Gone Girl (Audiobook)

Title: Gone Girl

Author: Gillian Flynn

Read by: Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group Limited (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Crime Thriller, Mystery, Crime

Length: 19 hours and 11 minutes

Synopsis: On the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne goes missing.  The living room of her house shows signs of a struggle, and the front door stands open when her husband, Nick Dunne, returns home.  As the investigation begins, the story unfolds from Nick's perspective, and in Amy's own words through her diary entries.  But things may not be as they seem, and halfway through the book, a whole new perspective on the events surrounding Amy's mysterious vanishing begins to emerge.  In a twisting, down-the-rabbit-hole, mystery, Gone Girl explores the complexity of human emotion and motivation, and the lengths to which we'll go for love, or hate.

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  I had no idea what to expect when I started this book, and as I listened, I began to realize that even partway through the book, I was still not sure what to expect.  Just as I began to think I had this story figured out, a new chapter would begin and the layers would peel back in unexpected (and occasionally horrifying) revelations.  The characters are intelligent, and aware of it, which makes them intriguing if not particularly likeable.  They're manipulative, of each other and the reader, spooling out the story in calculated doses designed to keep us guessing.  Whelan and Heyborne are delightful performers given the unenviable task of bringing these faintly distasteful characters to life, and they do a marvelous job.  More than once, while listening to this book, I found myself pausing in the midst of whatever I was doing, completely absorbed in the story.  As mysteries go, it's one of the most enjoyable I've read in a long time, and though I am generally wary of mysteries as audiobooks (I find it's easier to recall the details and nuances in print, this performance and story make it worth the extra attention.  To me, it's the equivalent of a summer blockbuster film: a popular, well-known story performed well, and while it might not get critical acclaim, it was a fun way to spend my time.  

Storm Front (Audiobook)

Title: Storm Front

Author: Jim Butcher

Read by: James Marsters

Publisher: Buzzy Multimedia (2009)

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Crime

Length: 8 hours, 1 minute

Synopsis:  Harry Dresden is a wizard.  Not a magician, available for birthday parties and parlour tricks, but a wizard.  As his advertisement reads: "Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment."  But life as Chicago's only wizard is anything but straightforward.  Some consider him a charlatan, and others are terrified by the mere mention of magic.  All in all, it means that rent money is hard to come by, and Dresden often earns his keep consulting with the police department on unusual cases.  But when he's called in to solve a gruesome murder-by-magic, Dresden finds himself struggling trying to stay one step ahead of the killer.  Even worse, he's under suspicion himself!  With lives on the line, Dresden would have to risk everything to find a murderer.  How far is he willing to go?

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  I'd been meaning to get into The Dresden Files for quite some time.  A friend in college recommended them, and I promptly filed that away for future reference in a folder in my mind which was subsequently lost.  I stumbled across it again at 4:00 am whilst paging through the books on offer at Audible.com.  Without hesitation, I downloaded Storm Front and started listening, then promptly had to stop and double check that I'd heard correctly.  Yes, I had.  In a double-dose of nerdiness, this urban fantasy gem is narrated by James Marsters, known for his role as Spike on the Joss Whedon TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Even if I'd had no idea who he was, I would have enjoyed his performance.  Butcher's story comes to life in this fast-paced narrative that blends elements of classic detective stories with a modern take on fantasy.  Urban fantasy is a particular favorite sub-genre for me, and I found this perspective interesting.  It isn't high fantasy with its vast, cosmic powers left to roam on city streets.  This feels smaller and more contained somehow.  There are rules and conventions and everything feels as if it has a solid categorization: black and white where the ethereal is so often painted in shades of grey.  In general, I prefer my fantasy to feel a little less tamed, but I enjoyed that the danger here came less from supernatural power than from the very human people wielding it.

The engineering of this audiobook is slightly different from most of the others that I've heard; it ends up sounding slightly lower in quality, as there's a slight hiss in the background, but for a story set in an analog world, I found the sound less of a distraction and more part of an appropriate ambiance.  Marsters reads quickly and personably; his is a very believable voice for Dresden, an important consideration in first-person audiobooks, I think.  All in all, I loved it.  This is an eight hour book, but I found time to finish it in under a day.  Fantasy buffs, rejoice, and be sure to check this one out.

The Knife and the Butterfly

Title: The Knife and the Butterfly 

Author: Ashley Hope Pérez

Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Mystery, Crime

Length: 204 pages

Synopsis:  Azael knows he's fallen in with bad company, but the MS-13 gang is as close as he gets to a real family.  His aunts and uncles have written him off, his dad's been deported and his mother's dead.  Now it's just Azael and his brother and the boys of MS-13.  Azael's girlfriend Becca wants him to clean up his act, and he agrees.  Time to turn over a new leaf.  When the gang heads out to deal with some members of the Crazy Crew gang, Azael figures once more can't hurt, right?  But when he wakes up after the fight in lock-up, his troubles have only just begun. 

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion: This was a quick read, though not one I would usually have picked up.  I've been working through a stack of young adult high-interest reads to build a database of reviews for a classroom library.  I stacked them up, promised to read them in order, and away I went.  This one was next, so I zipped through it.  It's gritty and sour, and though I don't know a thing about Salvadoran gangs and my Spanish is rudimentary, it feels real.  I understand where these characters are coming from, even if I can't imagine myself in their shoes.  There's beauty and gentleness in their lives too, whether it's in the sketches Azael draws in his black notebook, or in the love these kids have for friends, family, and even pets.  I think this is a group of people and characters whose stories aren't often told, and that Pérez has done so with compassion and truth.  This story is a sad one, full of knives, but even in that sharp, ugly, dangerous world, there are butterflies.

Madapple

Title: Madapple

Author: Christina Meldrum

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (2008)

Genre(s): Young Adult Fiction, Religion, Mystery, Crime

Length: 404 pages

Synopsis:  Aslaug is her mother’s daughter.  In fact, she knows almost no one else.  Though they live only minutes from a modern town in rural Maine, Maren Hellig has kept her daughter in almost complete isolation.  Their house has curtains tacked over the windows and no electricity or running water.  Aslaug’s understanding of the outside world comes from her mother’s lessons in science and languages, including everything from ancient Greek to the meaning of runes.  But when Maren dies unexpectedly, Aslaug learns that despite all her lessons, her mother had kept  many secrets.  Sent to live with relatives she never knew she had, Aslaug is thrown into a world she doesn’t understand with terrible consequences.

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  

This book was quite unexpectedly intriguing.  Its twisted plots unravel mysteries in almost every sense of the word.  Religion winds in amongst science, divinity with evil, dreams with hallucinations, old with new, truth with perception.  The story alternates between Aslaug’s expressive voice and the rigid but misleading half-truths that are laid out in the court records of a murder trial.  As the story unfurls, readers can’t help but wonder themselves what is true and what isn’t.  Nothing seems implausible in Aslaug’s world of science and religion, but questions are more common than answers, whatever the source.  Who, for example, is Aslaug’s father?  Who poisoned her aunt and cousin?  Why did Maren abandon her family to raise her daughter alone?  Every question only poses more, adding momentum to the driving force of the plot.  Madapple isn’t for the faint of heart, however.  It deals with dark realities and poses probing questions about the nature of our world and our relationship to it.  Moreover, the Aslaug’s first-person chapters have a tendency toward stream-of-consciousness, which some readers may find distracting, though I think it perfectly captures her isolation, confusion, and sense of herself.  Though the novel’s geared toward the ever popular and apparently voracious young adult market, it’s one that any mature reader could enjoy, provided he or she is all right with a brief trip down the rabbit-hole into a world that’s anything but wonderful.