No time for a review today, but if you have reviewed an audiobook this week, link it up below!
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Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight, narrated by Kristine Hvam
Published in audio by Harper Audio, published in print by Harper Books, both imprints of HarperCollins
Synopsis:
In the middle of a hugely important client meeting, Kate gets a call about her daughter. Amelia, always an exceptional student and a good kid, has been accused of cheating on an English paper and is being suspended. By the time Kate arrives at the school an hour later, there are emergency vehicles everywhere and Amelia is dead after ostensibly jumping off the roof. Kate is bereft at losing her daughter and finds herself overwhelmed by her grief, until she receives an anonymous text claiming that Amelia did not jump. As Kate begins to investigate her daughters life, she realizes just how much Amelia had been keeping secret from her, and becomes increasingly sure her daughter did not commit suicide.
Thoughts on the story:
Reconstructing Amelia alternates between Kate’s point of view after Amelia’s death and Amelia’s leading up to her death. Amelia’s sections in particularly are heartbreaking because she is a great, funny girl with some serious problems that are really not her fault and knowing that her story is going to end with her tragic death is often very difficult. I actually found myself hoping she had committed suicide or that she had fallen off the roof by accident because I just couldn’t bear the thought of anyone killing her. The way this whole thing is plotted worked very well for me. Kate’s discoveries often connect with what Amelia is going through in the alternate chapters, but not so much that anything feels redundant. It is overall a very well put together story.
Thoughts on the audio production:
This is the first time I’ve listened to Kristine Hvam in a full-length production and I was very impressed. She introduces slight variations in her voice to differentiate between Kate and Amelia, so that even if you miss the chapter tag of the character and date you can still figure out easily which character’s point of view you are in (even without the fairly obvious context clues). About the dates in the chapter titles, though… That was the one thing that didn’t work for me as well consuming this as an audiobook versus a print book. I did not pay enough attention to the dates when I heard them that by the next time around I could remember what they were, and audio of course makes it more difficult to go back and check. Luckily both story lines progress in a linear fashion, so the only real issue was not knowing quite how much time elapsed over the course of the story.
Overall:
Loved! This is a good one if you want to cause some obsessive listening. The book is well put together and the narration is top-notch. Highly recommended.
Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio*
Indiebound: Audio*
Downpour Audio
Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
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Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace by Kate Summerscale, narrated by Wanda McCaddon
Published in audio by Tantor Audio, published in print by Bloomsbury USA
Synopsis:
From the publisher:
Headstrong, high-spirited, and already widowed, Isabella Walker became Mrs. Henry Robinson at age 31 in 1844. Her first husband had died suddenly, leaving his estate to a son from a previous marriage, so she inherited nothing. A successful civil engineer, Henry moved them, by then with two sons, to Edinburgh’s elegant society in 1850. But Henry traveled often and was cold and remote when home, leaving Isabella to her fantasies.
No doubt thousands of Victorian women faced the same circumstances, but Isabella chose to record her innermost thoughts—and especially her infatuation with a married Dr. Edward Lane—in her diary. Over five years the entries mounted—passionate, sensual, suggestive. One fateful day in 1858 Henry chanced on the diary and, broaching its privacy, read Isabella’s intimate entries. Aghast at his wife’s perceived infidelity, Henry petitioned for divorce on the grounds of adultery. Until that year, divorce had been illegal in England, the marital bond being a cornerstone of English life. Their trial would be a cause celebre, threatening the foundations of Victorian society with the specter of “a new and disturbing figure: a middle class wife who was restless, unhappy, avid for arousal.” Her diary, read in court, was as explosive as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, just published in France but considered too scandalous to be translated into English until the 1880s.
Thoughts on the story:
Kate Summerscale clearly knows both her subject and her time period well. Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace is a rich tapestry of a book that tells the story of much more than just one woman’s scandalous diary. Summerscale goes into great detail about a number of elements of period culture, including medical theories such as hydropathy and phrenology. It does seem at times that Isabella’s story is overshadowed by all the other things that Summerscale wants to share about mid-19th century Britain, but she does manage to bring it all back together again and create what is, overall, a very edifying story.
Thoughts on the audio production:
Wanda McCaddon does a very admirable job narrating Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace, but it is a difficult task. McCaddon has good inflection and tone to keep the listener interested, but this book simply doesn’t seem to translate very well into audio. Summerscale goes into so much detail about so many different topics, and there are so many people involved in this whole affair, that it is simply difficult to keep track of everything in audio, despite the skill of the narrator.
Overall:
A very interesting book, but if I were starting it over again I would choose print.
Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*
Source: Personal copy.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
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Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss, narrated by Scott Brick
Published in audio by Random House Audio, published in print by Random House
Synopsis (partial synopsis from the publisher):
Moss takes us inside the labs where food scientists use cutting-edge technology to calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages or enhance the “mouthfeel” of fat by manipulating its chemical structure. He unearths marketing campaigns designed—in a technique adapted from tobacco companies—to redirect concerns about the health risks of their products: Dial back on one ingredient, pump up the other two, and tout the new line as “fat-free” or “low-salt.” He talks to concerned executives who confess that they could never produce truly healthy alternatives to their products even if serious regulation became a reality. Simply put: The industry itself would cease to exist without salt, sugar, and fat. Just as millions of “heavy users”—as the companies refer to their most ardent customers—are addicted to this seductive trio, so too are the companies that peddle them. You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again.
Thoughts on the story:
The one thing I’m really still stuck on from Salt, Sugar, Fat is the part where Coca Cola refers to people who consume a lot of its product as “heavy users.” The drug analogy continues throughout much of the book, as Moss explores our physiological and cultural addictions to the titular ingredients. Moss does a fabulous job covering exactly how we got to where we are and just why it is so problematic. I was continually astounded by the prominence of Moss’s sources in the food industry; he clearly did his research and it is evident in the wealth of very well-presented information in the book. There was only one thing I did not love about Salt Sugar Fat, and that was how much my OCD self was bothered by the fact that these building blocks of processed food are discussed in a different order than the title: sugar, fat, then salt instead of salt, sugar, then fat. It drove me a little crazy, particularly during section changes, but Moss’s astounding work still sucked me back in immediately
Thoughts on the audio production:
Scott Brick, I have finally listened to you! Besides Simon Vance, Scott Brick is the only audiobook narrator I know who has his very own superfan. Audible has close to 500 results for Scott Brick’s name, but despite the number of audiobooks I have listened to over the last few years, I have never heard him until now. Nonfiction narration is generally not what inspires superfandom, but Brick does a wonderful job with Salt Sugar Fat. Because Moss inserts himself in his research from time to time, the book often has an almost conversational quality (if you have conversations with REALLY SMART people who know an awful lot about nutrition and food science), and Brick translates this wonderfully straight into the listener’s ear. He does that thing where you forget that you are listening to a narrator speak someone else’s words and tricks you into believing that he is the author and he knows ALL THESE THINGS AND MORE. Really top-notch.
Overall:
General nonfiction caveats apply here: if you want to really study the material and be able to easily go back and reference things, you are probably best served either with print or a combination of print and audio. However, if you just want to be exposed to Moss’s research, the audio production of Salt Sugar Fat is wonderful and one I highly recommend.
Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*
Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
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Life after Life by Kate Atkinson, narrated by Fenella Woolgar
Published in audio by Hachette Audio, published in print by Reagan Arthur Books, an imprint of Hachette
I have previously reviewed Life after Life in print, but in case you need a refresher, here’s the synopsis I wrote:
It is 1910 and one of the snowiest nights in memory in England when Ursula Todd is born. Unfortunately, little Ursula is not long for this world, dying almost before her mother even realizes she has been born. Luckily for Ursula, she is born again, the same day to the same family, and this time with another result. So Ursula is born time and time again, as she succumbs to the perils of early 20th-cenutry life but is repeatedly granted another chance, as if her life is building towards some grand purpose.
When I first finished Life after Life I had pretty daydreams about how much I had loved it and hoped against hope that my editor at Audiofile Magazine would assign me the audio to review (SPOILER ALERT: she did). As the weeks passed after reading it, though, I began to grow worried about the audiobook. Life after Life is huge, and has the tendency to loop back in on itself. Turns out I shouldn’t have worried. I don’t know if it was Fenella Woolgar’s narration, the production as a whole, or the source material, but Life after Life actually translated to audio quite well. Of course, I did have the benefit of already having read it once, but that was at least two months before I listened to the audio, so while I’m sure it smoothed the way, I did not necessarily remember all the intricacies of the plot.
I do think a listener who had no idea what the book was about might still be hugely confused the first time Ursula dies and the whole thing starts again, but as long as you have the basic premise you’d might as well spend 15 hours listening to Fenella Woolgar’s lovely narration – particularly her smashingly good American, French, and German accents.
For more, please see my review for Audiofile Magazine
Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*
Source: Audiofile Magazine.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
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Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer, narrated by Angela Brazil and Stephen R. Thorne
Published in audio by AudioGo, published in print by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Synopsis:
I would probably use about a billion words to try to describe this and the publisher’s description is SO pithy and perfect, so I’m just going to use that:
Loosely inspired by Robert Lowell and Flannery O’Connor, this absorbing, charming novel brings us into mid-century New York and the lives and letters of two writers– their intense friendship, their discussions of writing and art and faith, and their bittersweet romance.
Thoughts on the story:
Frances and Bernard is a fairly contemplative book, the musings of (and repressed affection between) Bernard and Frances. I’m not entirely sure how I would have felt about this in print, I’m not sure it would have held my interest initially. Luckily the narrators were enough to keep me entertained at that point, and later Bauer’s story itself becomes emotionally involving enough to captivate me. I was surprised at the sheer volume of their discussion of their Catholic faith and equally surprised just how intrigued I was by all of their discussions, from the personal, to the religious, to the literary.
Thoughts on the audio production:
Angela Brazil and Stephen R. Thorne? Perfect. PERFECT. This is an example of fabulous casting, both narrators fit their role perfectly, and since nearly the entire book is a letter written by one of them or the other, the dual narrator format works incredibly well.
Overall:
Frances and Bernard is a quietly lovely epistolary novel and the narration elevates the audio to another level entirely. Highly recommended.
For more, please see my review for Audiofile magazine.
Buy this book from:
Powells: Print*
Indiebound: Print*
Audible.com
Source: Audiofile Magazine.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
Sound Bytes is a meme that occurs every Friday! I encourage you to review your audiobooks on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.
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Jungleland by Christopher S. Stewart, narrated by Jef Brick
Published in audio by Harper Audio, published in print by Harper Books, both imprints of HarperCollins
Synopsis:
From the publisher:
On April 6, 1940, explorer and future World War II spy Theodore Morde (who would one day attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler), anxious about the perilous journey that lay ahead of him, struggled to fall asleep at the Paris Hotel in La Ceiba, Honduras.
Nearly seventy years later, in the same hotel, acclaimed journalist Christopher S. Stewart wonders what he’s gotten himself into. Stewart and Morde seek the same answer on their quests: the solution to the riddle of the whereabouts of Ciudad Blanca, buried somewhere deep in the rain forest on the Mosquito Coast. Imagining an immense and immaculate El Dorado–like city made entirely of gold, explorers as far back as the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés have tried to find the fabled White City. Others have gone looking for tall white cliffs and gigantic stone temples—no one found a trace.
Legends, like the jungle, are dense and captivating. Many have sought their fortune or fame down the Río Patuca—from Christopher Columbus to present-day college professors—and many have died or disappeared. What begins as a passing interest slowly turns into an obsession as Stewart pieces together the whirlwind life and mysterious death of Morde, a man who had sailed around the world five times before he was thirty and claimed to have discovered what he called the Lost City of the Monkey God.
Armed with Morde’s personal notebooks and the enigmatic coordinates etched on his well-worn walking stick, Stewart sets out to test the jungle himself—and to test himself in the jungle. As we follow the parallel journeys of Morde and Stewart, the ultimate destination morphs with their every twist and turn. Are they walking in circles? Or are they running from their own shadows? Jungleland is part detective story, part classic tale of man versus wild in the tradition of The Lost City of Z and Lost in Shangri-La. A story of young fatherhood as well as the timeless call of adventure, this is an epic search for answers in a place where nothing is guaranteed, least of all survival.
Thoughts on the story:
I’m not always keen on authors inserting themselves into stories, but Stewart’s combination memoir/history is extremely effective. I’m not sure that either his own story or Morde’s would have been enough to fully interest me, but combined they definitely kept me listening. Morde’s story provides the background, as well as some interesting spy games – including a plot to assassinate Hitler. Stewart’s story provides the heart, the human interest. I mean, this guy misses his daughter’s fourth birthday to gallivant around the jungle! It is his drive and his need to find the lost city that keeps the reader going, and then Morde’s story that provides the color and interest enough to break things up.
Thoughts on the audio production:
Jef Brick does a really great job, I generally had no problem discerning whether we were listening to Stewart’s story or Morde’s. There was one odd moment where I wondered whether I had been confused and there had really been two narrators the whole time because he sounded so different for one of Morde’s sections, but that seems to have been an odd bit of stray editing, or a different recording venue, or perhaps a trick of my ears and not an issue with Brick’s narration.
Overall:
I found Jungleland to be a nice change of pace and an enjoyable audiobook. I think I would have liked the print, but am fairly certain that I enjoyed it more in audio than I would have in print. Recommended.
Buy this book from:
Powells: Print*
Indiebound: Print*
Audible.com
Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
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Hand Me Down by Melanie Thorne, narrated by Ali Ahn
Published in audio by Recorded Books; published in print by Plume, an imprint of Penguin
Synopsis:
Life has not been easy for fourteen year old Elizabeth Reid and her sister Jaimie. Things got better for awhile once their mother left their abusive, alcoholic father. The man she brought into their lives next, though, was worse. Terrance is a convicted sex offender who has been jailed more than once for the crimes of exposing himself to and assaulting women. Although Liz’s mother swears up and down that Terrance poses no threat to her adolescent daughters, the lascivious looks and glancing touches he gives Liz tell her otherwise. Worse still are his threats that if Liz pushes back too hard on his flirtatious advances he will turn to her sister. It is almost a relief when Terrance’s parole officer decides that he can have no unsupervised visits with the girls, meaning he can no longer live in the same house as his stepdaughters. The only problem is that Liz’s mother chooses her new husband over her daughters, leaving the girls’ housing to the whims of friends and family.
Thoughts on the story:
With Hand Me Down, Thorne has created a story that draws in the reader immediately. Within less than half an hour of starting the audio, I was tweeting about how incensed I was on behalf of the main character, because the adults in her life put her in such a terrible position. Liz’s mom, in particular, is barely worthy of the title. Thorne does explore her backstory a bit, so that the reader can get an idea of what may have made her so monumentally stupid in this situation, but it isn’t so much that I ever really gave up hating her for her willful blindness. The hate didn’t make me dislike the book, though. On the contrary, the hate just showed me how completely invested I was in Liz’s story, and I, well, devourered Thorne’s story.
Now, yes, the protagonist is fourteen. No, this is not a young adult book, although it certainly has crossover appeal. Why is this an adult book? Well, partly because that is just how it is marketed. Partly also because the setting makes Liz more a contemporary of mine (perhaps even older than me), rather those of kids who are teenagers today. It also just feels as if it was written with an adult audience in mind, which is sort of an intangible quality, but there nonetheless.
Thoughts on the audio production:
I was quite impressed with Ali Ahn’s narration. She does a fabulous job differentiating between voices young and old, male and female. Her portrayal of Elizabeth in particular is quite moving. My only qualm about the audio production is that there were occasionally slightly odd pauses, seemingly the result of imperfect editing. The pause would seem as if the scene had ended, but it would quickly become clear once the narration resumed that the same scene was still ongoing. This happens just a handful of times so it isn’t enough to impede the overall enjoyment of this production – particularly with Ahn’s masterful narration – it is just enough to notice.
Overall:
A moving book paired with an equally moving performance, Hand Me Down is a fabulous listen.
Buy this book from:
Powells: Print*
Indiebound: Print*
Audible.com
Source: Author.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
Sound Bytes is a meme that occurs every Friday! I encourage you to review your audiobooks on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.
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Heft by Liz Moore, narrated by Kirby Heyborne and Keith Szarabajka
Published in audio by Blackstone Audio, published in print by W.W. Norton
Synopsis:
From the publisher:
Former academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn’t left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away, in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career—if he can untangle himself from his family drama. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel’s mother, Charlene, a former student of Arthur’s. After nearly two decades of silence, it is Charlene’s unexpected phone call to Arthur—a plea for help—that jostles them into action.
Thoughts on the story:
Heft is very well-written with great characterization. It is also unremittingly depressing for quite awhile. Both Arthur and Kel just have bad thing after bad thing happen to them. It seems they have so little in their lives that is good that it can be hard to take. Still, Moore has created compelling characters and difficult as it is to stay with them, it is also hard to turn away.
Thoughts on the audio production:
(Note: the original version of this review had the narrators’ names reversed)
Keith Szarabajka is an incredibly talented narrator, and he performes Arthur’s role magnificently, not to mention the amazing range of disparate voices he gives to those with whom Arthur came in contact. I was less enthused by Kirby Heyborne’s performance. He does a technically good job, but Szarabajka is a hard act to follow. In addition, it is a bit difficult to believe Heyborne as a teenager when he was born in 1952. He is able to affect a fairly youthful voice, but a teenager he is not. Perhaps other people aren’t bothered by this in audiobooks, but it drives me batty. I am much more able to accept a vaguely adult sounding child, but a maturely voiced teenager pulls me right out of the audiobook.
Overall:
I think I might have preferred this in print, so the sadness didn’t go straight into my ears, but Keith Szarabajka’s performance is worth a listen.
Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*
Source: review.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc
.
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The Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson, narrated by Robin Miles, Charlotte Parry, and Tim Gerard Reynolds
Published in audio by Recorded Books; published in print by Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette
Synopsis:
The only thing that Serena wants is for nobody to find out about her infamous past. She has a lot to lose: a good job, a husband, two children. At least she has a life, though, Poppy, recently released from prison, has nothing. Their lives could not be more different, but they do share something important: having been accused, as teenagers, of the violent murder of the man who was sleeping with both of them. Now that Poppy is out of jail, all she wants is to clear her name, even if she has to drag Serena down to do it.
Thoughts on the story:
The Ice Cream Girls was a slow start for me, but as soon as Koomson started divulging information about Serena and Poppy and their affairs with Marcus – a man who is initially Serena’s teacher – I became drawn into the train wreck that was those relationships. It is, at times, almost painful to see how Marcus draws the girls in and tightens the metaphorical noose around their necks. In the novel’s present, the most compelling thing is Serena’s fear of losing her family and the life she has created.
Thoughts on the audio production:
Both Robin Miles and Charlotte Parry did a good job with this narration, although Miles’s performance is the more poignant of the two. Tim Gerard Reynolds, however, seems completely miscast as Marcus. Marcus comes across throughout the book as smart and slick, able to tamp down his more brutal tendencies when it best suits him. Reynolds’s performance portrays him as gruff and mean, and seems to completely ignore his more suave tendencies. Luckily, Reynolds is really just a cameo appearance for the last ten minutes or so of the audio.
Overall:
The Ice Cream Girls is a very compelling book with good narration, but parents of teenage girls – or anyone who has been in an abusive relationship – may want to approach with caution.
For more information, see my review for Audiofile Magazine.
Buy this book from:
Powells: Print*
Indiebound: Print*
Audible
Source: Audiofile Magazine.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
Sound Bytes is a meme that occurs every Friday! I encourage you to review your audiobooks on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.
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