audiobook

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: A Compelling Bridge to Darkness

by Stefani

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Published: February 1, 2000 by Simon & Schuster Audio

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

Harry Potter, along with his best friends, Ron and Hermione, is about to start his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry can’t wait to get back to school after the summer holidays. (Who wouldn’t if they lived with the horrible Dursleys?) But when Harry gets to Hogwarts, the atmosphere is tense. There’s an escaped mass murderer on the loose, and the sinister prison guards of Azkaban have been called in to guard the school…

Rating:

Review:

This book is the bridge for the entire rest of the series. While we flirted with darkness and dark magic in Chamber of Secrets, this one plunges us right into the depths of darkness and sets up the tone for the rest of the series. It is often cited as people’s favorite book of the series, and I certainly understand why.

Harry has a real transformation in this book as well. He is forced to reckon with his parents and their death. But he also has to reckon with negative opinions about his parents. This is actually one of my pet peeves with this book series, the idolization of Lily and James Potter. It makes sense why Harry idolizes them. He never knew them, he only ever hears positive things about them, so it’s an easy thing to put them on a pedestal in his head. But everyone else does it too. They speak about them like they were saints. But, let’s face it, when they were in school they were jackasses. James was a bully and a psychopath. The “prank” that James and his friends pull on Snape is cruel, vindictive, and could have gotten him killed. Much more than just schoolyard pranks, they were awful. And Lily rejected Snape because he wasn’t useful to her anymore and to gain James’ favor. Even if they changed A LOT in their adult years, they are certainly not the saints that the series likes to portray them as.

Anyway, off of that rant. Going back to this book I also realized what a raw deal Professor Trelawney got in this series. No one takes her seriously. No one. McGonagall is downright disdainful to her, in front of students, which is unusual for her as a character. The students don’t take her seriously or respect her. Even Dumbledore gets impatient with her, even though he was the one who witnessed the prophecy about Voldemort. The prophecy that this started the entire series! In reality she’s actually a pretty good Seer. From telling Parvati to beware the red haired man, since she and Padma are twins, she merely got them confused but was correct about the prediction itself. When she says that “around Easter one of our number will leave us forever” and sure enough that’s when Hermoine stomps out of class and never returns. Even the warning “when 13 dine together the first to rise is the first to die.” What Trelawney didn’t realize is that there already WERE 13 people at the table, before she got there. Ron had Scabbers, who is not actually a rat. Dumbledore rises to greet her, he was the first to rise and was the first to die of those people. This happens in Order of the Phoenix too, 13 Order members have dinner, Sirius is the first to leave….he dies later on in the book. She deserves more respect, she’s a damn good Seer.

Alright, I went off on another tangent. Although I still wonder how NO ONE put it together that Hermoine was involved in Buckbeak and Sirius escaping. The Ministry had to give permission for her to have the Time Turner, McGonagall knew. Some of the other teachers had to suspect, they aren’t idiots. If they were talking in the staff room and mentioned her being in their classes at the same time…someone must have suspected. But then, nobody really wanted to look into it too much I suppose. The teachers, except for Snape, would have protected Hermoine. The ministry had bigger problems on their hands, like the fallout from Sirius escaping in the first place. Which is the most likely answer, they had other things to worry about.

Last tangent, I promise. I’ll end this simply. I love this book. I find it one of the most compelling of the entire series. It sets up everything for the story to move forward.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Audiobook Review: A Delightful and Compelling Journey

by Stefani

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Narrated by: Jim Dale

Published: December 1, 1999 by Listening Library

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

The Dursleys were so mean that hideous that summer that all Harry Potter wanted was to get back to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just as he’s packing his bags, Harry receives a warning from a strange, impish creature named Dobby who says that if Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts, disaster will strike.

And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor, Gilderoy Lockheart, a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls’ bathroom, and the unwanted attentions of Ron Weasley’s younger sister, Ginny.

But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins, and someone–or something–starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects…Harry Potter himself?

Rating:

Review:

After all my years of reading and listening (and re-reading/re-listening) to the Harry Potter books I have always remembered Chamber of Secrets to be one of my least favorite. Not for any particular reason, but I always remember finding it less compelling than the others. I wonder if my reading habits have changed or my perspective of the book has changed but this was delightful.

A lot of the things that I struggled with in the first book were rectified here. There were less examples of Harry and his friends stepping into situations that they had no logical reason to believe they could solve. But in this book, because it affects Harry so personally it makes a lot more sense that he would see it as a mission to fix it himself. Harry changed a lot in this book. He went from a naive 11 year old who didn’t even know magic existed and was thrown into a situation where people believed that he was hurting people. He even had Hermoine taken away from him for a large portion of the story, who has always been his most sympathetic ear. He was nearly alone and it was a great test for him.

This book also shows us an entirely different kind of Voldemort. We see him as the boy he used to be. We learn that he and Harry shared a lot in common. We see him in the light he wishes to show Harry…the Head Boy, the school hero, the one who stopped the bad guy. It’s not the truth, as we know now, but it’s how he wanted Harry to perceive him. He used this to try and create a kinship with Harry so that he could manipulate him. And it’s just marvelous. Rowling has one of the best talents for adding complexity to her characters. I’ve never encountered an author that is as good at characterization as she is. Everyone is an intricately complex human being. Neither entirely good, nor entirely bad, just like all the rest of us humans. I find it remarkable.

This book also has a lot of little gems that I had forgotten about. This book is really funny. I had forgotten just how humorous it was. Dobby is so earnestly trying to be helpful, and failing so spectacularly, that it’s comical. Lockhart is absolutely hilarious. It is so fun to see some people absolutely hanging on his every word and others rolling their eyes before he even opens his mouth. He is perfectly pompous and it had me rolling out of my chair laughing. Since the rest of the book is so dark and serious it lightened the mood considerably in all the right places.

In the end, I enjoyed this book much more than I ever have before. It feels like sacrilege to say but I think I liked it more than the first book.

Note: You may or may not have noticed that I tried something different with the post title of this one. Let me know what you think. Whether you like it or hate it, I would love the feedback.

Audiobook review: Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone by JK Rowling

by Stefani

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Narrated by: Jim Dale

Published: June 26, 1997 by Scholastic

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

Harry Potter has no idea how famous he is. That’s because he’s being raised by his miserable aunt and uncle who are terrified Harry will learn that he’s really a wizard, just as his parents were. But everything changes when Harry is summoned to attend an infamous school for wizards, and he begins to discover some clues about his illustrious birthright. From the surprising way he is greeted by a lovable giant, to the unique curriculum and colorful faculty at his unusual school, Harry finds himself drawn deep inside a mystical world he never knew existed and closer to his own noble destiny.

Rating:

Review:

I have always loved the Harry Potter books. I was first introduced to them about six months after Prisoner of Azkaban was released. And I devoured them. I was the crazy person who signed up for all of the midnight releases of the new books. Got locked into the Barnes & Noble to await the book being delivered, got my book at midnight and went home to start reading. Once I was an adult I would take the following day off work to read the book in one sitting. I couldn’t get enough. I saw every film on release day. I bought every audiobook on release day. For a long time when I worked a data entry job I would listen to the audiobooks on repeat. I would get to the end and start again, over and over and over. So this was a comfort listen for me.

As far as the narration goes, what more do I need to say other than Jim Dale. Disclaimer, I also love the audiobooks by Stephen Fry because he is a legend and I adore his version. But there’s just something special about the Jim Dale audiobooks. He puts on such a performance! All of the voices and the inflection and the emotion. He is a legend. I could listen to these audiobooks every single day and never get bored of hearing his voice.

Enough of my fawning over Jim Dale, on to the book. It was just as book as I remembered it. One of the most memorable opening sentences in all of fiction, ““Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” This single line puts you into this world immediately. You know exactly what kind of people the Dursley’s are. And then you have the wonder of all the “strange” and “unusual” thing that Vernon Dursley keeps noticing, but doesn’t say anything to Petunia because he wouldn’t want to worry her. The moment Harry Potter learns he is a wizard is a moment filled with so much emotion that it still makes me tear up.

Naturally the book isn’t perfect, but it’s close. You have to suspend reality a lot for this plot to be plausible. Why a group of 11 year old children, who had been learning magic for about 5 minutes, thought that they were more capable of protecting the stone than a group of wizards and witches that had more magical experience in their pinky finger? Realizing that if Harry had just left well enough alone that Voldemort wouldn’t have stood a chance at getting the stone in the first place, so he put his friends in danger entirely unnecessarily. And, of course, the royal screw job that Dumbledore gives Slytherin for the House Cup at the end of the book.

But, if you just suspend your imagination a little then these are merely things to giggle about in an otherwise legendary book. The only place where this book loses a star for me is that is it full of tropes. The nerdy, unattractive girl. The fat boy who resembles a pig. The shabby kid who comes from a large family and doesn’t dress well. A lot of tropes that make me crinkle my nose a bit as an adult. But it is just as magical reading it for the thousandth time as it was the first.

Audiobook review: Brave New World: A BBC Radio Dramatization

by Stefani

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Audiobook by BBC Radio 4

Published: October 11, 2016 by BBC Worldwide

Check this audiobook out at: Audible

Synopsis:

A gripping BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel.

It’s 2116, and Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson are token rebels in an irretrievably corrupted society where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science, and morality turned upside down. There is no poverty, crime or sickness – but no creativity, art or culture either. Human beings are merely docile citizens: divided into castes, brainwashed and controlled by the state and dependent on the drug soma for superficial gratification.

Into this sterile society comes an outsider, John – a man born into squalor and suffering, but raised on The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, a book which has shaped his entire life. When he discovers that treasured ideals such as love mean nothing in this ‘brave new world’, where romance is ridiculous, marriage shocking and parenthood shameful, John’s world is shattered – and his reaction will show Bernard and Helmholtz what rebellion really means….

Based on Aldous Huxley’s 1932 masterpiece, widely considered one of the greatest novels of all time, this chilling dramatisation set in a futuristic totalitarian society stars Jonathan Coy, Justin Salinger, Milton Lopes and Anton Lesser. 

Rating:

Review:

I am a huge fan of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I have read the novel at least 10 times. I find it incredibly relevant to society today. I quote it more often than I should, I compare news stories to it far more often than I ever thought I would. It is truly a masterpiece of fiction. So, when I was contemplating having another listen to Brave New World, I stumbled across this audiobook. This was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 back in 2016. It features a full voice cast and is a dramatization of the novel.

Overall it was marvelous. They took all of the compelling and interesting pieces of the novel and displayed them in a new way. It was reminiscent of the days of Mystery Theater (although I know that radio dramas long preceded that particular program). I love listening to radio dramas. I find them interesting and compelling in ways that reading a book wouldn’t be, and you are forced to focus on the words much more than an in-person dramatic performance. It’s perfect for someone like me.

The voice actors did a masterful job. The story was told with passion and fire and it was everything I hoped it would be. Don’t listen to this if you aren’t familiar with the novel however. It is a dramatization, so it doesn’t tell you the full story. If I wasn’t so well acquainted with the story then I would have been confused on what was going on. I did have some mild confusion because several of the voice actors perform several different roles. Because the voices were similar, I sometimes would be confused on which character was speaking. At least for a minute until I recognized the line and recalled who said it.

If you love Brave New World then I highly recommend this piece. It’s only two hours in length, can be done in an afternoon. It is truly wonderful.

Audiobook review: The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean

by Stefani

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean

Published: May 7, 2024 by Simon & Schuster Audio

Buy this book at: Audible / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.

It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.

Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.

But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.

The debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a twisty page-turner that will shock and surprise you right up until the final page.

Rating:

Review:

Overall this audiobook was quite good. I enjoyed having a full cast of narrators. All of them were well done and it allowed me to easily tell which perspective we were telling and who was voicing that section of the book. Though, I do think this book had a few too many narrators in general. We got perspective from Chelsey, Ellie in the present, Ellie in the past, and a friend of Ellie’s. While the audiobook narrators did a good job in helping me keep it straight, unfortunately it started to make the narrative feel fractured. It started to feel like we were telling too many stories at once and the compelling pieces of the book got lost in the mix.

Like I mentioned in the progress update, this story is trying to be much bigger than the story of one missing girl. It wanted to be a societal commentary on missing/kidnapped women in general. It didn’t work as well as the author hoped. She made some good points about our society and missing women, but sometimes the point felt forced.

The actual story of Ellie Black was a great story. The story of her captivity was riveting, horrifying and made me yearn for her freedom. I wanted her to escape and regain her life. But I also was saddened because of the lingering trauma I knew she would carry. An integral part of this story is, who took Ellie? And why? I had hoped that we were slowly building to those clues along the way, but I don’t think we ever get any clues in the end. The ending seemed to come out of nowhere. The author gave us no stepping stones to get to this ultimate conclusion. And that left me feeling disappointed when the book concluded. The story was so good for most of the book. I wanted to see Ellie get justice, I wanted to find out why and who. But those answers weren’t satisfying. A satisfying ending is an important piece of my overall feelings about a book, so I can only give this three stars. It’s a good book, but don’t be surprised if you’re left feeling disappointed.

Audiobook Review: Good Girls Don’t Die by Christina Henry

by Stefani

Good Girls Don’t Die by Christina Henry

Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan

Published: November 14, 2023 by Penguin Audio

Buy this book at: Amazon / Kobo / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

Celia wakes up in a house that’s supposed to be hers. There’s a little girl who claims to be her daughter and a man who claims to be her husband, but Celia knows this family—and this life—is not hers…

Allie is supposed to be on a fun weekend trip—but then her friend’s boyfriend unexpectedly invites the group to a remote cabin in the woods. No one else believes Allie, but she is sure that something about this trip is very, very wrong…

Maggie just wants to be home with her daughter, but she’s in a dangerous situation and she doesn’t know who put her there or why. She’ll have to fight with everything she has to survive…

Three women. Three stories. Only one way out. This captivating novel will keep readers guessing until the very end.

Rating:

Review:

The premise of this book was exciting. Women who had been seemingly abducted into lives that weren’t their own, forced to find a way out. Who was responsible? What was the reason? Would they escape? I love a good mystery and I was enthusiastic to see where this book went. The narrator was fabulous, giving each of the women their own personality and inflection, it really made me connect with them individually.

This could have easily been a five star read, if not for the ended. Each of these individual women’s stories were compelling. The women themselves were interesting and unique, I enjoyed their narrative and following along with them. The scenarios played out in a riveting manner, I couldn’t wait to hear what happened next. I was entranced by the book. I developed a theory about what it was all about, who was responsible for the women’s plights.

Then I got to the ending. I was excited! We were finally going to see who the guilty party was! The women were going to get answers. I was going to see if my pet theory was correct. But it wasn’t. And the actual ending wasn’t good either. It was a completely stereotypical trope. It was far fetched. It came out of left field. It made very little sense. And so, I finished this fabulous book with a “huh….so, that was it?” And then I turned to a podcast because it was so disappointing. Overall I really loved this book, and I will likely read other books from this author because I enjoy how she writes, but this one fell flat in the end.

Audiobook Review: The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

by Stefani

The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

Published: January 30, 2024 by Redhook

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

A young woman descends into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge to break her family’s curse in this spellbinding contemporary fantasy debut.

For centuries, generations of Everlys have seen their brightest and best disappear, taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers, for a purpose no one understands. Their tormentor, a woman named Penelope, never ages, never grows sick – and never forgives a debt.

Violet Everly was a child when her mother left on a stormy night, determined to break the curse. When Marianne never returns, Penelope issues an ultimatum: Violet has ten years to find her mother, or she will take her place. Violet is the last of the Everly line, the last to suffer. Unless she can break it first.

To do so, she must descend into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge. She must also contend with Penelope’s quiet assistant, Aleksander, who she knows cannot be trusted – and yet whose knowledge of a world beyond her own is too valuable to avoid.

Tied to a very literal deadline, Violet will travel the edges of the world to find Marianne and the key to the city of stardust, where the Everly story began.

Rating:

Review:

The premise of this book is fantastic. A family curse. A missing mother. A deadline to meet or else certain doom. A magical world that might hold all the answers. This book had all the makings of a really excellent novel. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t executed very well. This is a debut novel and I feel like the author didn’t really know how to wrap her arms around this story. It got away from her.

Let’s start with the good stuff. The narrator for this audiobook was very good. Her voice was soothing, her pacing was excellent, and she presented the material in the best way possible. The villains in this book were also fantastic. Penelope is such a great villain, I enjoyed her from beginning to end. Some of the other side stories were very interesting also. I was eager to learn more about certain people.

The biggest problem that this book had was a lack of character building and a complete absence of world building. At the end of the book the only thing I know about Violet is that she’s stupidly naïve and looks a lot like her mother. I don’t know anything else about her. I do know that she showed no sense of urgency at the looming deadline to find her mother. She is casually going to parties and going for coffee in Prague. Not to mention the complete lack of urgency that her uncles displayed for the nine years before Violet finds out about the deadline. What were they doing all that time? We don’t really know because the author doesn’t tell us.

I was incredibly frustrating with the way the last year is handled. Violet has a year to find her mother. During this time she is learning about the scholars, learning about magic, learning about Penelope. This was a perfect opportunity for the author to explain this world to us. We could discover all of the amazing things that Violet is discovering! But instead we get a montage that is over in less than a few paragraphs. “Violet learned all of these amazing things, went all of these amazing places and then suddenly it was six weeks until the deadline.” It felt like a wasted opportunity. It was the perfect chance to build this world and instead we got nothing.

By the time we reached the end of the book, I mainly just wanted it to be over. It had gone on for too long. What I thought was the ending was still two and a half hours away from the ending of the audiobook. I couldn’t fathom what exactly we were going to do for that long. It got tiresome. At the end I was left disappointed because this could have been a five star book, but it wasn’t.

Audiobook Review: Bird Box by Josh Malerman

by Stefani

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Published: May 13, 2014 by Ecco

Buy this book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Rating:

Synopsis: Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.

Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it’s time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?

Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page. 

Review: WARNING: The best way I can review this book is with a good/bad/ugly comparison, which will almost certainly include major spoilers for this book. Consider yourself warned.

Good: I really love the way Josh Malerman writes. He is very adept at creating suspense. Some parts of this book made me feel like I would crawl out of my skin with the anxiety of the moment. He is a very good writer.

I loved Malorie. She is a strong, kick ass woman. She starts off the book pregnant, scared, and with no idea of how she is going to cope in this new world. But she does. Not perfectly. Sometimes not even competently. But she moves forward all the same, trying to protect herself and her children.

I really loved the uniqueness of this world. I can honestly say that I have never read a book that portrayed the apocalypse this way. An unknown…something, that has a devastating effect on humanity. No one knows why. No one knows how to stop it. No one even knows what it is. It’s a terrifying concept, and I loved it.

Bad: The audiobook narrator was a really bad fit. Every time she did Malorie’s part the narrator made her sound timid and scared. There were undoubtedly moments when that was appropriate. But like I mentioned, Malorie is a tough, kick ass woman. When she stands up in her boat and says “Get away from me!” it is not a trembling, quavering plea. It is a command to GET THE F*** AWAY! In fact, it says it in the text for that line, it is a command, it is angry. So that was really annoying throughout the audiobook.

I didn’t like the villain. It felt really cheap and out of place. I still can’t quite remember why everyone thought he was such a horrible guy originally. The whole plot felt like the author thought he needed a villain apart from the “creatures” so he scrambled to add in this side plot. It wasn’t necessary. It detracted from the overall plot.

Ugly: There were a few things that bugged me the entire way through the book.

Why didn’t Malorie name the children? It was so incredibly weird that she just calls them Boy and Girl. And then says at the end that names are a luxury for safer times. Okay…..that literally makes no sense. Every human calls other humans by a name or nickname to identify them. Even if she called them a cutsie nickname it would have made sense but Boy and Girl? Wtf! It made it impossible for me to relate to them as characters at all.

There were some serious physics problems with how Olympia died. She dies shortly after giving birth to a child. First off, I won’t get into the logic problems of two pregnant women going into labor at exactly the same moment. Or the logic of a whole group of adults leaving the two laboring women all alone in the attic to go argue. But Olympia jumps out a window after giving birth and they mention in graphic detail the umbilical cord getting caught on the window sill and her body being suspended by it. Um, this was very obviously written by a man who has no idea how childbirth works. The purpose of the umbilical cord is to be detach itself from the uterus after birth and then come out. Even if it remains attached if pressure is put on it then it will tear away. There is just no possible way that scene is happening. It was completely bizarre. I had no idea what the point of that scene was except for a gross factor but it was weird.

The “creatures” were also really inconsistent. Most of the time they don’t even seem to be interacting with humans at all. They are simply present and it drives the humans insane. Then, later on, they seem to be physically stalking the humans but only enough to scare them. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere, a creature is trying to forcibly remove someone’s blindfold. This particular scenario never happens again. So, which is it? Are they simply inadvertently having this effect or malevolent? Because they display both traits.

So, in the end I enjoyed the story but it was also pretty deeply flawed. I am interested enough to read the next book and see what happens next.