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Book Logging: Audiobooks
Allen, Sarah Addison. The Sugar Queen - Audiobook read by Karen White. I have mixed feelings about this book. It's readable and fairly gentle even in the bits that were emotionally difficult. I like the author's focus on female characters, generally speaking; the women here have very different lives and life experiences. I think that my dissatisfaction is partly me having hoped that the (offscreen) death was a murder rather than a suicide and partly me feeling that the root cause of all of the painful bullshit, being long dead, never had a reckoning. The consequences crossed decades; the causal behavior was lifelong. Which is how the real world works, I know. I just finished the book still wanting to punch the guy and not having any recourse for it.
Chadda, Sarwat. City of the Plague God - Audiobook read by Vikas Adam. A Rick Riordan Presents book. It's a pity that this book came out in 2020. There's a foreword that discusses why they went ahead and published it anyway in spite of the way that plagues are a little too real right now. The book is well written and engaging, and the plot doesn't stop moving. The fantasy side of the story leans into Gilgamesh while the real world side involves being Muslim and the child of refugee immigrants.
Clements, Andrew. Frindle - Audiobook read by John Fleming. A kid makes up a word, as an experiment, and works to spread its use, even in the face of opposition from his teacher. This is a very short book and aimed relatively young but is still readable by an adult without cringing.
Cooper, Susan. The Boggart - Audiobook read by David Rintoul. I kept thinking, while I listened to this, that it was in a sort of temporal limbo. It wasn't clearly connected to the time in which it was set; most of the indicators were things that weren't there. The rest of the details were things that the author clearly assumed as normal set dressing. For example, the mother has a stop-smoking flyer on the fridge, but I don't recall mention of her smoking or of her having issues with making a trans-Atlantic flight or issues with risk of fire or smoke damage to items in her antique store. Cooper also clearly had little idea how computers worked or what people might actually use them for. The story is otherwise fine; it just might not work for modern kids. The protagonists travel to Scotland and accidentally bring a mischief spirit back across the Atlantic.
de Bodard, Aliette. The House of Shattered Wings - Audiobook read by Peter Kenny. At various points in this book, I had a deep and visceral desire to see the setting burned to the ground and the ground salted afterward. I enjoyed the complications and power games. I liked the characters. I understood why people made compromises and choices that they knew would have painful consequences, and that aspect is real world adjacent. The book also didn't seem nearly as long as it actually was. But. I remember the anger more, and it unsettled me. I want to read more, but I also think that I'll have to be careful about timing. I don't think the plot will ever go 'rocks explode, everybody dies,' though, and the magical setting isn't ever going to get kinder. People don't work that way.
Giles, Lamar. The Last Last-Day-of-Summer: Legendary Alston Boys Series 1 - Audiobook read by Ruffin Prentiss. Middle grade book. I enjoyed it quite a bit. The protagonists are cousins (both boys) who routinely have extraordinary adventures. This one involves time travel and a camera that freezes time. The cover images clearly show the boys as Black and so does the text, but them being Black isn't a plot point, not even tangentially. This is kids who happen to be Black having an adventure. That aspect is something I'm glad to see.
Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point - Audiobook read by the author. I disagree with some of Gladwell's ideas but don't have the data to argue them. I didn't enjoy this book because, every time I listened to some of it, I had the impression that he was gaslighting me due to certain vocal qualities and due to his performance choices. I'm certain that this wasn't intentional in as much as popular non-fiction isn't generally intended to produce a reader reaction of 'Fuck you. You're lying. I wouldn't believe you if you said water was wet.'
Kingfisher, T. The Hollow Places - Audiobook read by Hillary Huber. Is 'portal horror' a genre? That's what I'd call this. It's creepy, and the characters react like human beings. I understood why they did the things they did, and I liked their sense of humor. I got a little frustrated at the narrator missing an obvious connection, but I think Kingfisher was using that to ratchet up the tension, that readers were supposed to notice and react with the equivalent of 'No! Don't go into the basement!' or 'No! Don't split the party!'
LaRocca, Rajani. Midsummer's Mayhem - Audiobook read by Cassandra de Cuir. This middle grade fantasy felt oddly paced to me, but I suspect that that's because I could see all the things the protagonist missed. That's a me being 54 and being familiar with A Midsummer Night's Dream thing rather than any sort of writing problem. The main character is a baker who desperately wants to be recognized as an expert. She discovers she can bake things that influence people's behavior; she notices that and tries desperately to fix it all, but she misses the magics going on that don't come from her, and that leaves her vulnerable. It all turns out, of course; it's not that sort of book.
Morris, Marc. King John: Treachery and Tyranny in Medieval England, the Road to the Magna Carta - Audiobook read by Ralph Lister. Having the text of the Magna Carta at the end of the book for reference is much less useful in an audiobook than in a paper book, and that was most of the final CD. I just couldn't tell from the track labels where it ended and whether there was something after.
Raybourn, Deanna. A Murderous Relation - Audiobook read by Angele Masters. Veronica meets one of her brothers. A lot of shenanigans are involved, and there's a glancing bit of Jack the Ripper stuff some of which I'm not convinced was necessary. I'm also kind of boggled that the ruse near the end of the book worked. It was written convincingly, though.
Riordan, Rick. Camp Jupiter Classified - Audiobook read by Erin Cahill. Novella length adventure focused on a character finding her place at Camp Jupiter.
Sanders, Ted. The Box and the Dragonfly; The Harp and the Ravenvine - Audiobooks read by Andrew Eiden. These books both fascinated and frustrated me. They're on the YA/middle grade border and have some complicated world building that I'd like to see played out (there are more books, but the library only has these two). I also want to reach through the book, grab the author, and shake them for writing the magical equivalent of disability and chronic pain and having the characters make judgments about how people are better off dead than in chronic pain. There's a certain layer in the text that implies that both sides in the struggle for magic power are terrible and wrong (and right), just for different reasons, and I'm very curious about where that would go. I'm not used to seeing fantasy aimed at this age group that has all of the factions sucking from the ethical side.
Savaryn, Lorelei. The Circus of Stolen Dreams - Audiobook read by Jesse Vilinsky. Middle grade fantasy with a midnight circus that charges admission in memories and makes VR versions of each that other people at the circus can visit. Again, I don't think there are great surprises in the plot twists, but they may well be there for the intended audience. The protagonist's brother has been missing for a year, and she and her parents have been dealing with that, so be warned. The brother is, of course, trapped at the Night Circus, but the dark moments here get pretty raw.
Stewart, Trenton Lee. The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict - Audiobook read by Del Roy. This is a prequel to the Mysterious Benedict Society books. Nicholas Benedict arrives at a new-to-him orphanage and makes friends and enemies and searches for a treasure. I kept stopping listening and not going back for months. I don't know how it reads without knowledge of who Nicholas will grow up to be.
Thomas, Sherry. Murder on Cold Street - Audiobook read by Kate Reading. The titular murder was like nesting dolls that somehow tangled together. I got frustrated with that aspect of it even while I enjoyed the characters and their interactions with each other and with new characters. This is not the place to start with the series (which is better read in order).
Thomas, Sherry. The Perilous Sea - Audiobook read by Philip Battley. 2nd in the Elemental Trilogy. Our library's holdings for this series are weird. They have book 1 in both audio and ebook, book 2 only in audio, and book 3 only in ebook. I ended up having to renew this book several times because audiobooks need focus that I don't always have and because life stress often means I hit stress points in books and can't go forward without physical anxiety symptoms. With a paper book, I'll flip forward and then gradually back up to the problem spot. Ebooks and audiobooks are unfriendly to this accessibility need. Anyway, I've enjoyed this series so far. It's a portal fantasy, but the protagonists come from the other world to ours and go back and forth a good bit as the Evil to be defeated is based in their world rather than ours.
Tolan, Stephanie S. Surviving the Applewhites - Audiobook read by Robert Sean Leonard. Basically the Bagthorpes but gentler. 13 year old Jake has been expelled from multiple schools. The Applewhites are neighbors who live in a sort of family art colony and who home school their kids. E.D. is the Applewhite child Jake's age. She maintains that she's got no interest in creativity and no talent. I enjoyed the book enough to get the next one from the library (available there in paper only). Listening to the audiobook was a little weird because E.D.'s older sister is named Cordelia; hearing that over and over is disconcerting because I'm not used to other people than my daughter having that name.
Vaughn, Carrie. The Ghosts of Sherwood - Audiobook read by Angele Masters. This is only about two and a half hours long. The three children of Robin and Marian get kidnapped.
Vo, Nghi. When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain - Audiobook read by Cindy Kay. I had an unexpected issue with this because the POV character uses they/them pronouns and is named Chih. I couldn't reliably hear the difference between Chih and 'she.' I kept getting confused about who was doing things. I am not sure this is a problem anyone who isn't me would have, but it's definitely a thing that wouldn't trouble me in text as opposed to audio.
Waite, Olivia. The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics - Audiobook read by Morag Sims. I thought I'd put a hold on the ebook of this title. The audiobook was well performed but had some longish explicit sections that were awkward to listen to with Cordelia around. F/F historical romance. Almost all of the male characters were unthinkingly misogynist, and that wore on me while also feeling like something that was real in the setting. The ladies get their HEA, but it felt like a bubble with definite edges. Not that everything outside came across as misery, just a bit precarious which is true to life in any era.
Wexler, Django. The Forbidden Library; The Mad Apprentice; The Palace of Glass; The Fall of the Readers - Audiobook read by Cassandra Morris. The Forbidden Library Series. Middle grade fantasy. Readers are humans who can use books as gateways and power sources and prisons. The protagonist is a girl who has the power. After her father disappears, a Reader takes her on as his apprentice. The protagonist is clever and compassionate, but she's also prone to tunnel vision so that achieving her goals often leads into the next book's bigger, scarier problems. I enjoyed the series; the fact that they were almost all immediately available on Overdrive helped, of course.
Wodehouse, P.G. A Pelican at Blandings - Audiobook read by Nigel Lambert. I think I need Wodehouse in very small doses, short stories rather than novels. I didn't really empathize with most of the characters (and objected strongly to the 'happy ending' for the one character I did like. That marriage seems likely to disappoint her).
DNF:
Fusco, Kimberly. Beholding Bee - Audiobook read by Ariadne Meyers. I got through about half of the first CD and just didn't want to keep going.
Creech, Sharon. Walk Two Moons - Audiobook read by Kate Harper. DNF. I listened to the first CD of 5 and just wasn't engaged.
Fox, Janet. The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle - Audiobook read by Fiona Hardingham. I got about halfway through this and felt like the plot was being unnecessarily extended. I wanted to know how it came out, but another four hours seemed like way, way too long to sit through for that. It's a kids' book and was aimed at boarding school gothic with a hefty serving of actual evil magic. The protagonist keeps wrapping herself in mundane solutions to supernatural problems even after seeing evidence that suggests that those solutions are impossible. She very much wants an adult to come in and fix what's wrong which makes sense given her age and that she's one of the oldest children there, but her denials and rationalizations wore thin in ways that frustrated me.
Graff, Keir. The Tiny Mansion - Audiobook read by Kristen DiMercurio. I may try this one again, but I wanted to shake the protagonist until her teeth rattled, and I'm not 100% sure it was just my mood.
Groom, Winston. The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight - Audiobook read by Robertson Dean. I kept listening to this out of a grim determination to finish it, but... I wasn't enjoying it, and sunk cost fallacy. So. I gave up three quarters of the way through.
Homer. The Iliad - Audiobook read by ???. I neglected to write down the narrator's name or the translator's when I put this on my laptop, and I'm not 100% sure that the version the library currently has is the same as the one I have. The version currently in the catalogue lists Robert Fitzgerald as translator and George Guidall as the reader. I call this one a DNF because the vocal quality and cadence made me feel like I should be taking a nap because nothing whatsoever was happening. It reminded me a lot of the cadence of Carl Sandburg reading one of his Rootabaga Stories. My mother used those to get us to fall asleep as far back as I can remember, and we used them for Cordelia, too. Anyway, I made it through Book 1 and gave up.
Johnson, Maureen. Truly Devious - Audiobook read by Kate Rudd. This is the first book in a trilogy about a teen trying to solve a cold case while dealing with a copy cat at her boarding school. I was curious about the solution to the old mystery, but I didn't want to work through three books to find answers. I didn't enjoy the POV character at all. Someone else might.
Kindl, Patrice. Keeping the Castle - Audiobook read by Bianca Amato. I listened to the first CD and found no real sympathy in myself for any of the characters.
Klass, David. Firestorm - Audiobook read by Ramon de Ocampo. Staccato writing. Present tense. Often dropping articles and subjects or verbs of sentences. Gave up halfway through the first CD of nine.
Lacey, Josh. The Sultan's Tigers - Audiobook read by Robbie Daymond. I can't tell how much of my irritation with this book is due to real life things upsetting me and how much is due to the book more objectively. I'm curious as to how the book would resolve, but I'm unwilling to invest another 4+ hours listening to it when I dislike the first person POV protagonist. This is a middle grade adventure book with a kid finding letters written by an ancestor who stole and hid a treasure after participating in war in India. The kid and his uncle go looking for it in hopes of selling it to a specific Indian businessman who's been paying a lot of money to retrieve items stolen from that particular location. Their approach is very mercenary, and the uncle's idea is that he is already so far in debt to dubious people that maxing out his credit cards can't make things worse. The uncle admits that their course is dictated by the money mattering more than ethics or anything else and asserts that this is a family trait. I listened to ⅓ of the book.
Little Badger, Darcie. Elatsoe - Audiobook read by Kinsale Hueston. This was a vocal mismatch for me in as much as I had trouble understanding the words (I think it's a pitch issue because I have trouble with all readers in a similar vocal range). I'll try the ebook version instead.
Lloyd, Natalie. The Problim Children - Audiobook read by Cassandra Morris. I couldn't track all of the characters and wasn't sufficiently interested in the hijinks or the community mysteries. Middle grade book with odd angles to the reality of the setting.
Ortega, Claribel A. Ghost Squad - Audiobook read by Almarie Guerra. I stopped this about forty minutes in because I was in the wrong mood for it. I'll probably try it again in a few months. It's a middle grade book with ghosts and magic in our mundane world.
Stross, Charles. Dead Lies Dreaming - Audiobook read by Gideon Emery. I listened to almost two hours of this audiobook and never found my footing with the characters or the setting. It's in the Laundry Files universe but follows different characters. It's also set after everyone becomes aware of magic and after things get seriously grim.
Chadda, Sarwat. City of the Plague God - Audiobook read by Vikas Adam. A Rick Riordan Presents book. It's a pity that this book came out in 2020. There's a foreword that discusses why they went ahead and published it anyway in spite of the way that plagues are a little too real right now. The book is well written and engaging, and the plot doesn't stop moving. The fantasy side of the story leans into Gilgamesh while the real world side involves being Muslim and the child of refugee immigrants.
Clements, Andrew. Frindle - Audiobook read by John Fleming. A kid makes up a word, as an experiment, and works to spread its use, even in the face of opposition from his teacher. This is a very short book and aimed relatively young but is still readable by an adult without cringing.
Cooper, Susan. The Boggart - Audiobook read by David Rintoul. I kept thinking, while I listened to this, that it was in a sort of temporal limbo. It wasn't clearly connected to the time in which it was set; most of the indicators were things that weren't there. The rest of the details were things that the author clearly assumed as normal set dressing. For example, the mother has a stop-smoking flyer on the fridge, but I don't recall mention of her smoking or of her having issues with making a trans-Atlantic flight or issues with risk of fire or smoke damage to items in her antique store. Cooper also clearly had little idea how computers worked or what people might actually use them for. The story is otherwise fine; it just might not work for modern kids. The protagonists travel to Scotland and accidentally bring a mischief spirit back across the Atlantic.
de Bodard, Aliette. The House of Shattered Wings - Audiobook read by Peter Kenny. At various points in this book, I had a deep and visceral desire to see the setting burned to the ground and the ground salted afterward. I enjoyed the complications and power games. I liked the characters. I understood why people made compromises and choices that they knew would have painful consequences, and that aspect is real world adjacent. The book also didn't seem nearly as long as it actually was. But. I remember the anger more, and it unsettled me. I want to read more, but I also think that I'll have to be careful about timing. I don't think the plot will ever go 'rocks explode, everybody dies,' though, and the magical setting isn't ever going to get kinder. People don't work that way.
Giles, Lamar. The Last Last-Day-of-Summer: Legendary Alston Boys Series 1 - Audiobook read by Ruffin Prentiss. Middle grade book. I enjoyed it quite a bit. The protagonists are cousins (both boys) who routinely have extraordinary adventures. This one involves time travel and a camera that freezes time. The cover images clearly show the boys as Black and so does the text, but them being Black isn't a plot point, not even tangentially. This is kids who happen to be Black having an adventure. That aspect is something I'm glad to see.
Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point - Audiobook read by the author. I disagree with some of Gladwell's ideas but don't have the data to argue them. I didn't enjoy this book because, every time I listened to some of it, I had the impression that he was gaslighting me due to certain vocal qualities and due to his performance choices. I'm certain that this wasn't intentional in as much as popular non-fiction isn't generally intended to produce a reader reaction of 'Fuck you. You're lying. I wouldn't believe you if you said water was wet.'
Kingfisher, T. The Hollow Places - Audiobook read by Hillary Huber. Is 'portal horror' a genre? That's what I'd call this. It's creepy, and the characters react like human beings. I understood why they did the things they did, and I liked their sense of humor. I got a little frustrated at the narrator missing an obvious connection, but I think Kingfisher was using that to ratchet up the tension, that readers were supposed to notice and react with the equivalent of 'No! Don't go into the basement!' or 'No! Don't split the party!'
LaRocca, Rajani. Midsummer's Mayhem - Audiobook read by Cassandra de Cuir. This middle grade fantasy felt oddly paced to me, but I suspect that that's because I could see all the things the protagonist missed. That's a me being 54 and being familiar with A Midsummer Night's Dream thing rather than any sort of writing problem. The main character is a baker who desperately wants to be recognized as an expert. She discovers she can bake things that influence people's behavior; she notices that and tries desperately to fix it all, but she misses the magics going on that don't come from her, and that leaves her vulnerable. It all turns out, of course; it's not that sort of book.
Morris, Marc. King John: Treachery and Tyranny in Medieval England, the Road to the Magna Carta - Audiobook read by Ralph Lister. Having the text of the Magna Carta at the end of the book for reference is much less useful in an audiobook than in a paper book, and that was most of the final CD. I just couldn't tell from the track labels where it ended and whether there was something after.
Raybourn, Deanna. A Murderous Relation - Audiobook read by Angele Masters. Veronica meets one of her brothers. A lot of shenanigans are involved, and there's a glancing bit of Jack the Ripper stuff some of which I'm not convinced was necessary. I'm also kind of boggled that the ruse near the end of the book worked. It was written convincingly, though.
Riordan, Rick. Camp Jupiter Classified - Audiobook read by Erin Cahill. Novella length adventure focused on a character finding her place at Camp Jupiter.
Sanders, Ted. The Box and the Dragonfly; The Harp and the Ravenvine - Audiobooks read by Andrew Eiden. These books both fascinated and frustrated me. They're on the YA/middle grade border and have some complicated world building that I'd like to see played out (there are more books, but the library only has these two). I also want to reach through the book, grab the author, and shake them for writing the magical equivalent of disability and chronic pain and having the characters make judgments about how people are better off dead than in chronic pain. There's a certain layer in the text that implies that both sides in the struggle for magic power are terrible and wrong (and right), just for different reasons, and I'm very curious about where that would go. I'm not used to seeing fantasy aimed at this age group that has all of the factions sucking from the ethical side.
Savaryn, Lorelei. The Circus of Stolen Dreams - Audiobook read by Jesse Vilinsky. Middle grade fantasy with a midnight circus that charges admission in memories and makes VR versions of each that other people at the circus can visit. Again, I don't think there are great surprises in the plot twists, but they may well be there for the intended audience. The protagonist's brother has been missing for a year, and she and her parents have been dealing with that, so be warned. The brother is, of course, trapped at the Night Circus, but the dark moments here get pretty raw.
Stewart, Trenton Lee. The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict - Audiobook read by Del Roy. This is a prequel to the Mysterious Benedict Society books. Nicholas Benedict arrives at a new-to-him orphanage and makes friends and enemies and searches for a treasure. I kept stopping listening and not going back for months. I don't know how it reads without knowledge of who Nicholas will grow up to be.
Thomas, Sherry. Murder on Cold Street - Audiobook read by Kate Reading. The titular murder was like nesting dolls that somehow tangled together. I got frustrated with that aspect of it even while I enjoyed the characters and their interactions with each other and with new characters. This is not the place to start with the series (which is better read in order).
Thomas, Sherry. The Perilous Sea - Audiobook read by Philip Battley. 2nd in the Elemental Trilogy. Our library's holdings for this series are weird. They have book 1 in both audio and ebook, book 2 only in audio, and book 3 only in ebook. I ended up having to renew this book several times because audiobooks need focus that I don't always have and because life stress often means I hit stress points in books and can't go forward without physical anxiety symptoms. With a paper book, I'll flip forward and then gradually back up to the problem spot. Ebooks and audiobooks are unfriendly to this accessibility need. Anyway, I've enjoyed this series so far. It's a portal fantasy, but the protagonists come from the other world to ours and go back and forth a good bit as the Evil to be defeated is based in their world rather than ours.
Tolan, Stephanie S. Surviving the Applewhites - Audiobook read by Robert Sean Leonard. Basically the Bagthorpes but gentler. 13 year old Jake has been expelled from multiple schools. The Applewhites are neighbors who live in a sort of family art colony and who home school their kids. E.D. is the Applewhite child Jake's age. She maintains that she's got no interest in creativity and no talent. I enjoyed the book enough to get the next one from the library (available there in paper only). Listening to the audiobook was a little weird because E.D.'s older sister is named Cordelia; hearing that over and over is disconcerting because I'm not used to other people than my daughter having that name.
Vaughn, Carrie. The Ghosts of Sherwood - Audiobook read by Angele Masters. This is only about two and a half hours long. The three children of Robin and Marian get kidnapped.
Vo, Nghi. When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain - Audiobook read by Cindy Kay. I had an unexpected issue with this because the POV character uses they/them pronouns and is named Chih. I couldn't reliably hear the difference between Chih and 'she.' I kept getting confused about who was doing things. I am not sure this is a problem anyone who isn't me would have, but it's definitely a thing that wouldn't trouble me in text as opposed to audio.
Waite, Olivia. The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics - Audiobook read by Morag Sims. I thought I'd put a hold on the ebook of this title. The audiobook was well performed but had some longish explicit sections that were awkward to listen to with Cordelia around. F/F historical romance. Almost all of the male characters were unthinkingly misogynist, and that wore on me while also feeling like something that was real in the setting. The ladies get their HEA, but it felt like a bubble with definite edges. Not that everything outside came across as misery, just a bit precarious which is true to life in any era.
Wexler, Django. The Forbidden Library; The Mad Apprentice; The Palace of Glass; The Fall of the Readers - Audiobook read by Cassandra Morris. The Forbidden Library Series. Middle grade fantasy. Readers are humans who can use books as gateways and power sources and prisons. The protagonist is a girl who has the power. After her father disappears, a Reader takes her on as his apprentice. The protagonist is clever and compassionate, but she's also prone to tunnel vision so that achieving her goals often leads into the next book's bigger, scarier problems. I enjoyed the series; the fact that they were almost all immediately available on Overdrive helped, of course.
Wodehouse, P.G. A Pelican at Blandings - Audiobook read by Nigel Lambert. I think I need Wodehouse in very small doses, short stories rather than novels. I didn't really empathize with most of the characters (and objected strongly to the 'happy ending' for the one character I did like. That marriage seems likely to disappoint her).
DNF:
Fusco, Kimberly. Beholding Bee - Audiobook read by Ariadne Meyers. I got through about half of the first CD and just didn't want to keep going.
Creech, Sharon. Walk Two Moons - Audiobook read by Kate Harper. DNF. I listened to the first CD of 5 and just wasn't engaged.
Fox, Janet. The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle - Audiobook read by Fiona Hardingham. I got about halfway through this and felt like the plot was being unnecessarily extended. I wanted to know how it came out, but another four hours seemed like way, way too long to sit through for that. It's a kids' book and was aimed at boarding school gothic with a hefty serving of actual evil magic. The protagonist keeps wrapping herself in mundane solutions to supernatural problems even after seeing evidence that suggests that those solutions are impossible. She very much wants an adult to come in and fix what's wrong which makes sense given her age and that she's one of the oldest children there, but her denials and rationalizations wore thin in ways that frustrated me.
Graff, Keir. The Tiny Mansion - Audiobook read by Kristen DiMercurio. I may try this one again, but I wanted to shake the protagonist until her teeth rattled, and I'm not 100% sure it was just my mood.
Groom, Winston. The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight - Audiobook read by Robertson Dean. I kept listening to this out of a grim determination to finish it, but... I wasn't enjoying it, and sunk cost fallacy. So. I gave up three quarters of the way through.
Homer. The Iliad - Audiobook read by ???. I neglected to write down the narrator's name or the translator's when I put this on my laptop, and I'm not 100% sure that the version the library currently has is the same as the one I have. The version currently in the catalogue lists Robert Fitzgerald as translator and George Guidall as the reader. I call this one a DNF because the vocal quality and cadence made me feel like I should be taking a nap because nothing whatsoever was happening. It reminded me a lot of the cadence of Carl Sandburg reading one of his Rootabaga Stories. My mother used those to get us to fall asleep as far back as I can remember, and we used them for Cordelia, too. Anyway, I made it through Book 1 and gave up.
Johnson, Maureen. Truly Devious - Audiobook read by Kate Rudd. This is the first book in a trilogy about a teen trying to solve a cold case while dealing with a copy cat at her boarding school. I was curious about the solution to the old mystery, but I didn't want to work through three books to find answers. I didn't enjoy the POV character at all. Someone else might.
Kindl, Patrice. Keeping the Castle - Audiobook read by Bianca Amato. I listened to the first CD and found no real sympathy in myself for any of the characters.
Klass, David. Firestorm - Audiobook read by Ramon de Ocampo. Staccato writing. Present tense. Often dropping articles and subjects or verbs of sentences. Gave up halfway through the first CD of nine.
Lacey, Josh. The Sultan's Tigers - Audiobook read by Robbie Daymond. I can't tell how much of my irritation with this book is due to real life things upsetting me and how much is due to the book more objectively. I'm curious as to how the book would resolve, but I'm unwilling to invest another 4+ hours listening to it when I dislike the first person POV protagonist. This is a middle grade adventure book with a kid finding letters written by an ancestor who stole and hid a treasure after participating in war in India. The kid and his uncle go looking for it in hopes of selling it to a specific Indian businessman who's been paying a lot of money to retrieve items stolen from that particular location. Their approach is very mercenary, and the uncle's idea is that he is already so far in debt to dubious people that maxing out his credit cards can't make things worse. The uncle admits that their course is dictated by the money mattering more than ethics or anything else and asserts that this is a family trait. I listened to ⅓ of the book.
Little Badger, Darcie. Elatsoe - Audiobook read by Kinsale Hueston. This was a vocal mismatch for me in as much as I had trouble understanding the words (I think it's a pitch issue because I have trouble with all readers in a similar vocal range). I'll try the ebook version instead.
Lloyd, Natalie. The Problim Children - Audiobook read by Cassandra Morris. I couldn't track all of the characters and wasn't sufficiently interested in the hijinks or the community mysteries. Middle grade book with odd angles to the reality of the setting.
Ortega, Claribel A. Ghost Squad - Audiobook read by Almarie Guerra. I stopped this about forty minutes in because I was in the wrong mood for it. I'll probably try it again in a few months. It's a middle grade book with ghosts and magic in our mundane world.
Stross, Charles. Dead Lies Dreaming - Audiobook read by Gideon Emery. I listened to almost two hours of this audiobook and never found my footing with the characters or the setting. It's in the Laundry Files universe but follows different characters. It's also set after everyone becomes aware of magic and after things get seriously grim.