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Brad Meltzer - The Tenth Justice -- back to top
Narrator: Scott Brick
Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
★★☆☆☆
Robin Sloan - Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore -- back to top
★★☆☆☆
Teddy Wayne - The Winner -- back to top
Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
★★☆☆☆ ... barely! Gratuitous sex scenes that didn't add much (and, while in place in the narrative, were well out of place in how other things were described). Poor plot with faulty logic everywhere. The story shoved ideas down your throat (e.g., class warfare). I will give the author credit: I didn't envision the major plot development (though probably should have), and it takes a certain amount of guts to make the main character so hateable!
I have no interest in further reading Teddy Wayne!
Rachel Kushner - Creation Lake -- back to top
Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
★★☆☆☆
I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed this. It kind of felt like the author had a story but also wanted to write essays on various topics and tell them through the emails in the story. It wasn't all together bad and certainly felt more like "literary fiction" than many of the other books I read. But it wasn't my favorite. Also, I think the author did an acceptable-but-not-great job narrating. Not many voices.
Charles Yu - Interior Chinatown -- back to top
Narrated by: Joel de la Fuente
Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
This was odd. I feel like I only kind of "got it". Great narration and production
★★☆☆☆
Emily Habeck - Shark Heart -- back to top
2 Stars. What attracted me to this book was the ridiculousness and how books can easily enable that. I wanted to see how the author tackled this odd idea. I would say mediocre at best... First half: Fine. Not as interesting as I had hoped but still fine. I had hoped that this was a new things, not a well understood condition, and we'd get to see the evolution of that. 50%-80% Disjointed and kind of boring. On it's own it would be fine but not much together. 80-95. Annoying. 95-100 Horrible. (SPOILER): The whole pregnancy felt forced and horrific. Did they sleep together? That actually would have been interesting to read about! in the first half!
James McBride - The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store -- back to top
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
Ignoring everything else, why was there a sudden aside about the evils of cell phones and technologies. And the end rant about racisms, etc, while more fitting, was still out of place.
★★☆☆☆: Everyone else seemed to love it. I could pass
Lauren Willig, Beatriz Williams, Karen White - The Author’s Guide to Murder -- back to top
Narrated by: Angus King, Saskia Maarleveld, Brittany Pressley, Lisa Flanagan
Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
Note, I went with the author order from the cover but most sites put it as Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White
Almost DNFed a few times, notably around 20%, 45%, and 90%. Yep. Almost gave up at 90% and even 95%. That should say a lot. Huge plot holes and too convenient endings. I kept hoping it would at least tie up a few things but nope, it just left it.
Liann Zhang - Julie Chan Is Dead -- back to top
Narrated by: Yu-Li Alice Shen
Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
Release date: 04-29-25
I should have DNFed
Jenny Han - Summer I Turned Pretty 1 - The Summer I Turned Pretty -- back to top
Narrated by: Lola Tung
Series: Summer, Book 1
Length: 6 hrs
I listened to it because Meredith read it on a friends suggestion; mostly in preparation of watching the TV show.
I was pretty bored with it. I just had trouble (a) getting in to it and (b) really caring at all. For what it's worth, I am almost certainly not the intended audience.
I look forward to the TV show, but I am going to skip the next two in the series: