Featured Customer Reviews

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Emma

Featured reviews written by Audiobooks.com customers! Have a favorite audiobook? Review it! If it gets featured, you get a free credit to use on any book in our library.

Book: A Dog’s Purpose, by W. Bruce Cameron
Rating: 5
Review by: Emily N.

“This book is so lovable! An incredible narrator adds so much to the story! I listen to lots and lots of audio books, a bad narrator can make my favorite book almost intolerable to listen to. You really feel like you’re listening to a dog talk and his enthusiasm is infectious! I’ve listened to this book multiple times and highly recommend it! Especially to anyone who loves dogs!”

Book: The Mistress, by Danielle Steel
Rating: 5
Review by: Debbie M.

“This is my favorite book written by Danielle Steele. I have read many of her books, and this book was by far my top favorite. I live out here in Southern California, you know how bad traffic is if you moved out here. I downloaded her book on audiobooks, and after the first chapter I was captivated. I had something to look forward to wherever I drove. To tell you the truth, I didn’t pay any attention to the traffic or any noise. I was in my own imagination between Conversations with “Vladimir and Natasha”. Danielle, I think really gave this book all she had and I want to thank you Danielle for writing so beautifully. I don’t cry much, yet I cried at the ending. I did not want the book to end and I wanted to hear more on a new developing love. It was over too quickly. What a wonderful, awesome, beautiful story. Thank you, Danielle.”

Book: Strangers, by Dean Koontz
Rating: 5
Review by: Christopher H.

“I loved this book, and after only about 20 mins I got used to, and enjoyed the narration and the narrator. Great characters that are slowly exposed to the listener. The story unfolds as fine threads of the plot connect all the characters, leading to the climactic event evident in all the Koontz novels I’ve read to date. If you like Koontz, you’ll love Strangers and the audiobook and narrator are also great! I highly recommend it!”

STAFF PICK: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Posted on September 15, 2016 by Nick

This month I chose a challenging read titled, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

It’s a classic story which takes place in the heart of the Congo and describes the trials and tribulations of the ivory trade. A man is sent on a quest to go and recover another man who is famous in the ivory trade at the time.

It’s an interesting concept for a story, but I struggled mightily to get through it. There were abundant accounts where atrocious abuse of alliteration threw me for quite a loop. Concentration had to be at a maximum because even a small lapse in focus made me miss what felt like an eternity of the story and get completely lost. The author doesn’t clearly explain who people were and at times, figuring out who was speaking was impossible. The vast amounts of dialogue coupled with limited details offering any context around these conversations made following the story often seem hopeless.

The narrator was, in my opinion, very poor. He read at a very quick pace and his tonality was off. I felt as if I was listening to a pirate dictate an over-dramatic movie trailer. Because the story was all over the place and the narrator didn’t do a good job of conveying emotion, I didn’t connect with this audiobook in the same way I have with others in the past. Associating myself with the protagonist was difficult as he never really went into detail about any of the events or discussed his feelings.

I feel like this novel would be a challenge to get through regardless of whether you listen to it in audio or read it on paper. It’s a good thing that it’s short because I can guarantee that it will take at least two full read-throughs to get the full gist of the book.

Let me know your thoughts!

STAFF PICK: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Nick

The audiobook I listened to this month was Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. With this book clocking in at 55 hours, endurance was the name of the game and boy do I need to work on my longevity.

At first, I really enjoyed the story. It is, in my opinion, a satirical comedy that pokes fun at many current trends while bringing light and perspective to many every-day issues. Despite being written in 1996, the book’s concepts and seemingly psycho-analytical portrayal of people and the world seemed to hold true to this very day.

Without question, it’s a great story; there are many different characters to follow, each very interesting, as well as plenty of foreshadowing which constantly leaves you wanting to know how everything is interconnected. The narrator does a great job at portraying all of the different voices which helped me keep the characters from getting mixed up, a fate some audiobooks fall victim to. A slight qualm about having so many different story lines: if you lost focus for a little bit, you could “wake up” in the middle of an entirely different characters life and be forced to back track (which is much more clumsy in an audiobook than in print). Another thing the audiobook does suffer from is the lack of supporting documents. This title has upwards of 300 end notes which are constantly referred to throughout the audio book. Without an easy way to flip to the end and read the reference, I feel as though some of the significance to the story may have been lost.

I must admit, I did read the Wiki about the book about 3 hours in to get a better handle of what was going on. This helped to piece things together for me as I was listening. I would definitely suggest getting the end notes prior to listening, as they’ll go a long way to enriching the IJ experience.

I would most definitely give this title another shot and recommend it to anyone who has a somewhat dark sense of humour and has a little inner conspiracy theorist. Let me know what you think!

STAFF PICK: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Pam

Virginia Woolf has always been a favorite author of mine. Her flowing prose, her introspection and her stream of consciousness writing style all appeal to me greatly. My paperback copies of Mrs. Dalloway, The Waves, The Voyage Out and A Room of One’s Own are well worn and full of marginalia and post it notes.

How would my beloved Virginia Woolf’s style translate into audio? Would I be able to get as much out of the audio version as I would the paperback?

To the Lighthouse is considered to be the most accomplished novel written by Virginia Woolf. Yet for some readers, it’s much too dull and slow moving. I wouldn’t argue that it can be trying at times–because let’s face it, not much actually happens in this one. The story focuses on a group of family and friends visiting their summer house just before World War I and then jumps to a decade later as some of the group return to the summer house after the war. In both visits, a trip to the lighthouse that sits just offshore is proposed. But what makes this book so wonderful is not what happens (or what doesn’t happen, for that matter). It’s the way in which Woolf weaves her character’s thoughts together to create a deeply reflective commentary on small conflicts between individuals, large conflicts between societies, memory, perceptions, and time.

Juliet Stevenson does a marvelous job in her narration. I cannot say enough about her wonderful delivery of a dense book. I wholeheartedly believe that thanks to Juliet Stevenson’s reading, this book was somewhat easier to follow and enjoy.

So how did I fare trying out To the Lighthouse in audio? Wonderfully. Did I get as much out of Virginia Woolf in audio as I would have in paperback? Absolutely. A great book is not always a great book in different formats; but, thanks to Juliet Stevenson’s wonderful reading and Virginia Woolf’s lyrical prose, the book was just as thought provoking, entertaining, enlightening as any other that I’ve enjoyed by Woolf. Now I just have to find a place for all of my post-it notes that I wrote while listening!

Let me know what you think!

STAFF PICK: The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Pam

When it comes to romance and books that melt my heart, I tend to lead towards the classics: Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights. This month, I chose to step outside my comfort zone and I chose contemporary chick lit author Madeline Wickham’s book The Gatecrasher. (Okay, I admit it–I picked the book mainly because the author’s name is tied to Pride and Prejudice, my all-time favorite book. I thought it must be a good sign.) And I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book.

The Gatecrasher tells the tale of a gold digging woman Fleur, who falls for the man she was set to take advantage of. Add to the mix a moody teenage daughter, a gay best friend, a mysteriously absent father, gossiping golf club ladies, a defrauding relative and woman on the brink of a nervous breakdown and you’ve got one novel full of intrigue and laughter. Oh, and did I mention that Fleur met her latest prey at the funeral for his wife? This book is just full of characters for you to hate, to root for and to plot the way all their dirty little secrets should be exposed publicly.

Thanks to Katherine Kellgren’s excellent narration, the book’s pace draws you in and keeps you listening. She is able to make Fleur seem not so detestable and offer up some of Fleur’s vulnerability through her narration. And for me, it was the vulnerability of not only Fleur but the majority of the characters that made this story work so well. Because Madeline Wickham (a.k.a Sophia Kinsella, author of the much-beloved “Shopaholic” series of chick-lit novels) created a story that shows the best and the worst of love and all its trappings in this day and age, I realized that I may be able to explore more of the contemporary romance genre after all.

Let me know your thoughts!

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