into this, and if I'd had longer, I'd probably have listened to more. This is a fantasy with a girl pretending to be her brother in order to try to save her family by becoming a court tailor. My impression, from the blurb, is that there were going to be courting gift dresses for the king's bride-to-be made from sunlight and moonlight and such.
McAnulty, Stacy. The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl - Audiobook read by Ana Isabel. I don't actually remember why I stopped reading this one. It may have been vicarious embarrassment as it's about a kid attending school for the first time in 7th grade for socialization purposes.
Nimmo, Jenny. Chronicles of the Red King 1: The Secret Kingdom - Audiobook read by John Keating. I listened to half of this, but it was kind of weirdly tedious. The characters lacked interiority and intention in the way that a lot of fairy tale characters do. I listened to as much of the book mainly because it was something that I could listen to while other people were in the house.
Peck, Richard. The Teacher's Funeral - Audiobook read by Dylan Baker. I gave up on this fast because I didn't find the reading style congenial. It might well work for a not-me person. I have liked other similar books by the author, so maybe I'll try it in paper.
Poston, Ashley. Heart of Iron - Audiobook read by Adenrele Ojo. The story ticks along rapidly enough that I could almost suspend my disbelief about the behavior of the characters. It's an SF setting with spaceships and an empire. My main complaint was the teenage characters reacting to things as if they were students at my daughter's high school instead of people who'd lived for years in the situation/cultures that they had. It wasn't a dealbreaker, but it was like a pebble in my shoe as I listened. I gave up fairly near the end when I realized that I wanted to start yelling at the characters not to do the in-story equivalent of going into the basement alone when they knew there were monsters in the house.
Thomas, Dylan. A Child's Christmas in Wales and Other Poems - Read by author. I couldn't follow this very well. The author's voice was in the range of sounds that just flatten out to mumbles in my ears. I could tell that he was enunciating, but I couldn't follow the words. I don't think that the accent was my problem.
Weir, Alison. Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen - Audiobook read by Rosalyn Landor. I got through 5 CDs out of 18 and was only irritated with everyone. I felt very sorry for Katherine. All the men in her story seem to be utter assholes. I still didn't quite like Katherine as portrayed here. I don't know that it's out of keeping with the records we have, but she kept walking into complications and hoping that everything would untangle itself. That is certainly a thing that real people do; I just find books that center on it to be anxiety inducing.
Winthrop, Elizabeth. The Castle in the Attic - Audiobook read by a full cast. The performance (and possibly the sound mixing?) here is very choppy, and I found listening to it difficult because I couldn't adjust and settle. I also found myself not much engaged by the story. I don't know if that would have worked better with a different vocal performance or if it was me not being a good fit for the book. I found myself pretty utterly out of sympathy with the protagonist by about ten minutes in and gave up after an hour (the book runs a touch more than three hours).
no subject
I liked Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, partly because our protagonists were so non-malicious. Sure, they might have hurt people through galactic-scale klutziness, but they didn't MEAN to hurt anyone even when they were striking back at the school bully.
E.K. Johnston frustrates me because some of her work is so very good. (Or hits my sweet spot so perfectly?) And other books of hers are really pretty dull. I can't classify them like Gillian Bradshaw, who is very good when writing stories set before the civil war, and moderately good when setting stuff during it or fanatasy equivalents.
no subject
I still have Sal and Gabi on my list of books to try again later. The waitlist is long, and I think it's something I'll need to take in small bites. I think that part of what tripped me up was that, when reading the stuff with the alternate versions of his dead mother, I empathized more with the adults than I did with the boy. It's a problem that I have with some kids' books.
As far as Gillian Bradshaw, I mostly prefer her Roman and Byzantine books.
no subject
I'm hoping the Magic for Liars will be more to my taste; I'm waiting for it to be available from the library.