Tag: Audio Review

Testimony by Anita Shreve

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)37 Comments

Avery Academy is a private school for the privileged.  Holding its standards high, the school is shaken to its core foundations when a sex tape starts circulating involving three members of the basketball team and a freshman girl.  The scandal revolves around one night of poor choices that seems to grow tentacles as it spreads through the school, the homes, the families and lives – much like a disease – infecting all those involved.

As each chapter unfolds a different character speaks – from the boys involved, to the girl, the parents, head master, and the investigator.  What slowly comes to the surface is a deep revealing of what is buried deepest within our souls, the darkness that slowly can devour even the strongest of people.


I listened to this on audio and fair warning – the beginning is harsh.  Harsh is actually too light of a word.  The beginning was… graphic.  I was listening to this in my kitchen and immediately turned the volume down as the words rushed out of the speakers, bringing me right into the core of the story line.. the actions of the night that changed so many lives forever.

As each narrator took on a characters voice  – from one of the students involved, to the headmaster, to the parents… I started to feel this story shed its layers like an onion… each layer bringing me closer to the center of an underlying truth…

While the events that bring this book to be called Testimony work their way through the characters I am fascinated with the way each chapter overlaps with the last – building the mix of those involved so carefully that you never lose the point.  Anita Shreve’s unique telling of a hideous crime is only the tip of the iceberg as families are destroyed in the aftermath.  A less talented author would not have been able to pull off such a tale, but Anita Shreve does this in a near flawless way.

I enjoyed the different narrators taking on the characters, it really added to the story as each character shared their side of the story.  My only regret is that I felt some of the story lines could have went deeper – I never felt I fully understood the girls story from that night, as she seemed to remain more surface than the boys telling of what happened.

Over all a deeply moving story that demonstrated how one night can change lives forever, lives that you never thought would be even be touched by another persons choices.  I applaud Anita Shreve for taking on such a topic and leaving me in the end –

breathless.

Amazon Rating


The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading Map has been updated to include Testimony

I borrowed this from my local Library

suggested by my friend Angie (By Book or By Crook)

Here is a link to Angies review

Unspeakable Journey by Rinda Hahn

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)42 Comments

Isabella is happy with her life.  She has a loving husband and children she adores.  She lives pleasantly enough and has money to buy the things they need.  On the eve of her thirtieth birthday as Isabella is grabbing a few groceries at the local grocery store she is abducted in the parking lot.

Despite all Isabella does to escape, Hasam, a human trafficker arranges to have her taken into Saudi Arabia where she is presented to the Prince Latif to be taken as wife. Latif, upon meeting Isabella finds her to be a beauty of long lavish red hair and captivating green eyes.

Isabella arrives in a country foreign to her.  Ripped from the love of her family and friends she is forced to live under the laws of this country and live out her Christian faith under the very large and ever-present watchful eye of the Muslim community.

Ok… first off, holy smokes did this audio get me heart racing!  While this is a fiction read it felt as though it could be a memoir.  Isabella’s abduction seemed very real to me, I think in the times we live in there is so much out in the world happening that I listened to the start of this audio and thought, “Why not?  It could happen.”

Isabella’s story is one of a strong faith.  While she loses everything that can be taken away from her, there is one thing that can not by taken – and that is God.  As Isabella’s captivity goes from days, to weeks to months… she has little hope of ever returning home to her husband and her children, and she literally gives it all to God.  If this is His plan for her, then she will abide.  A powerful, POWERFUL reflection of being fully committed to whatever will be.

I found the characters to be well written and the story line engaging.  As Isabella fully gives herself to this new husband as she is demanded to… I found this to be an incredible topic for a Christian fiction read.  There are many questions that came to mind and I felt that author Rinda Hahn wrote a very impressive book.

My only complaint is the ending was so abrupt.  I would have liked to have known more from that point on – however I can see where if there was to be a sequel (hint hint hint!!!) I can see where this story line could pick up and continue into another book.

A book about keeping your faith and knowing God is with you, even in the darkest of days.  A wonderful debut for author Rinda Hahn, who I would gladly read again.

**Stay tune – soon I will be interviewing author Rinda Hahn


Amazon Rating

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading map has been updated to include Unspeakable Journey


I purchased this audio from audible.com

True To Form by Elizabeth Berg

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)12 Comments

It is 1961 and 13-year-old Katie Nash lives with dad and step mom in Missouri.  Katie lived in Texas, but two years ago her mother passed away and life has not been easy.  Katie’s over bearing dad finds her summer jobs of helping to take care of an elderly neighborhood woman and babysitting three very rambunctious young boys.  She finds that she is losing connection with her best friend from Texas Cherylanne who has become boy crazy to the point of no return and has nothing in common with Katie anymore.

Then there is her new friend Cynthia who likes to do things that Katie does like eating way too much junk food, choosing clothing, and talking about boys at a more “thirteenish” level.   yet when Katie is offered a chance to go to an upscale school, she throws Cynthia under the bus to get in good with the popular rich girls.. only to quickly find out – that this group is not really where she longs to be.  Not Katie is left with trying to mend a broken friendship and learn some hard lessons as she does so.

Yes.  I am on a Berg kick.  This is my second adventure into Elizabeth Berg territory and I am once again glad to have experienced the adventure.  While I did not find this storyline as powerful as We Are All Welcome Here, Elizabeth Berg stills comes across in her mild manner of making a point from a young girls perspective.

Katie’s voice is captured so well that I could not help but laugh as she tells this story.  There is everything in this thirteen year old mind and actions that I would say many of us had experienced at that age:

snooping around at the house you are babysitting at

Turning the radio up really loud to tune out the parental figures

the stomping of feet and the slamming of doors

The inner thoughts about the teachers, the adults, the homework…

Elizabeth Berg captures Katie’s emotions so well you would think that she was thirteen years old as she wrote the book.  I do not know enough about Elizabeth’s Berg’s writing to say if this is her signature style yet, but if it is – I will happily read on.

This book has a smorgasbord of covers and I do love covers!  Look at these:



Amazon Rating

I have updated the 2011 Reading Map to include True to Form

Nabbed…. errrr… borrowed from my local Library

The Art Of Racing In The Rain by Garth Stein

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)30 Comments

Plucked from a farm as just a pup, terrier/lab mix Enzo is not your average dog.  In fact, if Enzo had his way, he would not be a dog at all.  He would be a human.  In fact, as Enzo hangs with his owner racecar driver Denny Swift, Enzo wouldn’t mind being a racecar driver either.  Enzo shares his thoughts and his opinions as Denny goes from bachelor, to married… and while it takes Enzo a while to warm up to Denny’s woman friend Eve, eventually he warms to her.  And when their daughter Zoe comes along, well, as far as Enzo was concerned, he now had a younger sibling.

It is Enzo who first senses that Eve is sick.  He smells it on her, like a sort of mold, he knows that there is something wrong years  before Eve or Denny have any idea.  This is where Enzo is frustrated as a dog, he is unable to communicate his knowledge.

Let me start with a little story.   A couple of years ago my book club and I read another book told from a dog’s perspective.  It was a simple read, no meat to it… and the book club overall feeling was, it was a waste of paper.  One of my book club girls said much like a dog, she would urinate on this book.    And with that review – that was the end of my days of reading books from animals perspectives.

Needless to say when this book came up as a suggestion for a read for my book club, I did not vote for it.  Many of us didn’t.  We all too clearly still remembered our experience…

As time went on I seen raving reviews of this book on-line… and more recently, when I seen it on audible.com with a high rating I decided that if I was going to give this a try, audio may be the way to go.  And so – that is what I did.

I am in love with this story.  Right from the beginning, as the story opens Enzo is in his last 24 hours of life.  He is laying in a pool of his own urine and he is reliving his life….  my first thought at this point is, “Oh no…. I hate it when the animals die.”  I really do.  I have such a soft heart for animals that books like Old Yeller, just make me crazy angry through my tears….

couldn’t there have been another ending?

However this story quickly carried us to the story of Enzo… fun, brilliant pup to dog…. and he is well worth listening to.  Enzo sees on National Geographic that  in Mongolia, dog owners bury their dog high in the hills so people cannot walk on his grave. The dog’s master whispers into the dog’s ear his wishes that the dog will return as a man in his next life. Then his tail is cut off and put beneath his head, and a piece of meat or fat is placed in his mouth to sustain his soul on its journey; before he is reincarnated, the dog’s soul is freed to travel the land, to run across the high desert plains for as long as it would like.

And Enzo is ready.

In his own words, here is what he thinks:

“Here’s why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot talk, so I listen very well. I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another’s conversations constantly. It’s like being a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. For instance, if we met at a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor’s yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story, you, hearing the words “soccer” and “neighbor” in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn’t he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that, no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele, and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. So my initial conversational gambit – that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor’s dog – would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.”

 

I absolutely adored this story.  It is sad.  It is real.  And it is all told from Enzo’s point of view.  I can not recommend this enough.  I adored it on audio and I bet I would have loved it if I had read it too.  Do not miss out on this enchanting read.

 

Amazon Rating

I have updated the WHERE Are you reading map to include The Art Of Racing In The Rain

 

I purchased this from audible.com

 

 

Finger Lickin’ Fifteen by Janet Evanovich

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)18 Comments

Things are pretty much the same in Trenton New Jersey for Stephanie Plum.  She is still a  bail bondsman at her cousin Vinnie’s place.  She is still hanging around with Lulu, the over sized woman in the undersized clothes, and she is still attracted to two men – Morelli the cop, and Ranger the dark and mysterious bounty hunter who runs Rangeman Inc.  And of course, cars in her care tend to blow up.

In Finger Lickin’ Fifteen Lulu is witness to a beheading and subsequently becomes the murderer’s targeted witness.  As Stephanie does what she can to protect her friend Lulu, even letting her take over her own apartment therefore forcing her to stay at Ranger’s (is it forced?  Even Stephanie is unsure…).

When Lulu decides the best way to catch the killers is by drawing them out in the open at a barbecue Competition that the victim was supposed to be promoting – things get spicy and sticky.  Lulu with the help of Stephanie’s Granda Muzur decide to try their hand at making a winning barbecue sauce that proves to be more than anyone could have anticipated.

many years ago I discovered Janet Evanovich with One For The Money.  The story was funny, quirky and for the most part I liked the characters.  I proceeded to follow this series, anxiously awaiting the next book along with a few members of my book club.  We devoured these books all the way up to Twelve Sharp.  At that point, the story line took a turn for the worse (in my opinion) and at that point I stopped reading the series.

Recently while I was in my local library I found this audio on the shelves and I had a twinge of the things I remember liking about the series.  Errr….. mainly Morelli and Ranger.

Ok… Ok…..

Ranger.

I scooped up this audio and brought it home.

The verdict?

The Stephanie Plum books could be compared to a soap opera.  You could miss a few years of episodes (in this case books) and see a new one and fall right back in where you left off.  Stephanie is as I remember her. Lulu and Grandma Muzur too. Her parents?  The same.  Her office?  The same.   Even the two leading men have not changed nor has their relationship with Stephanie.

While I did enjoy a few chuckles throughout this audio, and a few scowls as well as sometimes the language annoys me…. I did not get the felling I was missing much by letting this series go. This book was much like all the others just a different crime to solve.

It was a nice series to revisit, I enjoyed catching up… but now I am ready to move on.

Amazon rating

 

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading Map has been updated to include Finger Lickin’ Fifteen


 

This is an audio borrowed from my local library

We Are All Welcome Here By Elizabeth Berg

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)20 Comments

Paige Dunn is a stunning looking woman.  Everyone is always commenting on her beauty and her gentle soul.  She once even took care of Elvis Presley’s mother when she was a student nurse.

The really amazing thing however about Paige is that thirteen years ago while pregnant with her daughter she contacted polio and is paralyzed from the neck down.  Her husband, realizing that she was never going to get better, abandoned her and their baby girl, Diana.  Now at the age of thirteen, Diana lives with her mom on welfare and they rely on their African-American daytime nurse Peacie, and although they tell social services they have night help too, they can not afford it so Diana takes care of her mom at night.

As Diana becomes a young woman she becomes more and more unsettled about how she can now do the things other girls her age do.  She is unable to have sleepovers, or run and play all day in the summer.  She carries a huge responsibility with her mother and struggles with how poor they are.  When Peacie’s boyfriend Larue is badly beaten after trying to help African-Americans be able to vote, Diana starts to learn a lot about compassion, as well as race and class in the 1960’s.

Iron Lung used for Polio victims

What amazed me the most is what a strong and well written character Paige Dunn is.  She is confined to a wheelchair, has no use of anything from below the neck, yet she can command a household as thought she functioned like any other woman.  Where most women would drown in self-pity or be eaten up by anger, Paige had made up her mind to live life to the fullest and that is what she did.

I loved the relationship between Paige and her daughter Diana.  While Diana grumbled about how much she had to do to help, these two characters were so well written and in tune to one another it was enough to bring tears to my eyes.  Even when Paige is angry with her daughter (there is a particularity fantastic scene where they have a long mother daughter talk well into the night and the early morning hours that made me really appreciate this writing.  Not every author could pull off such a scene and make it feel believable.

In the end, I found there were times I felt for Paige, and there were times I felt for Diana.  What Elizabeth Berg ends up with is a story that will go right to your core, fill you with compassion, and finally…. make you look at the outside world in a whole new way.

I think I have just become a fan of Elizabeth Berg’s and have already checked out 4 more of her writings.

Amazon Rating

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading Map has been updated to include We Are All Welcome Here

I borrowed this in audio version from my local library

Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)15 Comments

After a house fire that takes the lives of their parents, Lonnie (12) and his sister Lili (9) are placed in different foster homes.  Lonnie, who likes to be called”Locomotion” writes letters to his sister who he misses terribly.  He updates her on what is happening at his school, his friends, his poetry, and about the war that is going on and the son that his foster mom has in it.  When the war hits close to home…. Lonnie starts writing about peace.

As time passes and Lonnie continues to write to his sister, his writing changes s he grows and matures in to his surroundings.  Lonnie starts to really understand the meaning of family, understanding that it can go beyond his sister as he learns to let others in.

If you have never read or listened to a Jacqueline Woodson book I highly recommend that you do.  I first read her last year with I Hadn’t Meant To Tell You This, and found her writing to be a steady smooth gathering of words that made it hard to put her book down.  In this instance, I listened on audio and I am so glad I chose this format.

This audio was read by Dion Graham and he was the perfect voice for Lonnie (Locomotion).  I really enjoyed how Dion gave the 12-year-old feel to Lonnie’s voice, the excitement, the sorrow, even when he was angry.

Within this short story you really get the feel for how important teachers are to kids.  When  teacher tells Lonnie what a great writer he is, he blooms, and not only improves in his already great writing, but in his other classes as well.  When we is told that is not a poet, he crumbles…. and both sides of this is reflected well.

Written as a series of letters, I found this short audio to be a perfect listen and a new dimension to experience with Woodson.  If this book would have been large I can see where it may have drug out and become too much, yet in a short amount of time Woodson bundled up a young foster boys life into a careful package of hope, love, and peace.

Amazon Rating

Book 3 on my WHERE are you reading map

I purchased this from audible.com

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)21 Comments

____________________ is a pretty young wife.  She stays at home taking care of things for her husband Kevin, making sure she looks nice for him and that dinner is always on the table when he arrives home.  ______________ has no friends, mainly because Kevin doesn’t want her to.  And when things do not go Kevin’s way… that’s when the hitting begins.

Yet ______________ has an escape plan and after many months of taking small amounts of money from her husbands wallet, she cuts off her hair, dies it dark, and with a new name, she walks away from the home she knew – and never looks back.

Now, known as Katie, she lives in Southport North Carolina and works as a waitress.  As she dives into her new life she makes a friend in a new neighbor named Jo, and meets a wonderful store owner named Alex who is kind-hearted and warm and everything Katie has ever dreamed of finding in someone to love.

Far away, in another state, Kevin is still brooding over the disappearance of his wife.  As his drinking becomes worse, he is positive that she is somewhere laughing at him,having made a fool of him he believes his co workers are also talking and laughing behind his back and as Kevin begins to obsess over where his wife may be and who she is with… his dark moods become scarier and then – he finds a clue… a clue that will lead him right to her.

Listened to on my IPOD in the house

Realistically, Nicholas Sparks is not an author I pursue.  Mainly I have found his reads in past years to be light and fluffy and a bit too sugary sweet for my liking…. I used to tell my bookish friends that Sparks books always started out with a guy and  girl and the book was mostly about how they wind up together.

Oofta…. somebody call me a dentist.

Yet… I may have to quit saying that.  As of the past year I have tried Sparks (Dear John, for one) and found that he has changed his style to a more meatier story that I like.  I have enjoyed that the book was not as predictable as I would have thought, and neither was this one.

Safe Haven first attracted me by the cover.  Seriously, I tried to avoid it.   When I did decide to read it, I was expecting the Sparks I knew and I was pleasantly surprised to find an upgraded version.  Safe Haven is smart and witty.  The characters are likable and Kevin is downright creepy and I actually liked that too.

If you have seen the movie ‘Sleeping With The Enemy’ and enjoyed it, you will enjoy this book.  While the story lines are close to the same – Sparks brought in a different twist that sat me bolt upright in my chair with a “WHA???”  (and that was in a good way).

AMAZON RATING

Book 2 on my WHERE are you reading map


Listening Length: 11 hour(s) and 1 min.

I received my copy of this audio from audible.com

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (audio)

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)25 Comments

This is a story of Mariam who lives in Afghanistan with her mother and dreams of being with her father.  When her father refuses her entry to his home when she tries to go and stay with him, she returns home only to find that her mother has committed suicide in Mariam’s absence.

At 15 years old Mariam is married off to 40 year old Rasheed, who is extremely abusive and Mariam suffers many miscarriages.  Rasheed, a brute of a man, believes that it is shameful for a man to ever lose control of his wife.  This is the only life that Mariam has come to know.

When Rasheed is 60, he takes in a 14-year-old girl named Laila as his second wife, whose parents were killed by stray bombs.  While Mariam hates Rasheed, she still finds herself jealous of this younger woman now sharing her home.  Rasheed’s violence soon turns on Laila as well and the two women start to find a common bond… in survival.

This past spring I had the pleasure of listening to Khaled Hosseini’s audio of The Kite Runner.  I was totally engrossed in this reading and so impressed that the author narrated this himself.  His voice and strong accent made this audio even more powerful for me.

Due to my experience with The Kite Runner and the raves I heard that if you loved The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns would blow me away because it was even better.

Even better?  Could that even be possible?

It took me awhile to take the time to listen to this one but before I left for Honduras in November I downloaded this on to my IPOD to experience what I hoped was going to be another adventure in Afghanistan culture, colored with vivid characters and images of a world beyond my own.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, was written after Hosseini traveled back to his native Afghanistan to examine for himself the nation’s situation in the aftermath of decades of turmoil.  I appreciated the language, basking in traditions and cultural differences that fascinate me:

Ramadan

The Islamic spiritual observance that lasts one month, spanning the time when the Koran was given to Muhammad. Considered the most spiritual month of the year, fasting (between sunrise and sundown), prayer, and charity are emphasized.

I enjoyed this reading very much but did not find the narration or the book itself as totally captivating as I found The Kite Runner.  I feel that Kite Runner started with such a huge turmoil event and the book was the resulting aftermath of that event where as A Thousand Splendid Suns takes a longer time to get to where it needs to go, which is not a bad thing, but took longer to pull me into the story line and as a result I came out the other side not feeling the immense emotion that I carried with Hosseini’s first book.

 

AMAZON Rating

I purchased this audio from audible.com

Relentless by Dean Koontz (audio review and epic FAIL)

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)17 Comments

Bestselling author Cullen Cubby Greenwich is mortified when Shearman Waxx, the nation’s premier literary critic, savages his work. Cubby manages to find the syphilitic swine at Roxie’s Bistro in Newport Beach, Calif., where the author’s six-year-old prodigy son nearly pees by accident on Waxx in the restaurant’s men’s room. In retaliation, Waxx threatens Cubby with doom and gets things started nicely by blowing up his house. With almost superhuman ease, the book critic keeps track of Cubby and his family as they flee for their lives.

 

 

Let me share a little background info about me and Dean.  No, we didn’t know each other back in school, or ever really crossed paths – except of course within the pages of his books that i could not read fast enough…. and in my opinion he could not write fast enough.

Yes it is true…. back when I was 20, Dean Koontz was one of a very elite group of my favorite authors.  I read and loved:

Whispers

Phantoms

Twilight Eyes

Strangers

Watchers

Lightening (Oh Yeah!)

Midnight

Cold Fire

Hideaway

The Key To Midnight

Door To December

The Funhouse (first book I ever read of his)

Breathless

Brother Odd

Odd Thomas

Eyes Of Darkness

False Memory

Fear Nothing

Tick Tock

One Door Away From Heaven

Winter Moon

 

yes…. I think it is safe to say I have been a fan.

 

And now this is where it gets….

awkward.

I was so excited to listen to this audio and I LOVED the idea of the main character being an author who gets a bad review….  (I know a bit ironic right now…..).  A fun fact about Dean’s books is that he almost always includes some sort of “bookish” theme in his writing – either his character is a reader, or a writer or there are mentions of books shelves…

BUT.

This time I just could not pick up what Dean was putting down.  The storyline was so outrageously over the top – the strange killings in the book beyond gruesome and a bit wacky and well…

I finally gave up as I was so confused and surprised by the book that it didn’t even have the regular “Dean Koontz” feel to it that I have come to know and love through the years.  It felt a little more like James Patterson when he goes a direction that I do not like.

Will I read Dean Koontz again?  I am sure I will.  I have found him to be not as dark as Stephen King, and not as light and funny as Harlan Coben.  He is a great middle of the road.

 

I received this audio from my library