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Book Logging: Audiobooks
I was cranky and stressed while I was writing up some of these, and it probably shows. I decided not to try to edit for that, but it is a thing to be aware of.
Dahl, Roald. Matilda - Audiobook read by Ron Keith. I don't think I'd actually read this before. I know that we own a copy, but I don't think I ever opened it. I love the movie, and I think I judged the book for not being the movie. The book was fine. I'd probably have loved it if I'd read it in elementary school.
Dowd, Siobhan. The London Eye Mystery - Audiobook read by Paul Chequer. This is a kids' mystery story in which a couple of kids try to find their cousin who disappeared while riding the London Eye. The first person narrator is autistic, and I can't say whether or not that part was well done or not. I found it distracting because I kept wondering about that aspect. I thought that the way that the kids approached the mystery made sense and that the solution worked. I was pretty sure, early on, how the disappearance had happened. I was also pretty sure where the cousin would be found, mostly because of a Chekov's gun bit of background.
Henry, Emily. Beach Read - Audiobook read by Julia Whelan. This is a romance. Mostly. The protagonist is a romance author who's trying to hammer out a full draft of her second book before her deadline. She's having trouble finding romantic optimism because she's just lost her father and just found out that he had an affair. She's out of money and goes to stay at his second house, the one he shared with his mistress. Her intention is to combine preparing the house for sale with isolating herself so that she has to write. Her next door neighbor turns out to be a writer, too, one who writes realistic fiction with a focus on psychological trauma and tragedy. He's stuck, too. They challenge each other to swap genres. I thought the book was really good at talking about writing and individual styles of approach to stories.
Hiaasen, Carl. Squirm - Audiobook read by Kirby Heyborne. I generally like Hiaasen's kids' books and bounce off of his adult books. This is a kids' book. The first person narrator goes on a trip to find and meet his father (who left when he was a toddler). He goes from Florida to Montana and ends up meeting his stepmother and stepsister who are way more likable than his father turns out to be. Not that his father's terrible on an absolute scale-- He's reliable about paying the child support; he's just bad at facing past emotional mistakes and prone to repeating them.
The Inferno of Dante - Audiobook read by George Guidall. Translation by Robert Pinsky. I would like to read an annotated version of this but not as an audiobook. Listening to the book, it was kind of too much torture and gore, and I kind of hated Dante for being gleeful about how horrible things were for some of those people. Then again, what would I write about Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz in Hell?
Jenner, Greg. A Million Years in a Day - Audiobook read by Matthew Lloyd Davies. This was a good book for having on in the background. The approach was to look at the typical day of a relatively modern person and to explain the history of measuring time and cleaning teeth and so on. It was the sort of thing that I could give sporadic attention without getting lost.
Klune, TJ. The House in the Cerulean Sea - Audiobook read by Daniel Henning. This book is charming. It has some structural and worldbuilding issues that made the protagonist come across as-- How to put it? His POV and his behavior during the book made his supposed past feel fake but are required for the emotional weight of the romance. I think the book needed another editing pass/rewrite. I still recommend it, and I still quite liked the characters.
Mass, Wendy & Rebecca Stead. Bob - Audiobook read Nora Hunter and Rob Dircks. This is a very short kids' book with alternating points of view. A girl travels from the US to Australia to visit her mother's mother and discovers that she left a friend behind, a creature she calls Bob and who her five year old self had promised to help get home. Bob starts the book believing that he's a zombie. I think that the way that Bob needs to get home is pretty clear early on, but it felt reasonable that the characters didn't get there immediately. I'm not entirely sure that I like the idea of blaming Australian drought on supernatural issues, though, not for a story set in the present day.
Turner, Megan Whalen. The Queen of Attolia - Audiobook read by Jeff Woodman. I refused to try this book for a very long time because I didn't really enjoy The Thief. I didn't dislike it, but I was very much in the meh part of the spectrum. I should have given this one a try sooner as I ended up liking it a lot, enough that I went through the available sequels rapidly. I think my issue with The Thief was that I'm unimpressed by plot twists. I don't object to them, but they're like parsley, a garnish rather than a meal.
Turner, Megan Whalen. The King of Attolia - Audiobook read by Jeff Woodman. I liked the change in point of view for this book. It gave the right distance from Gen's feelings, plans, and so on so that Turner didn't have to filter the emotional bits through his cleverness or the clever bits through the heartache. I don't think I could have read the emotional facet due to pain or the clever part due to feeling distanced from the humanity.
Wodehouse, P.G. Jeeves and the Mating Season - Audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil. This was okay as background, but I kept thinking that I'd read it before even though, when I checked, I was quite certain I hadn't. I suspect that there are some tropes common to the various Jeeves books.
Started but not finished:
Almond, David. Skellig - Audiobook read by the author. This short kids' book was simply too creepy for me. It was fairly well written and performed, and I thought I'd get through it because it was short, but I couldn't deal with it (during the week before the election).
Armstrong, K.L. and M.A. Marr. Loki's Wolves - Audiobook read by ???. Badly written. Gave up 5 minutes in after looking at Scott and saying, "It's not just me, right? This is terrible?" He nodded agreement.
Carter, Ally. All Fall Down - Audiobook read by Eileen Stevens. I gave up about an hour and a half into the book (with seven hours to go) because I was completely out of charity with the narrator. I felt like I was being lied to by the first person narrator so that some surprise could be sprung upon me later, probably multiple surprises. There might be moods in which I could handle that, but in this case, I got more and more angry.
Hammer, Joshua. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu - Audiobook read by Paul Boehmer. Nonfiction. I gave up on this one because I couldn't deal with the descriptions of violence.
Oshiro, Mark. Each of Us a Desert - Audiobook read by Frankie Corzo. I got about an hour into this and realized that I was in the wrong headspace for it. I'll try it again in a few months or years when I'm more able to pay attention. There's a moderately long waitlist, so passing the book on seemed like the right idea.
Dahl, Roald. Matilda - Audiobook read by Ron Keith. I don't think I'd actually read this before. I know that we own a copy, but I don't think I ever opened it. I love the movie, and I think I judged the book for not being the movie. The book was fine. I'd probably have loved it if I'd read it in elementary school.
Dowd, Siobhan. The London Eye Mystery - Audiobook read by Paul Chequer. This is a kids' mystery story in which a couple of kids try to find their cousin who disappeared while riding the London Eye. The first person narrator is autistic, and I can't say whether or not that part was well done or not. I found it distracting because I kept wondering about that aspect. I thought that the way that the kids approached the mystery made sense and that the solution worked. I was pretty sure, early on, how the disappearance had happened. I was also pretty sure where the cousin would be found, mostly because of a Chekov's gun bit of background.
Henry, Emily. Beach Read - Audiobook read by Julia Whelan. This is a romance. Mostly. The protagonist is a romance author who's trying to hammer out a full draft of her second book before her deadline. She's having trouble finding romantic optimism because she's just lost her father and just found out that he had an affair. She's out of money and goes to stay at his second house, the one he shared with his mistress. Her intention is to combine preparing the house for sale with isolating herself so that she has to write. Her next door neighbor turns out to be a writer, too, one who writes realistic fiction with a focus on psychological trauma and tragedy. He's stuck, too. They challenge each other to swap genres. I thought the book was really good at talking about writing and individual styles of approach to stories.
Hiaasen, Carl. Squirm - Audiobook read by Kirby Heyborne. I generally like Hiaasen's kids' books and bounce off of his adult books. This is a kids' book. The first person narrator goes on a trip to find and meet his father (who left when he was a toddler). He goes from Florida to Montana and ends up meeting his stepmother and stepsister who are way more likable than his father turns out to be. Not that his father's terrible on an absolute scale-- He's reliable about paying the child support; he's just bad at facing past emotional mistakes and prone to repeating them.
The Inferno of Dante - Audiobook read by George Guidall. Translation by Robert Pinsky. I would like to read an annotated version of this but not as an audiobook. Listening to the book, it was kind of too much torture and gore, and I kind of hated Dante for being gleeful about how horrible things were for some of those people. Then again, what would I write about Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz in Hell?
Jenner, Greg. A Million Years in a Day - Audiobook read by Matthew Lloyd Davies. This was a good book for having on in the background. The approach was to look at the typical day of a relatively modern person and to explain the history of measuring time and cleaning teeth and so on. It was the sort of thing that I could give sporadic attention without getting lost.
Klune, TJ. The House in the Cerulean Sea - Audiobook read by Daniel Henning. This book is charming. It has some structural and worldbuilding issues that made the protagonist come across as-- How to put it? His POV and his behavior during the book made his supposed past feel fake but are required for the emotional weight of the romance. I think the book needed another editing pass/rewrite. I still recommend it, and I still quite liked the characters.
Mass, Wendy & Rebecca Stead. Bob - Audiobook read Nora Hunter and Rob Dircks. This is a very short kids' book with alternating points of view. A girl travels from the US to Australia to visit her mother's mother and discovers that she left a friend behind, a creature she calls Bob and who her five year old self had promised to help get home. Bob starts the book believing that he's a zombie. I think that the way that Bob needs to get home is pretty clear early on, but it felt reasonable that the characters didn't get there immediately. I'm not entirely sure that I like the idea of blaming Australian drought on supernatural issues, though, not for a story set in the present day.
Turner, Megan Whalen. The Queen of Attolia - Audiobook read by Jeff Woodman. I refused to try this book for a very long time because I didn't really enjoy The Thief. I didn't dislike it, but I was very much in the meh part of the spectrum. I should have given this one a try sooner as I ended up liking it a lot, enough that I went through the available sequels rapidly. I think my issue with The Thief was that I'm unimpressed by plot twists. I don't object to them, but they're like parsley, a garnish rather than a meal.
Turner, Megan Whalen. The King of Attolia - Audiobook read by Jeff Woodman. I liked the change in point of view for this book. It gave the right distance from Gen's feelings, plans, and so on so that Turner didn't have to filter the emotional bits through his cleverness or the clever bits through the heartache. I don't think I could have read the emotional facet due to pain or the clever part due to feeling distanced from the humanity.
Wodehouse, P.G. Jeeves and the Mating Season - Audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil. This was okay as background, but I kept thinking that I'd read it before even though, when I checked, I was quite certain I hadn't. I suspect that there are some tropes common to the various Jeeves books.
Started but not finished:
Almond, David. Skellig - Audiobook read by the author. This short kids' book was simply too creepy for me. It was fairly well written and performed, and I thought I'd get through it because it was short, but I couldn't deal with it (during the week before the election).
Armstrong, K.L. and M.A. Marr. Loki's Wolves - Audiobook read by ???. Badly written. Gave up 5 minutes in after looking at Scott and saying, "It's not just me, right? This is terrible?" He nodded agreement.
Carter, Ally. All Fall Down - Audiobook read by Eileen Stevens. I gave up about an hour and a half into the book (with seven hours to go) because I was completely out of charity with the narrator. I felt like I was being lied to by the first person narrator so that some surprise could be sprung upon me later, probably multiple surprises. There might be moods in which I could handle that, but in this case, I got more and more angry.
Hammer, Joshua. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu - Audiobook read by Paul Boehmer. Nonfiction. I gave up on this one because I couldn't deal with the descriptions of violence.
Oshiro, Mark. Each of Us a Desert - Audiobook read by Frankie Corzo. I got about an hour into this and realized that I was in the wrong headspace for it. I'll try it again in a few months or years when I'm more able to pay attention. There's a moderately long waitlist, so passing the book on seemed like the right idea.