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Rumaan Alam - Leave the World Behind -- back to top
Narrator: Marin Ireland
Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
★★★☆☆
The ending didn't answer enough questions
Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine -- back to top
Narrator: Cathleen McCarron
Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
3-stars. Went between kind of boring and slow to upsetting without much need to be.
Ben H. Winters - Golden State -- back to top
Narrator: Kiff Vandenheuvel
Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
★★★☆☆. It starts off really strong with an interesting premise and good execution. There is a bit left unclear (e.g. how can some people tell there are lies?) but you feel confident that will be explained. But the end really falters. To call it an open conclusion is not right. It opens new major plot holes in the name of a "twist" but it doesn't make sense. I felt too much was left up in the air by the end.
Kevin Wilson - The Family Fang -- back to top
★★★☆☆
Louise Penny - The Cruelest Month (Gamache 03) -- back to top
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Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
Series: Chief Inspector Gamache/Three Pines, Book 3
Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
Quotes
The near enemy. It’s a psychological concept. Two emotions that look the same but are actually opposites. The one parades as the other, is mistaken for the other, but one is healthy and the other’s sick, twisted. There are three couplings. Attachment masquerades as Love, Pity as Compassion, and Indifference as Equanimity.
Compassion involves empathy. You see the stricken person as an equal. Pity doesn’t. If you pity someone, you feel superior. As long as the pity’s in place there’s not room for compassion. It squeezes out the nobler emotion
★★★☆☆
Laura Pearson - The Last List of Mabel Beaumont -- back to top
★★★☆☆
R. F. Kuang - Yellowface -- back to top
Narrated by: Helen Laser
Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
★★★☆☆ Everyone else seems to have loved it. I thought it was fine
Sally Rooney - Intermezzo -- back to top
Narrated by: Éanna Hardwicke
Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
★★★☆☆
Stephen King - The Long Walk -- back to top
Written as Richard Bachman
Neil Alexander - The Vanishing of Margaret Small -- back to top
3 Stars. I know everyone else seemed to love it but I found it kind of boring. And the chapter ends--which didn't break the narrative or time line--to be distracting. I guess I just found myself unable to really care very much.
Amor Towles - The Lincoln Highway -- back to top
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Marin Ireland, Dion Graham
Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
I found the story a bit un-engaging. I found I just didn't really care what happened to the characters which is not how you usually want to feel when reading. And Dutchess was entirely unlikable.
Stephen King - The Running Man -- back to top
Written as Richard Bachman
Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
Chris Pavone - The Doorman -- back to top
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
It was fine and enjoyable enough though the politics, even if they were my politics, were over the top!
Dennard Dayle - How to Dodge a Cannonball -- back to top
Narrated by: William DeMeritt
Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
Release date: 06-17-25
meh
Junot Díaz - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao -- back to top
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Staci Snell
Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
Release date: 09-06-07
Note: It lists length as 16 hrs but that includes the extra material. The books ends at the 10:54:20 mark
★★★☆☆ (3-stars)
I know it got all kinds of awards and recognition but I wasn't as in to it. It was good enough but I found the spanglish to be both very realistic (I guess) and difficult. I didn't understand everything and felt like I missed some of it.
Douglas Adams - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe -- back to top
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 2
By: Douglas Adams
Narrated by: Martin Freeman
Series: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 2
Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
Release date: 07-04-06
Enjoyable enough but nowhere near as good as Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (book 1). Not only did the barely talk about Trillian, but I didn't feel like they did much to develop the other characters either.
Dennis E. Taylor - Bobiverse 1 - We Are Legion (We Are Bob) -- back to top
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★★★☆☆: I thought it was an interesting premise but I also found it kind of boring in the second half. It is also possible, if not probable, that I just don't enjoy books I actually read as much since I get through them so slowly and with so few pages at a time. I am not in a hurry to read or listen to the next one though
Katie Kitamura - Audition -- back to top
Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
Release date: 04-08-25
The Booker Prize (shortlisted) continues to be more miss than hit for me. This was interesting and left a lot to interpretation and analysis but I also didn't find it especially compelling.
Charolotte McConaghy - Wild Dark Shore -- back to top
Wild Dark Shore
Reese's Book Club Pick (A Novel)
By: Charlotte McConaghy
Narrated by: Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, Steve West
Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
Release date: 03-04-25
I was enjoying the book but the relationship killed it for me. Even before knowing the real story, I found it hard to suspend disbelief. That feeling didn’t abate either. Honestly, I think a friendship could have worked fine.
I know everyone else loved this book so much but I guess it just didn’t resonate with me the same way
Just generally overrated.
1:
I recently finished this and found the “love story” part so bad. It just didn’t make sense and made me hate both characters with a passion. For different reasons for each but still.
Then someone asked what in particular turned me off.
2: (Spoilers)
It was just (a) not even a little bit believable (even with suspension of disbelief) including not fitting the characters otherwise and (b) It made the characters so unforgivingly unlikeable.
Dominic: At this point in the book, we didn't know what Dominic did but we knew he did something. Then when you reflect back and you realized he has sex with the wife of the person he had locked in the vault , it just made him irredeemable.
Rowan: She came to the island to find her husband. Honestly, up to about this point, we had every reason to believe they were still in love . And, while she again didn't know what happened, she surely suspected something was up. It didn't fit.
I think what bothers me most is that while it (supposedly) adds to the character depth and the tension, the story really would have flowed just fine if they had formed a very strong platonic bond.
Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle -- back to top
Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
Release date: 03-22-10
I am sure I am missing something because others love it but I thought it was just fine. Some of the "mystery" was pretty easy to guess and I didn't particularly like any of the characters. I also found the end to leave me not very satisfied.
Part of the problem may be that I found this from asking ChatGPT for "Without saying what they are (No spoilers!!!) what books have the best twist?" It was not really that...