Book: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, narrated by Kirsten Potter

Published September 2014 by Random House Audio|10 hours, 30 minutes

Where I Got It: I borrowed the audio book from the library

Series: None

Genre: Adult Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalytpic

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.

Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: “Because survival is insufficient.” But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.

Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.

Station Eleven is one of those books that I feel is sort of a buzz-y kind of book, and for some reason, it was a book that I didn’t pick up until recently.  I am not completely sure how I feel about it, though.

I thought the non-linear timeline was really interesting, especially since we see Jeevan, Kirsten, Clark, Miranda and Arthur throughout the book.  We’d get one person for a while, and then we’d get someone else for a while, and it’s the death of Arthur and the impact he had on people against the backdrop of a flu pandemic that results in a lot of death. Which is an interesting idea, but I am definitely not enchanted with it the way other people are.

I listened to the audio book, and while it worked fine for an audio book, there was something about it (that FOR ME), didn’t quite translate to audio.  Kirsten Potter was fine as a narrator- I couldn’t figure out why she sounded so familiar…until I realized that she narrated If I Stay by Gayle Forman.  I liked her narration for that book, and I wish some of the emotion in her narration for that book were in her narration for this book.

I also spent some wondering what happened to certain characters, particularly Jeevan, who we saw at the beginning, and didn’t see for quite some time.

Everything is very much connected, and I am somewhat amazed at how connected so many of the characters were. But I was kind of expecting something more interesting.  I was interested enough to keep listening to the end, and I’m a little intrigued by the idea that art and culture is important in the worst of times, but for some reason, it felt a little overwhelming at times.  And I was surprised she didn’t draw more connections to Shakespeare.  Unless it was there and I missed it, because I remember nothing from the little Shakespeare I did read in high school.

And I did find myself, particularly with the last couple of discs, wondering how she was going to tie everything up. It was an okay ending, and I liked that there was a little bit of hope that the world was starting to re-build.  But…I don’t know.  Something about the ending was also a little too unresolved for my liking, and I’m usually okay with unresolved endings.

I would like to see a Station Eleven comic book/graphic novel, though.  I want this to be a thing, because that is something I’d want to read.

2 stars.  I get why people like it, and there were things I liked about it,  but I felt a little too disconnected from the book.

Book: Dangerous Deception by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl, narrated by Kevin Collins & Khristine Hvam

Published May 2015 by Hachette Audio|8 hours, 27 minutes

Where I Got It: I got the audio book from audible.com

Series: Dangerous Creatures #2

Genre: YA Paranormal

From the world of Beautiful Creatures–a dangerous new tale of love and magic continues in the sequel to Dangerous Creatures.

Love is ten kinds a crazy, right?
Let me put it to you this way: If you can get away, run. Don’t walk.
Because once you’re exposed, you’ll never get a Siren outta your head.

Some loves are cursed. Others are…dangerous. Especially the love between wannabe rocker and quarter Incubus, Wesley “Link” Lincoln, and Dark Caster, Siren, and bonafide bad girl, Ridley Duchannes.

But now Ridley is missing, and Link was with her-right up until she vanished. Determined to find her, Link reunites with his New York bandmates and the mysterious Lennox Gates, who wants Rid for himself. Together they travel to the deep south, find the crossroads where blues guitarist Robert Johnson made his deal with the devil, discover a menagerie of Casters locked in cages, and uncover an evil in New Orleans that threatens to destroy them all.

This time, love might not be enough.

I really liked Dangerous Creatures!  It really makes me want to know what happens next.

Dangerous Deception picks up right where Dangerous Creatures left off, with the car accident, and Ridley missing, and everyone else trying to find her.  I liked that we had Ridley, Link and Lennox narrate the book, because we saw what was going with Link and Lennox trying to find Ridley, and what was going on with Ridley.

We didn’t need a recap, because you did get little bits and pieces of what happened in the previous book.  I was really surprised by the appearances of Amma, John and Liv, and it was really nice to see them.  No Ethan or Lena, but I’m oddly okay with that.  John and Liv’s appearance actually makes a lot of sense, given John’s past, how smart Liv is, and what’s currently going on.  There was still part of me that wished I had listened to Dangerous Creatures and Dream Dark (the prequel novella) just for a quick refresher (and maybe even Beautiful Creatures), but I don’t think it’s super-necessary.

Things in the caster world are a lot more interesting than I ever expected.  We are getting further and further in this Caster world, and we are most certainly seeing the dark side of this world.  I love that we’re seeing parts of the Caster world we never saw in Beautiful Creatures (BC)…which brings me to something that came up in Dangerous Deception. It came up that when Lena broke the order of things in BC, she really broke things.  It gave you an idea of how much things were broken in BC, and what happened elsewhere.  I’m still really curious about what things were like, but at least we get a glimpse of what had happened.

And everything with Silas and the experiments!  I can’t even wrap my mind around that, and yet I want to know more.

Of course, we can’t forget about the ending.  I was not expecting that ending!  It’s interesting, because there was something about this book that seemed really…resolved.  I’m trying to figure out if there’s even going to be a third book, because I can’t find any info on a third book- I don’t know if it’s because that information’s not available yet or if it’s because there isn’t going to be a third book. There is something about it where I’d be fine if it ended with this one, and yet there’s also enough there for another couple of books.

Ridley!  I felt for her, and everything that happened to her broke my heart, especially the ending.  As much as I wanted things to go differently, and for Ridley to make a different choice, I also understand why she made the choice she did.

I really liked Khristine Hvam and Kevin Collins!  I really need to see what else they’ve narrated, because I really like them!  As much as I like Kevin Collins, though, I’m also a little conflicted, because for me, he’s Ethan, and I’m still having a little trouble seeing him as Link or Lennox (but mostly Link).  But at the same time, I can’t picture anyone else narrating a Beautiful Creatures/Dangerous Creatures book.

4 stars.  I didn’t love it but Ridley broke my heart in this book, and I loved how we keep seeing all of these different sides to the Caster world.

Book: The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins, Narrated by Clare Corbett, Louise Brealey, and India Fisher

Published January 2015 by Penguin Audio|11 hours

Where I Got It: I borrowed the audio book from the library

Series: None

Genre: Adult Thriller

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an electrifying debut.

I feel like I’ve been hearing a lot about The Girl On The Train, and I’m glad I got to read it!

So, it’s a really interesting mystery (although it’s one that I figured out maybe 2/3 of the way through?), and while it wasn’t surprising when it was revealed, it was still fun to get to that point. Mostly because Rachel is such an unreliable character, and you’re never sure if what she figures out is completely accurate.  So even though I was pretty convinced of what happened to Megan, I still had my doubts about whether I was right or not.

I thought the end was somewhat predictable- probably because I correctly figured out what happened, at least to some degree- but this was a case where it honestly didn’t matter.  Partly because of how unreliable Rachel is, with her alcoholism, and the fact that she drinks to the point of blacking out and not remembering a single thing later on. But there is something compelling about the book, and I just really wanted to see what would happen.

It was also pretty immersive, and I felt like I was really in the book, which I think has a lot to do with the fact that I listened to it.  It made me wish (for probably the first and only time) that I had a longer drive to work so I could keep listening.  If you haven’t read it yet, I would definitely recommend the audio, because for some reason, The Girl On The Train works really well as an audio book.

Speaking of audio books: the narrators!  The book is narrated by Rachel, the main narrator of the book (Clare Corbett), Megan, who narrates fairly frequently (Louise Brealey) and Anna, who narrates sporadically (India Fisher). I’m not the biggest fan of multiple narrators, but it worked so well for this book, particularly with how Hawkins did it.  Rachel does narrate most of the book, but you get random sections from Megan and Anna, and I have no idea why it worked, but it did.

I’m glad they went with 3 different narrators for the audio, because I can’t imagine one person narrating all three women.  And it really helped distinguish between the three.  I did have to figure out who was who (this post was really helpful, plus they have excerpts).  I really liked who they selected as narrators- Corbett, Brealey and Fisher really brought Rachel, Megan and Anna to life, and they totally sounded like how I would expect the characters to sound.  I think Corbett was my favorite (probably because we hear her the most), but I would also listen to anything Brealey narrated.  Fisher was definitely my least favorite, and Anna was the character who I hated the most.

I hated Anna so much that I was glad we didn’t see her narrate more.  Because the more we saw of her, the more I hated her.  She came across as a vindictive, whiny spoiled brat, and…as weird as this is…I found myself yelling at her whenever we saw her.  The other characters, particularly Megan and Rachel, have a bit more to them than Anna did, and overall, it’s a good look at characters and why they act the way they do.

I’ve seen the comparisons to Gone Girl, but I won’t, because I haven’t read it, and I’m not comfortably with saying anything either way.

3 stars.  I liked it- it was really engrossing, and I wanted to keep listening, but I didn’t love it either.

Book: Shadow Study by Maria V Snyder, Narrated by Gabra Zackman

Published February 2015 by Harlequin|11 hours, 28 minutes

Where I Got It: I got the audio book from audible.com

Series: Soulfinders #1, Chronicles Of Ixia #7, Study #4

Genre: Adult Fantasy

Once, only her own life hung in the balance…

When Yelena was a poison taster, her life was simpler. She survived to become a vital part of the balance of power between rival countries Ixia and Sitia.

Now she uses her magic to keep the peace in both lands—and protect her relationship with Valek.

Suddenly, though, dissent is rising. And Valek’s job—and his life—are in danger.

As Yelena tries to uncover her enemies, she faces a new challenge: her magic is blocked.And now she must find a way to keep not only herself but all that she holds dear alive.

I really liked Shadow Study!  When I found out there was going to be another book set in this world, I was so excited because I really like this world and the characters.

It was really nice to see what was going on with Yelena and Valek, which, of course, means we got to see what was going on with Ari and Janco.  We even got to see how Opal (who appeared in the Study series, and later had her own series) was doing, which was nice.

What really stood out to me was Valek’s story.  The book alternates between Yelena and Valek, with a few chapters narrated by Janco.  Janco’s chapters were fun, and it was nice to get inside his head a little.  And it was nice to spend more time with Yelena, who has to deal with all sorts of stuff, mostly in regards to having her magic blocked.  We’ll get to that later, I just want to talk about Valek first.

But it was Valek’s story that really stood out.  He’s a very feared assassin, and I’m glad we finally got to see a more detailed life story for him.  We see more about his assassin training, and I liked seeing his memories, and how it all started coming back to him in a time when there were a lot of things going on.  I love Yelena, but I found myself wanting to get to Valek’s story, because I could not get enough of it!  Especially with some stuff going on with the Commander.

Speaking of the Commander, I did like seeing how he and Valek met, and became friends.  And with certain things that are revealed…you know that’s going somewhere interesting, and will have a massive effect on Sitia and Ixia.  (At least, that’s what I think, if things go in a certain direction).

I am also curious about Yelena’s magic, and the fact that it’s blocked.  I have no idea what could be causing it, and it is quite curious.  I did like seeing how vulnerable it made her, and how she was so dependent on using that not having it was hard.  I really have no idea what’s going on, but in this case, I think it’s a good thing, because it really makes me want to know what happens next.  I know this is vague- which is because I don’t want to spoil it- but I wonder if a certain thing we learn at the very end of the book is connected somehow.  It’s a weird feeling/thought I had, and I am very, very curious about how that will change things.

We also meet some new characters, but the one that stood out the most was Onora.  There is a lot more to her than we see, and I really want to her story…and if she and Janco will end up together.  Actually, I think I would like that, because they seem good together.  I think they would be good together, like how Yelena and Valek are good together.

And I have to talk about the narration, because it would be silly not to, especially since I listened to the audio book.  I’m really glad that Gabra Zackman is narrating this series.  Well, I’m assuming she is, but there doesn’t seem to be any information about the other books yet, but changing narrators after 4 books would be weird. Anyway, I really like her narration, and I can’t picture anyone else as Yelena.

4 stars.  Shadow Study makes me so glad that we’re getting another book about Yelena and Valek, and it’s so nice to see more of them!

Book: Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres, Narrated by Elizabeth Evans

Published December 2012 by Audible Studios|Length: 10 hours, 6 minutes

Where I Got It: Audible.com

Series: None

Genre: Adult Non-fiction- Memoir

You can find Jesus Land on goodreads

Goodreads Summary: 

“Sinners go to: HELL. Rightchuss go to: HEAVEN. The end is neer: REPENT. This here is: JESUS LAND.”

Julia Scheeres stumbles across these signs along the side of a cornfield while out biking with her adopted brother David. It’s the mid-1980s, they’re sixteen years old, and have just moved to rural Indiana, a landscape of cottonwood trees and trailer parks–and a racism neither of them is prepared for. While Julia is white, her close relationship with David, who’s black, makes them both outcasts. At home, a distant mother–more involved with her church’s missionaries than with her own children–and a violent father only compound their problems. When the day comes that high-school hormones, racist brutality, and a deep-seated restlessness prove too much to bear, their parents’ solution is reform school–in the Dominican Republic.

In this riveting memoir, first-time author Scheeres takes us with her from the Midwest to a place beyond imagining. Surrounded by natural beauty, the Escuela Caribe is nonetheless characterized by a disciplinary regime that demands its teens repent for their sins under boot-camp conditions. Julia and David’s striving to make it through is told here with startling immediacy, extreme candor, and not an ounce of malice.

What I Thought: 

After reading A Thousand Lives a couple of years ago (also written by Scheeres), Jesus Land was on my radar, but it wasn’t until recently that I decided to listen to it.  It’s definitely one of the more interesting books I’ve read in a while.

I really felt for Scheeres, who really had some horrible parents.  Her dad was largely absent, due to being a doctor, but violent when he is around.  And her mother is much more interested in religion than raising children.  Their home seemed more like a compound (largely due to the intercoms installed in the house) rather than a home, and her parents seem like the sort of people who would adopt 2 African-American boys to show how Christian they are, rather than because they really want to. As for their biological children?  We only see Julia (and not her other siblings) but their idea of parenting is to provide the basic necessities and no affection or caring.  They’re pretty distant and detached and unfeeling.  Still, I do sort of admire them for adopting when it would have been easy not to.  And while not really presented in the book, they may have started out with the best of intentions before things went terribly wrong.

The fact that they would get rid of David’s things days after he goes to reform school at the age of 16, and some of the comments they made after his early, tragic death at the age of 20 were just horrible.  You do have to wonder if their relationships with Julia’s older siblings were different, because they seemed pretty indifferent to Julia, David and Jerome.  It made me so sad, and so angry on their behalf.  I do have trouble believing that rural Indiana in the 70’s/80’s is as bad as seen in the book, and there is a part of me that wonders if maybe parts of it were embellished.  There were so many times when it seemed like the book was set much earlier, and it was always jarring to hear the author reference Duran Duran or Reagan, because it seemed like the book happened several decades earlier than it did.

And the school they had to go to!  I can’t believe a school like that exists, and yet I’m not surprised that such a school would exist.  The things that they had to do- asking permission for everything, including sitting up or down or leaving or entering a room, or using a machete to whack weeds or carrying rocks back and forth for no reason.  The reasons why the kids ended up at the school in the first place seemed to be very over-exaggerated and twisted.  Julia drinking at a party?  It means she’s an alcoholic.  Julia’s brother Jerome ending up in jail?  Julia and David will be kept at the school for as long as necessary, even if they’re legally adults, just to make sure that they don’t end up going down the same path.

Here’s where one of my reservations about the book comes in.  I mean, Julia does make quite a few mistakes but doesn’t seem to show any responsibility for her actions.  Granted, the book ends when she leaves Escuela Caribe, plus an epilogue that gives a brief overview of her life and David’s after leaving the school.  Even in the epilogue, she doesn’t reflect on why she ended up in so much trouble.  It doesn’t make everything else that happened okay, but I do wish we saw even a hint of owning up to her mistakes.

Another thing that I thought was interesting was how one-sided her account seemed.  Every adult was horrible and cruel and stupid, and I’m really skeptical of that.

As much as I appreciate her experience, and how horrible some of these reform schools are, and the racism she had to deal with just because of her adopted brothers, and how horrible it is to use religion (particularly Christianity) to abuse kids, there’s also something this memoir that didn’t quite sit right with me.  It wasn’t as reflective as I thought, and while I know it’s Scheeres memoir, something about it seemed very one-sided to me.

Let’s Rate It:

Parts of Jesus Land made me so angry and so sad.  While parts of it were interesting (especially when she was at Escuela Caribe), overall, something about it seemed off to me.  I did love the relationship she had with her brother David, and how they’d do almost anything for each other.  Jesus Land gets 3 stars.

Book: Crow by Barbara Wright, narrated by J.D. Jackson

Published July 2013 by Listening Library|Run Time: 7 hours, 28 minutes

Where I Got It: from audible.com

Series: None

Genre: Middle Grade Historical Fiction

You can find Crow on goodreads & Barbara Wright on twitter and her website

Goodreads Summary: 

The summer of 1898 is filled with ups and downs for 11-year-old Moses. He’s growing apart from his best friend, his superstitious Boo-Nanny butts heads constantly with his pragmatic, educated father, and his mother is reeling from the discovery of a family secret. Yet there are good times, too. He’s teaching his grandmother how to read. For the first time she’s sharing stories about her life as a slave. And his father and his friends are finally getting the respect and positions of power they’ve earned in the Wilmington, North Carolina, community. But not everyone is happy with the political changes at play and some will do anything, including a violent plot against the government, to maintain the status quo.

One generation away from slavery, a thriving African American community—enfranchised and emancipated—suddenly and violently loses its freedom in turn of the century North Carolina when a group of local politicians stages the only successful coup d’etat in US history.

What I Thought:

I am so glad I listened to Crow!  I didn’t even know that there were race riots in Wilmington in 1898, or that it was the only successful coup d’etat in U.S. history, and I really want to know more!

What I really like about this book is that it takes place a generation after the Civil War.  As far as civil rights and politics go, it’s definitely an unusual time period- at least, in my experience with middle grade/YA historical fiction.  I really love it when historical fiction focuses on something I’ve never heard about, because I also want to learn more, and this book is no exception to that.

I don’t know much about the South during that time period, but I really liked seeing how Moses dealt with his family, friends, and people in Wilmington, and how aware he was of what had happened, and what was going on.  It really is a good look at what someone’s life might have been like during that time.  I could picture everything so well, and there is a lot of detail.

It did start off slow, and it took awhile to get to the actual riots and events of what happened that year.  It made it hard to get into at first, because I wasn’t sure where things were going, but I did like that we saw what things were like before this happened.  I also LOVED that there was an author’s note at the end of the book, explaining what happened and where the author got her inspiration for the book.  It doesn’t seem too common in middle grade/YA historical fiction, so it was nice to hear it.

I thought it was fine as an audio book, and the narrator…he fit, and yet he didn’t.  I did feel like there wasn’t much variation in his tone- there was something sort of monotone about his voice, and I couldn’t listen to it in the car, because something about  his voice was very soothing, and kind of made me want to sleep, which isn’t good when you’re trying to drive.  Yet I could picture him as a 12-year-old boy.

Let’s Rate It: 

Overall, I really liked Crow, and I feel inspired to learn more about what happened in Wilmington in 1898.  I have mixed feelings about the narrator but overall, I liked the narration too.  Crow gets 4 stars.