Review of Another Piece of My Heart, by Jane Green

Audiobooks, Chick Lit, Contemporary, Fiction Review, General, Light Reading 0

Another Piece of My Heart

by Jane Green

Macmillan Audiobooks, 2012. 11 CDs, 13.5 hours.

Another Piece of My Heart is chick lit for grown-ups, which I suppose I should give the label “women’s fiction.” The story begins with a woman who got married late in life and is dealing with facing the fact that she’s not going to get pregnant. Add to her troubles a truly awful teenage stepdaughter, and she’s not sure if she’s going to be able to stick it out, even though she loves her husband.

The story continues with more perspectives, including the stepdaughter, and even the view of the alcoholic first wife. There are complications when Emily, the stepdaughter, gets pregnant.

This audiobook was read by the author. Since the author has a British accent but the book is set in California, that seemed a little odd — but I am never one to complain about a British accent, and listening to the author’s delightful voice kept me listening toward the beginning when I wasn’t sure I was terribly interested. (That was a brief moment toward the beginning when I was afraid the main character was going to cheat on her husband. She didn’t, and I never was tempted to quit again.)

In spots the book did go on a little longer than it might have. But overall, it was a richly layered story about what it means to be a family and about the negotiations that go into giving your heart.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/another_piece_of_my_heart.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Listening Copy I got at an ALA conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Tongues of Serpents, by Naomi Novik

Adventure, Alternate History, Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review 0

Tongues of Serpents

by Naomi Novik
read by Simon Vance

Tantor Audio, 2010. 10 hours on 8 CDs.

The library finally got this book about Temeraire on CD! They had it in e-audiobook form, but I don’t have a way to listen to those in my car. So I listened to one more book about Temeraire, the celestial dragon.

Naomi Novik’s books are like the Master and Commander books, only with dragons. It’s an alternate world where nations use dragons in their Aerial Corps, with a full complement of deckhands and one captain who bonds with the dragon when it hatches. The books take place during the Napoleonic wars. You really should read them in order.

In the latest installment, Temeraire and Laurence are in Australia. (Besides England, they’ve been to China, Central Asia, Africa, and Europe. So why not Australia?) The book starts with some political posturing, but gets more interesting when they take a crew of convicts into the interior, and a dragon egg gets stolen. They encounter all kinds of new dangers in their journey to get the egg back.

The plot isn’t terribly gripping, but I could happily listen to Simon Vance read a phone book, and this is much more interesting than the phone book. His British accent is a delight to listen to, and I can recognize the voices he uses from the previous audiobooks, even though it’s been awhile since I heard the last one. He’s consistent with a different voice for each character, so they are recognizable, even in the next book.

I shouldn’t say too much about this installment, because if you’ve listened to the other books, nothing I can say would keep you from reading on. Yes, read this series. Or much better yet, listen to this series. Napoleonic Wars with dragons! A reader with a fabulous British accent! A great way to while away a commute.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/tongues_of_serpents.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken, read by Lizza Aiken

Alternate History, Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

by Joan Aiken
read by Lizza Aiken

Listening Library, 2012. The book was written in 1962. 5 hours on 4 compact discs.
Starred Review

Why had I never read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase before? I remember seeing it as a child, and I think I may have even checked it out once, but it looked far too dark for me. (I never have really liked dark books.) This time reading it, I was completely enchanted. Yes, the girls triumph over adversity, but I wouldn’t even call this book “dark” now that I’m an adult. I guess the Edward Gorey illustrations were too much for me.

And this 50th anniversary production is especially delightful in that it’s read by the author’s daughter. And she talks at the beginning about the writing of the book and the adversity her mother faced in her own life. Her mother had a gap of ten years in writing, and read the chapters to her children when she finally took it up again. For me, this inside information made me enjoy the story all the more.

The story is wonderful. As they point out in the introduction, we’ve got orphan girls with everyone set against them. They must figure out a way to escape and somehow set things to rights, and they do so on their own power. The sinister wolves add atmosphere and drama and probably too much darkness for the little girl I once was. But this audio production would make marvelous family listening. (If it gets too scary, you can comfort any little ones listening.)

The story is old-fashioned and melodramatic, but there’s so much to love. This classic was #57 in Betsy Bird’s Top 100 Children’s Novels Poll. I’m so glad I’ve finally read it.

listeninglibrary.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/wolves_of_willoughby_chase.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Historical, Romance, Starred Review 0

Eleanor & Park

by Rainbow Rowell

read by Rebecca Lowman and Sunil Malhotra

Listening Library, 2013. 9 hours on 7 compact discs.
Starred Review
2013 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winner

Sigh. I didn’t want this book to end. I hated going to work today, having to stop in the middle of the last CD. When I got home, I didn’t even think for a moment of leaving the CD in the car. (And I’d done the same thing on CD 5, finishing it in the house.)

I’ve always liked slow-burn romance, romance that shows the characters, slowly, realistically, falling in love over time, rather than just looking at someone and suddenly falling for them. This book is a realistic, slow, beautiful, exquisite love story.

I loved listening to the story. I liked the way you’d hear what one character was thinking, and then it would jump to the other character’s viewpoint. However, now that I’m writing the review, I wish I had the print book to share good bits with you.

I did *not* like the ending. However, considering that the Eleanor & Park were studying Romeo & Juliet in school (Eleanor being contemptuous that it’s called tragedy), and considering the parallel nature of the title, and that this was also a teenage love story between teens from very different backgrounds — well, it could have ended much worse. I was afraid all along this would end as badly as Romeo & Juliet. This isn’t too big a spoiler: Nobody dies.

But I hated the ambiguity of the very end. And there are many secondary characters whose fates I really want to know about. The author gave us so much detail along the way, is it too much to ask for a little bit of detail at the end? (Apparently it is.) I want to know more!

So you’ve been warned about the ending. But the journey is totally worth it. It starts toward the beginning of the school year when a new girl — Eleanor — gets on the school bus, and no one will let her have a seat. Park finally scoots over and gives her half of his seat, but they don’t even speak to one another for weeks. The back-and-forth narration shows us each one starting to wonder about the silent person on the bus. Then Eleanor starts reading Park’s comics over his shoulder. They still don’t speak.

Meanwhile Eleanor’s dealing with bullying in gym class and an awful situation at home, with four little brothers and sisters to worry about as well. Park’s problems are more along the lines of his Dad making him learn to drive a stick before he’ll let him get his license. As things progress, Eleanor cannot let her family find out about Park.

There were so many little things that rang so true. I liked the way neither would admit they were boyfriend and girlfriend until well after Park had gotten in a fight over something said to Eleanor.

The audio was wonderful and had me driving to and from work almost in a trance. It’s not family listening, though. It’s a love story, and their feelings do grow in passion, which could be quite embarrassing for younger listeners. (I love the way they each marvel separately over how amazing it feels to hold hands. Things do progress from there, but this doesn’t jump straight to making out without giving the small steps along the way their due.) I was listening in the car by myself, so I didn’t have to worry about embarrassment, but the descriptions struck just the right note of wonder and passion, without feeling trite.

If you’re ever in the mood for a love story, I highly recommend this one.

listeninglibrary.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/eleanor_and_park.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Chomp, by Carl Hiaasen

Adventure, Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Chomp

by Carl Hiaasen
read by James Van Der Beek

Listening Library, 2012. 6 hours on 5 CDs.

This audiobook is a wonderful choice for family listening. Wahoo Cray (He was named after a wrestler) has always lived with animals. His dad’s an animal wrangler, dealing with exotic animals for TV shows or movies. Unfortunately, his dad recently had a head injury when a frozen iguana fell out of a tree and landed on his head. He gets headaches and double vision and hasn’t gotten many jobs lately.

So when the biggest reality survival show on TV wants to hire Mickey Cray, Wahoo has to make sure it works. Even though the star of the show, Derek Badger, is all too likely to get himself killed — either by their alligator or by Mickey himself.

When Derek Badger decides to take the show into the “real” wild Everglades, he insists that Mickey and Wahoo go with him. But then Wahoo runs into Tuna, a girl from school who needs to hide from her drunk dad, so they bring her along. And things rapidly get out of control.

Even though this book does skirt some heavy issues with Tuna and her Dad, the mood stays very funny and has eye-opening facts about animals and the environment and supposed “reality” shows. As it goes on, Derek Badger’s ineptitude went beyond funny to me into the range of downright unrealistic, but it’s all in good fun.

Highly entertaining and family friendly listening, with plenty of laughs and plenty of excitement. The narrator does a great job of distinguishing between the characters, including Derek Badger’s fake Australian accent. He had me avidly listening all the way. In fact, the characters were in a pouring rainstorm right while I was driving in a torrential downpour, and I think the line between fantasy and reality began to blur for me! I listened to this while driving back from dropping my youngest son off his first time in the college dorm, and it was fantastic to have something to completely take my mind off his empty seat! But I do think if the seats in your car are full, this is one the whole family will enjoy.

listeninglibrary.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/chomp.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White

Animal Characters, Audiobooks, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Classics, Contemporary, Fantasy, Starred Review, Top 100 Writers and Illustrators 0

Charlotte’s Web

by E. B. White
read by the Author

Listening Library, 2002. Written in 1952. Recorded in 1970. 3 compact discs.
Starred Review
1953 Newbery Honor Book
1970 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award

Charlotte’s Web has twice been voted the #1 Children’s Chapter Book of all time by librarians and parents voting in Betsy Bird‘s School Library Journal Top 100 Chapter Books Poll. In fact, it was reading Betsy’s post that I learned that there is an audio with E. B. White reading the book. I immediately checked if our library had that version and happily took it home.

It’s been many years since I’ve read this practically perfect book. My third grade teacher read it to me the first time. Later, I read it to my sons. And my older son watched the Hanna-Barbara animated version over and over again. As I listened to the audiobook, I realized that the many lines I had memorized were the ones that were used in the film. And they did keep many, many of the great lines. (Like the starting and ending lines. Like Charlotte’s salutation.) But I’d forgotten a lot of the side scenes that didn’t make it to the film.

There are so many scenes simply of life in the barn. Swinging on the rope swing. Wilbur escaping his pen right at the beginning. How it felt to have slops poured on top of Wilbur or to roll in the warm manure. The book is truly a paean to life in the barn.

Now at the beginning, I didn’t feel E. B. White measured up to the actors and especially actresses I remembered reciting the lines in my head. But his voice grew on me, and it’s a good, down-to-earth voice for this story. You can hear in his voice his love for the quiet life of the barn. It’s truly a treasure to still be able to listen to him telling his masterpiece of a story.

Now, there’s no need to critique this classic. I was surprised to find little quibbles. What happens to Fern when the whole spider plot happens. Isn’t she in on it? But it’s Charlotte’s Web! The book is genius, and it works. And you can listen to it read by E. B. White himself.

listeninglibrary.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/charlottes_web.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of All There Is, collected by Dave Isay

Audiobooks, Nonfiction Review, Romance, True Stories 0

All There Is

Love Stories from StoryCorps

collected by Dave Isay

HighBridge, 2012. 1 hour on 1 CD.

StoryCorps is an oral history project. The StoryCorps people have gone all around the country collecting people’s stories in audio form. This is a collection of some of the most moving love stories from the StoryCorps project, told in the voices of the participants themselves.

At first I thought this was the same stories as in the book of the same name. It is not, but is a smaller selection. However, since in this short audiobook you get to hear the voices of the people telling the story, it is very powerful.

You simply can’t go wrong spending an hour of your time listening to people talk about the great loves of their lives.

highbridgeaudio.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/all_there_is.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Audiobook Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein

Adventure, Audiobooks, Historical, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Code Name Verity

by Elizabeth Wein
read by Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell

Bolinda Audio, 2012. Unabridged. 10 hours 9 minutes on 9 compact discs.
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out, #1 Teen Fiction
Starred Review

In my mind, Code Name Verity is easily the best book written in 2012. It’s not a pleasant story. It’s not even a happy story. But Wow! It blows you away.

I’m already thinking about how to booktalk the book. Spies. The Resistance. A British pilot stranded in France during World War II. Nazi interrogators. Think that will do it? It’s also a book about friendship.

I already reviewed the print version of the book, which I devoured as soon as it arrived via Amazon. But as soon as I finished, I knew I’d want to read it again. There are lots of things in the second part referred to in the beginning part, and I wanted to see if I would have a new perspective having already finished the book. Besides, I wanted to enjoy it again! So when the audio version was nominated for Capitol Choices, that seemed like a good excuse to reread the book in a different format.

And, Wow! Okay, I realize I’m not being even slightly eloquent. Let me simply say that this is an outstanding audio production of an outstanding story. They got someone from Scotland to read Julie’s parts, and someone from England to read Maddie’s. And they were magnificent. It felt like I was really listening to the two friends talking about their wartime service and their friendship.

I still love this passage. I almost burst out crying in the car when it came up in the audiobook:

Then she hitched up her hair to its two-inch above-the-collar regulation point, swabbed her own tears and the grease and the concrete dust and the gunner’s blood from her cheeks with the back of her hand, and she was off running again, like the Red Queen.

It’s like being in love, discovering your best friend.

I wouldn’t have thought there was a way to improve this book. But listening to Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell made me feel like I was listening to Julie and Maddie tell me their thoughts.

Now, I suppose I should add that there’s torture that happens in this book. It’s set during wartime, and it isn’t pretty. Julie and Maddie are adults, young ones, yes, but adults serving during wartime. So although Code Name Verity is published as a young adult book, “old” adults won’t feel the least bit like the book is too young for them. And this isn’t a YA book I’d want to give to the youngest teens, because the subject matter is deadly serious. This audiobook is wonderful for listening in the car, but I wouldn’t call it a “family” audiobook if there are young kids around.

But Wow. Code Name Verity is a story of wartime, yes, but it’s a beautiful one. The story of the friendship, of these amazing young women, far outshines the ugly details of wartime.

elizabethwein.com
bolinda.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/code_name_verity_audio.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Burning Bridge, by John Flanagan

Adventure, Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

The Burning Bridge

The Ranger’s Apprentice, Book Two

by John Flanagan
performed by John Keating

Recorded Books, 2006. 7 compact discs. 8.5 hours.

Okay, I’m firmly committed to listening to these popular books by now. The book is rather self-contained, but I definitely don’t want to leave Will in the situation where he’s left at the end of this book. And you will do better reading this book if you’ve read the first one, which in many ways is introductory.

Now, I kind of expected the whole series to be like Harry Potter, and be a grand struggle against the evil Morgarath. But that struggle, which began in the first book, The Ruins of Gorlan, does come to a climax in this second book. So the future books will have different situations and villains.

Now I do have a peeve against the titles. In the first book, at about the sixth CD, they were tracking evil creatures. They said they were probably heading for one place, but that they might possibly try to ambush the trackers at the Ruins of Gorlan. Given the title, I wasn’t even slightly surprised by what happened.

In this book, at about the third CD, they discover a huge, strategic bridge, almost finished. The ropes supporting the bridge are coated with tar. It takes Will an entire CD to think of what to do about that bridge. But I, having read the title, was way, way ahead of him.

However, I didn’t foresee the consequences of that plan, I’ll give the author that. Though the Burning Bridge happened about exactly in the middle of the book (unlike the Ruins of Gorlan, which we saw at the end of its book), things really got interesting and suspenseful after that.

I also wasn’t crazy about the alternating scenes between what was going on with Will (the Ranger’s Apprentice) and what was happening in the rest of the kingdom. There was an entire minor mission with Halt and Alice that I guess was just to provide a little humor? Or to keep us guessing about where Will’s love interest will lie some day?

Still, it’s clear that John Flanagan wrote with the big picture in mind. This book is one part of a series, and he’s showing us a cast of characters in a kingdom we’re coming to care about. I definitely am going to continue on.

Oh, and I’m enjoying the audio version, in particular because of the accents. Now, I’m not sure why this fantasy world corresponds exactly to the British Isles and Europe, with accents that match, but it does make the books fun to listen to.

And I really do want to know what happens to Will next.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/burning_bridge.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review 0

The Spellman Files

by Lisa Lutz

Performed by Christina Moore

Recorded Books, 2007. 8 CDs. Unabridged.
Starred Review.

Izzy Spellman has worked in the family business since she was 12 years old. The family business is private detection. But they don’t really do glamorous murder cases. Their work tends more toward background checks and tailing people. Izzy is very good at those things.

Izzy was always something of a black sheep, even in their crazy family. But now that Izzy is 28 and her little sister is 14, she’d like to set a better example for Rae. Still, Izzy can’t resist doing a background check on a potential boyfriend, nor can she bring herself to tell him the truth about herself and her family. Finally, she decides if she ever wants to have a normal life, she’ll have to get out of the family business.

Surprisingly, her parents agree. But they give her one more case, a cold case about a boy who disappeared 15 years ago. However, when Rae disappears in the middle of the case, things get awfully serious.

I listened to this book on a car trip up to Philadelphia for PLA Biennial Conference, and when I got there, I got to meet the author and purchase the next book! On long trips, I love listening to books that make me laugh, and this book filled the bill beautifully. The mystery aspect was a tiny bit disappointing — this isn’t a puzzle-type detective novel. But taken for what it is, the story of a young woman with a crazy family trying to have a normal life, and not really succeeding, this book is a smashing success. Because, after all, who of us is really normal? But listening to Izzy’s story, you might start to think you are.

Big thanks to my co-worker Lynne for recommending this as a great book to listen to.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/spellman_files.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!