Short Review: Meyer’s first foray into sci-fi is very satisfying. Officially an adult novel (in contrast with the young adult label applied to the Twilight series), The Host explores a post-invasion world from the perspective of one of the invaders. It is well written, well read and is still haunting me weeks after I finished listening to it.

Long Review: Before listening to this book I had already listened to three other Meyer audio books (first 3 books of the Twilight Saga) and at least one other book read by Kate Reading - all of which I enjoyed. Initially Reading’s choice of voice for the protagonist bugged me. Her tone was very flat and her reading rhythm very repetitive. But the story hooked me and I lasted long enough to realize that this voice was perfect for the protagonist and her inner thoughts. We spend this book in the mind of an alien not used to human emotions and motivations - an alien living in a human woman’s body and struggling to make sense of it all.

For those who are used to the Twilight Saga, starting over in a new Meyer world might be a bit of a jolt. Rather than vampires and werewolves we have aliens and long-distance space travel. This is a world set apart from ours by major events, rather than the Twilight world in which the supernatural is alive in the midst of the world in which we live. But Meyer’s stories are about characters finding their true paths - and this book is no different.

I don’t want to tell you too much about the story. I want you to hear it and experience it and let it carry you along as it carried me. I will say that Meyer created some very real characters - alien and human alike. She explores what makes us human right alongside examining the experience of being an outsider, of being so different you think you will never find where you belong.

This is one of those books that grew on me in a very gradual way. I was startled to realize I had found another story that made me not want to get out of my car when I got home from work because that meant I had to stop listening. At the same time, as I neared the end of the book, I got sad at the thought of having to let go of these characters and their world. I started to ration the story so I could think about what might happen next. Once I was done - the main players stayed stuck in a corner of my head. I know I have found a ‘keeper’ when the people created by the author and brought to life by the reader stay with me long after the audio stops playing. Need a book like that? You found it!

Short Review: Atwood’s Governor General’s Award-winning bildungsroman about girls’ cruelty to other girls, art, childhood, and memory; read crisply by Barbara Caruso. The book follows Elaine Risley, an artist, as she remembers her youth in Canada while preparing for a retrospective of her artwork. It is heartbreaking and beautiful, which makes it hard to listen to at times. Pain is perhaps more real when it’s expressed out loud–this isn’t a fun listen, but it’s a very good one.

Long Review: I love this book, and it breaks my heart over and over again. I hate the concept of “chick lit,” but I do believe there are certain books that speak so clearly of girls’ and women’s experiences that they are ours to read and know–this is one of those books. In a way, I worry about who reads it, because I don’t want anyone to use this sharp, brilliant novel as proof of how evil girls are to other girls. Atwood deserves better, and girls and women deserve more credit than that.

Caruso was well-cast in this role. Her reading is never sappy, never self-pitying. She is a journalist reporting on her own youth and life, and she’s as hard on herself as she is on Cordelia, her nemesis and friend. Elaine repeatedly points the failures of her own memory–as a young adult, she had forgotten about her friends’ cruelty to her. As she ages different things trigger painful memories to resurface, and she is forced to realize that she tolerated intolerable things, and to wonder why.

The book is structured as a series of flashbacks, which is perhaps the only way to accurately portray the reflection on and reclamation of childhood memories by adults. The flashbacks are entwined in a story of Elaine’s preparation for a retrospective gallery show of her art. Elaine as a child is fragile, confused, and off-kilter much of the time. As an adult, Elaine seems solid, organized, and confident in most things. She pieces her memories together with a thesis in mind, it seems, and has no trouble convincing us of her victimization and recovery. I find it particularly intriguing that Atwood and Caruso conspire to make us fall so totally for this character who isn’t trying to elicit sympathy or demand justice. Elaine just states the truth of her memories and moves forward, interested in making sense of her experience without wallowing in it. We should all aspire to be such memoirists.

Author: Stephenie Meyer
Reader: Ilyana Kadushin and Matt Walters

Short Review: Meyer gets better with each book. With this book, she has found a good rhythm. The quieter bits of this story have a stronger voice than those in the first 2 books of the saga. Book 3 digs deeply into Bella’s relationships and finally starts to ask the question of “Why?”. We still get good action scenes (because there is always action in a world that has vampires and werewolves) - but we also see Bella make conscious choices with an eye to the consequences in her future.

Long Review:  Meyer delivers in her third book in the Twilight Saga. The story is well balanced between Bella’s inner world and what she is experiencing day to day. Her fans get more Bella, Edward and Jacob - but they also get more of everything else that contributes to why they are each making the choices they are making as the story unfolds.

We learn more about various members of the Cullen family. This was important for me. I had been waiting to actually learn anything real about some of the more neglected members of the family - and a number of them got some significant time on stage.

We also learn a lot more about the werewolves. One of my very favorite parts was the portion told in the style of a tribal legend. Meyer got into an amazing rhythm in the telling  - and Kadushin really did it justice. I sat in my car to hear this story within a story to its end.  I just couldn’t pull myself away in the middle.

Meyer sticks with Kadushin as the reader and though she is still not my favorite reader, just as I said in my review for New Moon, I have grown used to her style and now her voices for the characters are the voices of the characters in my head. I suspect it will be odd for me when I see the Twilight movie - all the voices will seem wrong!

In fact - my major critique of this audio book is to question why they added Matt Walters for the two very brief portions that he was given to read. He is the voice of Jacob - but only for one short bit at the start and another short bit at the end. After hearing Kadushin’s ‘Jacob Voice’ throughout all the books in the saga to date, it was honestly jarring to hear this flat male voice who was supposed to be Jacob. It was like when they change the casting of a character in a TV series 3 seasons in and you are expected to just accept it and move on. I didn’t like it - and I wonder what is waiting for me in Book 4 which I already know includes his name again in the credits.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. If you are a Twilight fan - no disappointments here. If you are new to the serires, I would recommend listening your way through the series - starting with Twilight and New Moon before moving on to Eclipse. They have even created a Twilight Saga CD Set that includes all 4 books.

Eclipse is also available through the Simply Audiobooks Rental Program.

Author: Lian Hearn
Readers: Kevin Gray and Aiko Nakasone
Short Review: Look Mom—I’m panning a well-loved book!
A fantasy/faux history of feudal Japan read by two readers—one of whom can’t be bothered to pronounce the name of a main character correctly. The characters aren’t particularly well thought-out or fleshed-out, the main character seems like a dunderhead to me much of the time, and the “Christians are persecuted” sub-plot just didn’t excite me. I guess it’s a nice snack as long as I didn’t think too hard about it, but it left me feeling a bit sick, as if I’d had too much sugar.

Long Review: I picked this up because it had been recommended by some friends. It has its charms, but it also has some giant, gaping holes that really annoyed me. I can’t be bothered to continue with the series. I won’t say anything specific about the problems with plot or characterization, though, because it is a plot-driven story, and I think a lot of people with different tastes (i.e., not picky, bratty editors like me) would enjoy the book.

The book follows two main characters: Takeo is a teenager who has grown up in a secret, apparently Christian enclave, who finds that his village has been destroyed and then learns he’s part of a secret clan of assassins. Kaede is a teenaged girl who has been promised in marriage to a man she hates. The two meet and become star-crossed lovers, of course, and they dance around each other during the course of the book. Takeo often seems like an idiot, because the author needs him to do something to advance the plot, but that “something” is irrational or downright stupid. Since he’s supposed to be a member of a brilliant, super-human clan of assassins, these moments of stupidity are particularly annoying to me. It’s one thing when your pimply-faced fool character is doing idiotic things to advance the plot. But when the supposed genius natural warrior does it, things fall apart.

For the sake of the review, I read it on paper and listened to it so I could give a fair appraisal of the book on its own, as well as of the audiobook. I try to do that with most of the books I review for this site, since I think a good audiobook should be able to stand up to the written version well. What drove me most nuts about the audiobook in particular is that Kevin Gray mis-pronounces Kaede’s name throughout the book. That is inexcusably bad editing, as far as I’m concerned, since Nakasone pronounces it correctly throughout. It may seem like a small thing, unless, of course, anyone has ever repeatedly mispronounced your name or the name of someone you love. Each time Gray said Kaede’s name, it pushed me right out of the book.

Long Review: I’m guessing a lot of readers aren’t familiar with either O’Faolain or Molloy, and that breaks my heart. Molloy is an accomplished Irish actress who established her career at the Abbey and Gate Theaters in Dublin, went on the the Royal Shakespeare Company, and then became one of the go-to actors for Brian Friel’s plays. Her voice, diction, accent, and performance are ideal for Kathleen, the speaker and protagonist.

O’Faolain, an Irish journalist, rose to prominence by publishing her first memoir, Are You Somebody? She shocked the remaining traditionalists in Ireland with the book by openly speaking of her bisexuality, her sexual freedom, her break from the church, and so much else that so many people were expected to leave in the closet at home. Sadly, we won’t have the chance to hear much more from O’Faolain. She died this May of cancer, having published her two memoirs, the engrossing The Story of Chicago May, and this lovely novel.

The book is told in the voice of Caitlin de Burca/Kathleen Burke, an ex-pat Irish travel writer living in London; questioning her career and personal life; dealing with various griefs; researching an obscure bit of Irish history, and trying to use it as the basis for her first historical novel. Kathleen’s best friend dies, and she finds herself lonely, separated from family, and essentially anchorless. She decides to go home to Ireland and research a sensational upper-class divorce case that took place in the wake of the potato famine. During her research, she winds up befriending a bristly small-town librarian, an innkeeper and his family, and a married middle-aged ex-pat who becomes her lover.

As the novel progresses, O’Faolain includes excerpts from the book her protagonist is writing. Through these, and through Kathleen’s own thoughts and discussions of sexual mores, adultery, pregnancy, motherhood, and love, we get an interesting view of women’s sexuality in Ireland over more than a century. One of the things I found particularly touching about the book is that Kathleen is open about her own transgressions against friends, family members, and fidelity itself. She doesn’t make excuses for her behavior, but does look into its genesis. That is still a rare thing in literary fiction. We live in a world that still pillories sexually transgressive women, and Ireland is perhaps even more judgmental about women’s promiscuity than the US is, if that’s possible. O’Faolain’s plot breaks from that arc. Instead, Kathleen thinks about her relationship to men and transgression and chooses a path for herself.

I always favor authors who sketch flawed but lovable characters, and O’Faolain is certainly in that camp. Add to that her decision to write about Ireland, passion between middle-aged–and even elderly–characters, historical research, and about the state of Irish women’s rights over the last century and a half and you get a novel tailor made for, well, me. Thanks Nuala O’Faolain–you have given me yet another wonderful gift through your writing. I will cherish it. And I will miss you–you were a gem.

New Moon (Twilight Saga, Book 2)

Author: Stephenie Meyer

Reader: Ilyana Kadushin

Short Review: The good: a fresh and creative version of vampire and werewolf legends with characters you care about and great action scenes. The less good: lots and lots of Bella’s internal angst-ridden dialogue (not that there is anything wrong with that, if you have a taste for that sort of thing).

Long Review: I liked this one a bit more than I liked Book 1 of this series (see my review of Twilight). Having listened to the first book, I knew all the key players and understood the rules of Meyer’s vampires. While I suppose that New Moon could stand on its own, I would strongly recommend reading/listening to Book 1 first. In addition to vampires, we also get werewolves in this story. Just as she updated and made the vampire legends her own, Meyer tunes classic werewolf legends to suit her story and vision. I really enjoyed her choices.

New Moon is read by the same reader as Twilight, so if you have already listened to the first book - you will recognize the voices and the rhythm of her reading. Kadushin is still not my favorite reader, but I have grown used to her style and it did not interfere with my enjoyment of the book.

NOTE: I am very against spoilers and nothing I am about to tell you isn’t something you wouldn’t learn reading the one paragraph blurbs that are everywhere online. If you are the type of fan who has been avoiding reading those blurbs, stop reading this review and go listen to this story already - you know you will enjoy it!

New Moon picks up a few months after the events at the end of Twilight. Things happen and Edward leaves Bella. It is family friend Jacob Black who turns out to be the person Bella needs find her way back from a broken heart.

We spend a lot of time inside Bella’s head this time around. Bella is not a happy girl for large parts of the story. I actually like the way Meyer develops what we know about Bella and her reactions to her situation. Aspects of Bella’s behavior that bugged me early in the book were crucial to communicating  the magnitude of the train wreck that is Bella after Edward leaves. The author has somehow set to paper a credible journey through and recovery from depression. Even though this is a supernatural story - I think that a lot of people who have felt broken from loss will find a kindred spirit in Bella in this book.

That said, I think we could have lost some of Bella’s internal dialogue without loosing our understanding of her pain. My favorite parts of this book were definitely the action scenes and any scene involving dialog outside of Bella’s head! I am launching myself on the next book shortly and still feel as if Book 2 in the Twilight Saga is setting us up for something even bigger in Book 3 (hey.. don’t tell me what waiting for me in the next book - you know I don’t like spoilers!).

Can’t wait for the Twilight movie coming out later this year? Listening to this book is a great way to keep the world in your head while you wait. Fans will not be disappointed.

New Moon is also available through the Simply Audiobooks Rental Program.

A Hat Full of Sky: The Continuing Adventures of Tiffany Aching and The Wee Free Men

Author: Terry Pratchett
Reader: Stephen Briggs

Short Review: If you loved Wee Free Men, you will love Hat Full of Sky. Same great reader - same fun mix of humor, youth, adventure and self-discovery. Tiffany Aching is now 11 and training with a mountain witch. She finds herself faced with a new opponent called a Hiver. It takes all her strength of will (plus the help of the Nac Mac Feegle and a number of other witches) to make it to the end of this entertaining story.

Long Review: Tiffany Aching, 11-year-old witch in training, returns in this sequel to Wee Free Men. The Feegles are keeping an eye on her as she takes the next step in her training to be a witch and moves in with a senior witch up in the mountains. Miss Level is odd. Most young witches assigned to her apparently don’t last very long, but our very practical Tiffany takes her oddities in stride. We also meet a group of young witches who are all training with other mountain witches, so Tiffany gets to make some new friends. For Discworld fans, we also get decent screen time for Granny Weatherwax and an appearance by Death.

The main challenge Tiffany faces in this book is something called a Hiver, but in true Terry Pratchett style we are along for a ride that teaches Tiffany a lot more than how to do what others say can’t be done. I don’t want to say anything else about the plot, I hate spoilers!

Stephen Briggs is back with his fabulous voice and his nack for keeping all the characters clear and the Feegles understandable. I could listen to him all day. Aimed at young adults, I think people of all ages will enjoy this tale. Laugh out loud funny but with some nice messages about doing what must be done mixed in - I would recommend it to just about anyone.

A Hat Full of Sky is also available through both the Simply Audiobooks Rental Program and the Simply Audiobooks Dowload Club.

Long Review: I’m no Civil War expert, but I am a history buff and a Virginian, so I grew up going on field trips to Battlefields, and many of my American History classes were taught by men (always men) who were obsessed with the generals and battles that left their names all over this region. So I was intrigued to find an audiobook version of this fantastic novel which had been recommended to me so many times by so many people. I admit that I often exhibit a fair amount of snobbery towards most historical fiction–so much of it is poorly researched and badly written. But when it’s good, I absolutely love it. And this book I love.

I did worry, when I first started to listen, that I’d have a hard time keeping track of all of the characters in this intricate story. In fact, Shaara’s characterizations are so clear and Hoye’s voices distinct enough that I had no trouble keeping up, even though I listened to the audiobook before reading the novel on paper.

Shaara was a dedicated researcher and a talented writer. His study of the war and its participants brought him deep into the lives of the men he writes about here, and that familiarity with his subject allowed him to display nuances that are unknown to most of us. I love the fact that he could look at the different leaders on each side of the Battle of Gettysburg as people, rather than as pawns or model soldiers on a map. A few of the leaders come out looking the brightest–Gettysburg is so widely studied in part because it revealed so much about the leaders in both armies. Shaara was obviously a fan of Chamberlain and Longstreet and critical of Stuart. Nevertheless, even with his quiet critiques, Shaara shows a great deal of compassion to all of the men whose experiences he chronicles in the book, which makes it such an engaging read and listen.

In structure, the novel jumps from camp to camp, following Lee for a time, then Chamberlain, then Longstreet, then Buford, then the British onlooker Fremantle, and on and on. In this way, Shaara depicts the actions and habits of the different participants without seeming to choose a side to follow. He reveals the individual participant’s intelligence, and explores their connections to soldiers and generals on the other side, and to their distant families.

The audiobook also includes an interesting extra feature: an introduction from the author’s son Jeffrey explaining his father’s love for Civil War history and the difficulties he had finding a publisher and getting people to read his novel. Shaara’s manuscript was rejected by 15 publishers before he finally got a book deal. Even after receiving the Pulitzer, Killer Angels still received little attention and disappointing sales. Only after the film adaptation of Shaara’s book, Gettysburg, was released did the novel gain a larger audience, and by then Michael Shaara had died.

Short Review: Fabulous and laugh-out-loud funny. Tiffany Aching, 9 year old witch-in-training, takes us on a wild ride to fairyland to rescue her baby brother and save the world from the evil queen. She has the help of the Nac Mac Feegle who happen to be 6 inch tall, fearless, phenomenally strong, kilt-wearing, blue-skinned, red-haired little men who speak with a strong Scottish brogue and are prone to thieving, drinking and fighting. Stephen Briggs reads this brilliantly. It is Terry Pratchett and Discworld at their best.

Long Review: 9 year old Tiffany Aching is good at making cheese. She is also blessed with First Sight, Second Thoughts and understands that a frying pan can make a mean weapon when necessary. When her ever-sticky baby brother gets kidnapped into fairyland, Tiffany follows to rescue him because it must be done - and even though she isn’t sure she loves him, she is clear that he is HER brother and she wants him back.

At her back (and sometimes under her feet) are Rob Anybody and his band of Nac Mac Feegle. Nac Mac Feegle generally are feared by anyone who knows enough about them - but they respect and follow Tiffany because they already see her as the witch meant to replace her recently deceased Granny. Granny Aching was the sort of strong, solitary old woman who did what needed to be done. She was a witch in everything but name. She spoke little but always made sure to speak for those who had no voice. She protected her community (and its sheep) in ways most never understood but came to depend on. This story does tell of Tiffany’s path of self-discovery - but don’t let that fool you into thinking it isn’t funny or entertaining. Tiffany makes a fine role model for any strong minded young girl (or boy for that matter) - but she does it within a story that delivers its message under the cover of laughter.

Stephen Briggs’ voice brings this story to life. Every charcter is clear and distinct. He does an especially fine job with the strong Scottish brogue of the Nac Mac Feegle. I suspect that I understood a lot more of what those crazy little blue warriors were saying due to the craft of his reading than I would have had I read it in print.

This book is targeted at a young adult audience, but I enjoyed it immensely and recommend it to anyone of any age who enjoys funny fantasy books. If you haven’t read Pratchett before, this is a fine first choice. If you already know and love the Discworld books - then you can’t miss this one. Crivens! Get this audio book right away - you won’t regret it.

The Wee Free Men is also available through both the Simply Audiobooks Rental Program and the Simply Audiobooks Dowload Club.

Author: Roddy Doyle

Reader: Ger Ryan

Short Review: A novel featuring the engaging lead character from Doyle’s The Woman Who Walked Into Doors gloriously read in the perfect Dublin accent by Ger Ryan.

Long Review: Paula Spencer is a recovering alcoholic, recovering longtime victim of domestic violence, widow, house-cleaner, and mother weighed down by a lot of grief. The story could be awash in bathos, but it’s not. It escapes the bathetic because Doyle knows how to write, and Ryan knows how to act, and Paula appears to be winning her own personal war.

I’ve been a fan of Doyle’s for years, in part because he is able to write women far better than a lot of male writers can. I don’t know if we’re really that hard to understand, or if a lot of men who write never take the trouble to learn how to do it. Returning to Paula as his protagonist for a second novel must have been difficult–these can’t have been light books to write. But I love seeing her return, and I particularly love listening to this book because it is so personal and succinct. I lived in Dublin for a while once upon a time, and a North Dublin accent is one of my favorite in the world, in part because it is so often paired with plain, sharp speech in my experience. As an audio book, Paula Spencer is great because the prose is spare yet engaging, the characters are limited, and the plot is easy to follow. All of that combines to allow Ryan to really act as she narrates, and she is an immensely talented actor.

I’m sure some people would be turned off by the weight of the story–addiction and abuse are hard subjects to deal with for so many of us. But I don’t think that should scare anyone off. Yes, Paula Spencer and her kids live a hard life. But it’s a life worth seeing, and hearing. This book displays Paula’s triumphs, however small.

Overall, what I love most about the book is that it is entirely free of hagiography and martyrdom. Doyle doesn’t canonize Paula. Paula doesn’t canonize Paula. And Paula’s kids certainly don’t canonize Paula. Everyone in the book is deeply flawed, but they’re not wallowing in their failings or denying them. They just live, however they can, and try to be as decent as they can. It’s a more accurate portrayal of addiction and abuse than I’ve seen in a long time, and I think that makes it much more worthwhile than most of the pop-psychology influenced stuff on those subjects I’ve read.