The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
Available from Audible.com
Author: E.L. Konigsburg
Reader: Molly Ringwald
Short Review: Solid story and well read. Twelve year old Margaret Rose’s summer turns into an exploration of what is important in life – and what you are willing to do to defend uniqueness, beauty and love.
The Chosen One from Audible.com
The Chosen One from Amazon.com
Author: Carol Lynch Williams
Reader: Jenna Lamia
Short Review: A good book about a controversial subject, improved by an excellent reading by Jenna Lamia.
Long Review: Jenna Lamia is a true standout as a narrator, and I plan to seek out her other work. She truly [...]
The Hunger Games
Available from Audible.com
Author: Suzanne Collins
Reader: Carolyn McCormick
Short Review: Creative, captivating and intense young-adult drama with a strong 16-year-old female protagonist and set in a brutal far-future. Decent reader, but I kept wishing for a bit more emotion in her reading. That said, the story was so captivating that I couldn’t stop listening!
Long [...]
Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side
Author: Beth Fantaskey
Readers: Katherine Kellgren & Jeff Woodman
Short Review: Fairly standard ‘boy meets girl, boy turns out to be vampire’ romance – but with a few twists you likely won’t expect. A pair of excellent readers, endearing characters and a fresh take on Romanian vampires make this a very enjoyable story.
Johnny and the Dead
Author: Terry Pratchett
Reader: Richard Mitchley
Short Review: A standout story from Pratchett’s Johnny Maxwell trilogy, read with great personality and skill by Richard Mitchley. Our hero Johnny learns that he can see and speak to the Dead in his local cemetery, and winds up facing down corrupt, frightening enemies. [...]
The Book of Lost Things
Author: John Connolly
Reader: Steven Crossley
Short Review: A decent book with a major flaw, read beautifully by Steven Crossley. Connolly’s book starts out as a promising depiction of the interior life of a bookish, depressed boy with apparently undiagnosed epilepsy and OCD. Unfortunately, it continues on into an all-too-familiar [...]
Charlie and The Chocolate Factory
Author: Roald Dahl
Reader: Eric Idle
Short Review: Dahl’s award-winning children’s book read wonderfully by Eric Idle.
Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Reader: Ilyana Kadushin and Matt Walters
Short Review: Your patience is rewarded and the camera pulls back to show you the full picture of where we have been headed across the landscape of these 4 extravagant novels. For me this was a very satisfying conclusion to the Twilight [...]
The Graveyard Book
Author: Neil Gaiman
Reader: Neil Gaiman
Short Review: Neil Gaiman reads his Newbery Medal winning book beautifully. His nod to Kipling’s The Jungle Book is just scary enough, intriguing, inventive, well-written, enchanting . . . it’s downright wonderful. I loved Bod, Silas, Scarlett, Liza, Miss Lupescu, and the rest of the graveyard’s denizens [...]
Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Cormier
Rag and Bone Shop
Author: Robert Cormier
Reader: Scott Shina
Short Review: Cormier’s final novel, published posthumously, read by the talented Scott Shina. It’s disturbing, and upsetting, and good despite its flaws.
Long Review: The title alone would have made me listen to this audiobook. I am an obsessive W.B. Yeats fan, [...]