Tag Archives: audiobook

Book Review of NOS4A2, by Joe Hill

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I borrowed an audio copy of Joe Hill‘s NOS4A2 through the local library.

Description from Goodreads:

Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.

Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”

Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son. 

Review:

I’m surprised that I don’t have more to say on this one. But, having finished it, I’m just kind of like, “OK, I’m done.” I have no strong feelings either direction. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t love it. I was disappointed in the lack of what I would consider a happy ending, though it did mostly wrap up. And I 100% appreciated having a positively represented fat man who was lovable and loved. Lou was absolutely my favorite character. (Though the fact that he lost all his weight in the end compromised the fat representation a little bit. Not completely though. He was fat the whole time he was heroic and wonderful.)

This was my first Joe Hill book and I didn’t remember that he’s Stephen’s King son when I picked the book up. I thought his writing very like his fathers and was a little surprised to find him referencing some of Kings work in the book. It was odd.

The narrator (Kate Mulgrew) did a great job with the exception of the times she stopped for dramatic pauses before finishing sentences. “He walked into the……kitchen.” That seriously got on my nerves. All in all, it was pretty good but didn’t blow my socks off.

Uprooted

Book Review Uprooted, by Naomi Novik

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I borrowed and audio copy of Uprooted, bu Naomi Novik from the local library.

Description from Goodreads:

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose. 

Review:

This is a perfectly fine version of what it is. And what it is, is yet another YA book about a young farm girl (woodcutters daughter, but same difference in context) who is discovered to have magic (but somehow never noticed until a man shows up to tell her about it), is taken to be trained, turns out to be massively powerful and more morally upright that the city folk, and saves the day through determination, perseverance and her amazing goodness. 

Is Uprooted a quality version of this oft told tale? Yes, but is it still the same story I’ve read in dozens of books before this one? Also yes. As a result, I was pretty uninspired by the whole thing. Julia Emelin did a great job with the narration though.

The Quantum Thief

Book Review of The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur #1), by Hannu Rajaniemi

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I borrowed an audio copy of The Quantum Thief, by Hannu Rajaniemi through the library.

Description from Goodreads:

Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy— from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he’s confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him.

Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turnedsingularity lights the night. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self—in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.

As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur….

Review:

Not bad and I think there was probably a time—back when I read a lot more hard science fiction—that I would have loved it. Now, I enjoyed the ride, but was never able to immerse myself in it. You spend a lot of time….confused isn’t the word, but definitely waiting to have things explained. But the prose is beautiful, I did like the characters and the story does eventually loop back around to make a sort of sense. Plus, the narrator (Scott Brick) did a fabulous job. But the story is just a little too like water, slipping through your grasp, for my taste.