Audiobook Disasters: Time to Stop Listening?

Krispy: I think you need to stop listening to audiobooks.

After I told her my version of Incarceron pieced together from a failed audiobook reading.

Something has gone very, very wrong with audiobooks and me.  I've either hated or been bored to sleep (as passenger, not driver) by several highly lauded books.


Now this could be because I, simply, just don't like the book.

But I also suspect the format has much to do with my somnolent response.

Take Bitten, for example, Kelly Armstrong's first book in her Women of the Otherworld series.  It's about a female werewolf.

A CHICK werewolf.

Awesome right?

I thought it was meh.  (Except for the s-e-x scenes. Dang that lady can write.)

I decided to give the series another shot, this time on Kindle just in time for my Taiwan trip.

LOVED IT.

In the written form, Armstrong's writing was suddenly laugh-out-loud funny, her plots exciting, her men sexy.  I ended up downloading the third book midway through my trip; it's now one of my favorite series. (Just started book 5)

Right now I'm listening to The Iron King.  I was never into fairies to begin with (save for the ones in the Sookie Stackhouse books), but it was a Goodreads book club pick plus I wanted to support an Asian sister.

I've taken to only playing it when my boyfriend is driving the car...

Sophia: (sits up suddenly, blinking) Wait.  He's standing?  I thought he was dead.
Unicorn boyfriend: (smoothly) They were discussing what to do with him, then he got up, he's bleeding, and now he's holding a sword and wants to kill her.
Sophia:...who is this now?

At least one of us is following along.

So here's my quandary: one of my Goodreads groups is now reading Looking for Alaska.  I know.  This one won the Prinz.

We're about to take a roadtrip and I'm trying to decide whether to listen on audiobook (the Unicorn will be driving so he can catch whatever I miss), or if I should do this one right and stick with the hardcover library book I took out today.

What do you think, readers???



Stay tuned for my next post, when I outline the plot of Incarceron...what I heard, at least.