The Latest Audiobooks I’ve Listened to & My Thoughts

I chatted about my love for audiobooks last year and I am still really enjoying them. I listen to a lot more books than I actually read as I can listen whilst I’m doing housework and tidying up or editing photos for blog posts. Whereas most of the time I can only read a book or my Kindle in the evening and often I’m too tired then and just want to sit and watch something on tv.

I have listened to a lot of audiobooks since my last post so I thought I would share some of the ones I have listened to and my thoughts on them.

What Lies Between Us by John Marrs

Oh my god, this book! I have just literally finished it and I did enjoy it a lot and listened as often as I could but my goodness it took me on a rollercoaster of emotions! It was so tense so often and was really hard to listen to at times – I spent much of the book routing for some of the characters who had gone through horrendous stuff, but then they’d do another awful thing and I would feel so conflicted!

I did guess quite a lot of it before it happened, a couple of things I found quite obvious from the start but that didn’t take anything away from the book at all, and there were still plenty of surprises that I wasnn’t expecting.

The narrator – Elizabeth Knowelden – who I’ve listened to before, is brilliant and it’s hard to believe that there weren’t actually two separate narrators for the two main characters. She’s so good at the different voices and so I could really imagine the characters. Often when someone puts on an older lady voice I find it really annoying but this wasn’t at all.

For one chapter towards the end she seemed to do the older characters voice rather than the younger one and it annoyed me way more than it should! I think because it just seemed to massively changed the characters personality in that one chapter and it was jarring when I was really into it.

This is an emotional rollercoaster of a book whilst being very gripping, and you can’t help rooting for the characters who have dealt with mental health issues and horrible things in their lives, right up until the end. I think I was satisfied with the ending, although I do slightly struggle with an ending that isn’t happy and all wrapped up. But I think it was the right one for the story even though I wasn’t expecting it to end like that.

I really enjoyed What Lies Between Us and I’ll be looking for more by John Marrs now.

Get it here: What Lies Between Us by John Marrs

Olive by Emma Gannon

I really wanted to love this, but I didn’t, unfortunately. I really like how it addressed the important issue of women choosing not to have children and how it highlighted female friendships, but I found the characters quite unlikeable at times. Throughout the story, the women’s long friendship is recognised and looked back on, but they didn’t actually seem like particularly good friends to me – they often couldn’t talk to each other about things, fell out with each other quite easily, and weren’t always there for each other because they had their own shit going on.

I understand it was about navigating these friendships through getting older and differing life decisions, but they just didn’t seem like a good group of friends and often seemed to act pretty childishly and a bit pathetically. It was all very white and middle class too.

I found it quite repetitive at times and it seemed to be going round in circles – the same discussions, the same arguments with the same people and I just found it all a bit boring. I did like the relationship with Caitlyn and think that could have been explored more – it did feel a bit rushed as something to include. Although I could also understand why some readers think that relationship would go against the ethos of the book. The surrogacy area could have been interesting, but it wasn’t followed up at all.

It was easy to listen to and the narrator is really good, although I found her ‘thank you’s’ sounded quite patronising when they weren’t supposed to.

I hate being so critical of a book, and it wouldn’t put me off reading more of Emma Gannon’s books but I just didn’t enjoy Olive I’m afraid.

Thank you to Netgalley for an early audio copy of Olive.

Get it here: Olive by Emma Gannon

The One That Got Away by Lucy Dawson

This one made me so mad but I kept listening because I did want to find out what happened. I found myself getting so, so mad with the main character and not being explicit to ‘the guy’ every time he contacted her ‘afterward’s. And then when it all started to come out still not saying the things that would help make everything a bit better – it just got silly!

I normally love this authors books, as I’ve written before but I didn’t like this one and was counting down until it was over so I knew what would happen.

I wasn’t keen on the narrator either, which is annoying as I really liked her voice and think it could have been good but she went up at the end of sentences a lot, like everything’s a question which I found annoying and I just felt like lots of bits were read wrongly.

For some reason I thought it was written, say 15 years ago, as some of the things the main character didn’t know about phones seemed a bit unbelievable as a young woman, plus she still has a blackberry. But actually it was only written in 2019.

I was pretty disappointed with this one after really enjoying a few others by Lucy Dawson and listening to them in succession.

Get it here: The One That Got Away by Lucy Dawson

The Dog Share by Fiona Gibson

I kept trying and trying with this book until I finally gave up. I found it so boring and only at about 60% of the way through the audiobook, it felt like it was just possibly about to get going, but I didn’t want to waste any more of my time when I just wasn’t interested.

I hate being so negative about a book but it was just so slow and dull. The narrators are good, especially the female (Cathleen McCarron). I even tried increasing the speed to get further along, quicker, but that was too hard to listen to, and I also skipped quite a few bits (particularly the male parts) and don’t feel like I really missed anything! I’ve got so far through the story and yet I don’t have a clue what any of the characters names are; I am that detached from it. I love a good, easy listen sometimes, but this wasn’t even that for me, unfortunately.

Thank you to Netgalley for an early audio copy of The Dog Share.

Get it here: The Dog Share by Fiona Gibson

Us Three by Ruth Jones

I was SO looking forward to this book after I loved Ruth’s first book – Never Greener. That one has stuck with me and I enjoyed it so much, but my god I was so disappointed with Us Three, unfortunately. I don’t feel like I can say much more other than I thought this was crap!

I kept waiting for something big to happen or something to get better and it just didn’t happen.

The story (I presume) is predominantly about friendship but really, two of them hate each other and are petty and childish the whole way through.

Friendships can and do change and people get closer or further away from each other and that’s OK. But this was almost like forcing two dissimilar people, where one had done something very shitty to the other, to try and still be friends.

It was repetitive, boring and often silly and I was just so frustrated with it. I hate leaving books before the end so I made myself carry on listening but my god, so much of it pissed me off. Bits made no sense. People forgave people for lying to them for almost all of their life at the drop of a hat (TWICE at least), whilst others held grudges from 30 years ago that were tiny in comparison. Bloody Lana was completely childish and annoying even right at the end and I was just waiting to get to the end.

I’m not sure why exactly but it felt like I was listening to a children’s book quite a lot of the time, despite being for adults. I think it was partly the way it was read by the author, Ruth Jones – who I don’t think was the right person to read it. I like her and she has a nice voice but for some reason, it just didn’t work at all for this book.

I totally hate giving a negative review about a book that someone has worked so hard on and put so much into but I disliked this so much, unfortunately, after loving Never Greener.

Get it here: Us Three by Ruth Jones

Trust Me by T. M. Logan

I have loved the last couple of T M Logan’s books (and he’s from Nottingham and writes lots about it too!) so I was excited for this new one.

I was pretty unsure about the narrator at first and I still actually think she wasn’t quite right for the part – she sounded much older than her character who is supposed to be around 40, and I kept questioning it for a while at first.

However every so often I would find myself just being absorbed by what was happening and not even thinking about the narrator and plus she is brilliant at doing different voices. You wouldn’t think that it is only one person doing the talking the whole way through. Seriously, she didn’t sound like the same slightly older woman when narrating for others than the main character. She’s so good. Also weirdly she doesn’t sound as old later on.

It’s not as though I have anything against anyone older obviously, but they need to sound as though they are the character they are ‘playing’.

I loved the story. I don’t think I have ever started an audiobook and then carried on listening for so many hours all at once before, and I stayed up way later than I should. It was hard to stop and make myself go to sleep and the birds had started tweeting by the time I made myself press pause.

Get it here: Trust Me by T. M. Logan

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