Tag: audiobook

Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove by. Rati Mehrotra | Audiobook Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Title: Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove

Author: Rati Mehrotra

Narrator: Zehra Naqvi

Format: audoiobook (borrowed)

Pages: 352

Publication Date: 10/18/22

Categories: Fantasy, Young Adult, Adventure, Romance

To learn what she can become, she must first discover who she is.

Katyani’s role in the kingdom of Chandela has always been clear: becoming an advisor and protector of the crown prince, Ayan, when he ascends to the throne. Bound to the Queen of Chandela through a forbidden soul bond that saved her when she was a child, Katyani has grown up in the royal family and become the best guardswoman the Garuda has ever seen. But when a series of assassination attempts threatens the royals, Katyani is shipped off to the gurukul of the famous Acharya Mahavir as an escort to Ayan and his cousin, Bhairav, to protect them as they hone the skills needed to be the next leaders of the kingdom. Nothing could annoy Katyani more than being stuck in a monastic school in the middle of a forest, except her run-ins with Daksh, the Acharya’s son, who can’t stop going on about the rules and whose gaze makes her feel like he can see into her soul.

But when Katyani and the princes are hurriedly summoned back to Chandela before their training is complete, tragedy strikes and Katyani is torn from the only life she has ever known. Alone and betrayed in a land infested by monsters, Katyani must find answers from her past to save all she loves and forge her own destiny. Bonds can be broken, but debts must be repaid.

Content Warning: violence, whipping scene, death

I read this one as an audiobook and I am horrible with retaining details when I’m doing an audiobook but I’m trying to practice by listening to more audiobooks! With that said I found this book to be very entertaining. The narrator did such an excellent job doing to the voices for everyone.

I loved the action, adventure and humor in this book. The world-building is lush and it’s inspired by medieval India, which I thought was cool. I really enjoyed the relationships between the characters. Katayani’s relationship with the royals she grew up protecting was so fun to listen to because they acted like siblings. There were a few twists in this book and some that are heartbreaking – this story is emotional. There is a romance and I thought it was entertaining with how it started since the Katayani and Daksh are such opposites in character. It got rough for the two of them though.

There were some parts in the second half of the book that I was pushing through and I couldn’t understand why I was ready for the story to be over – don’t know if it’s because it’s an audiobook and I was impatient to finish or something in the story wasn’t holding my attention.

Tropes: opposites attract

Why you should read it:

  • it’s a standalone fantasy
  • the romance between Katayani and Daksh
  • the adventure, world-building and relationships between characters

Why you might not want to read it:

  • some pacing issues

My Thoughts:

Overall, I found this one to be really entertaining. I liked the world building, relationships and Katayani’s strong personality. The adventure kept the story moving. It had only slight some pacing issues but I still think it was an enjoyable story.

Book Links:

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Cool for the Summer by. Dahlia Adler | Book Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: Cool for the Summer

Author: Rachel Gillig

Format: audiobook (borrowed)

Pages: 272

Publication Date: 5/10/21

Categories: Young Adult, New Adult, LGBT+, Romance, Coming of Age

Lara’s had eyes for exactly one person throughout her three years of high school: Chase Harding. He’s tall, strong, sweet, a football star, and frankly, stupid hot. Oh, and he’s talking to her now. On purpose and everything. Maybe…flirting, even? No, wait, he’s definitely flirting, which is pretty much the sum of everything Lara’s wanted out of life.

Except she’s haunted by a memory. A memory of a confusing, romantic, strangely perfect summer spent with a girl named Jasmine. A memory that becomes a confusing, disorienting present when Jasmine herself walks through the front doors of the school to see Lara and Chase chatting it up in front of the lockers.

Lara has everything she ever wanted: a tight-knit group of friends, a job that borders on cool, and Chase, the boy of her literal dreams. But if she’s finally got the guy, why can’t she stop thinking about the girl?

Cool for the Summer is a story of self-discovery and new love. It’s about the things we want and the things we need. And it’s about the people who will let us be who we are.

This is one of the books I’ve been waiting to read and I’m surprised I actually listened to the full thing as an audiobook (I usually cannot finish an audiobook) but this one was short, under 300 pages so this was definitely doable. This is what I thought:

+ I like how this is a coming of age story about Lara and her finally getting the crush of her dreams to look at her, popular boy, Chase – but yet harboring a secret summer affair with a girl, named Jasmine.

+ Apparently this has a Grease inspired vibe to it, but queer. I thought it was cute! “Summer lovin’, had me a blast!” Lara definitely had a blast with Jasmine and then she shows up up Lara’s high school and she has to figure out how she feels about both Chase and Jasmine. And I do like how it was okay for Lara to try to figure things out, even though if it got a bit messy, I like that as a character she was allowed to feel all her chaotic feelings about Jasmine and Chase. She’s a teenager, she’s not going to know herself overnight.

+ I do think this leans more towards new adult mostly because of Lara’s sexual experiences with both Jasmine and Chase. It’s not super graphic, but it does get hot and heavy.

~ I had to pay more attention to the story of course because it was an audiobook and maybe I missed some things but I think I got the gist of things. Lara is always in her feelings about Jasmine and Chase, so we are in her thoughts a lot. There’s a lot of angst. And at times I was impatient with her back and forth feelings but mostly because it was an audiobook. So that’s on me.

~ The flashbacks had me paying attention hard to this audiobook, because if I didn’t, I would think it was all in the present.

Why you should read it:

  • coming of age book about trying to figure things out, Lara trying to figure out if she likes girls, boys or both

Why you might not want to read it:

  • it’s one of those stories where a lot of things could be cleared up if the main characters would actually talk to one another

My Thoughts:

The best thing about this book for me was Lara’s coming of age story and trying to figure out who she is and who she likes and being okay with all of that, which is a great message for readers.

Book Links:

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Strange the Dreamer by. Laini Taylor | Book Review | Audiobook

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: Strange the Dreamer (#1)

Author: Laini Taylor

Format: Audiobook (borrowed)

Pages: 544

Publication Date: 3/27/17

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Categories: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Audiobook

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

Welcome to Weep.

For some reason I had a hard time getting through the beginning of this book when I was reading it as a physical book. I don’t know why! So while I was making my daughter a plushy I said, okay, I’ll give audiobooks a try again since I need something to listen to as I craft and chose to listen to this book. I am not sure what I was thinking but…I got through it and I’m not a big audiobook fan.

As for the narrator, Steve West, he did so good! His voice is mesmerizing, which is perfect for the author’s prose. I did giggle when he had to do some of the female dialogue but for the most part – it was his voice that kept me invested in this story. It’s a 500+ paged book and 67 chapters – I really didn’t think I’d survive the audiobook version, but I found myself wanting to hear the narrator speak.

Laini Taylor is a master at world building, imagery and magical prose. This story comes to life in this audiobook, and one word kept standing out to me, sumptuous. Every description of this world is so lush, detailed, beautiful even when it is a nightmare. The story building is wonderful as we meet Lazlo Strange and his obsession with stories of a place called Weep. Everyone thinks it’s a fairytale, a story not real until…it is real. We go on this adventure with Lazlo as he travels to the Citadel to uncover the mysteries of Weep and it’s history. We also meet Sarai, a godspawn being, half god, half human and forgotten until she is found. I cared about all the characters, humans, gods, godspawn and even the ghosts.

What we find is a story of gods and humans, of massacred babies, ghosts who want peace and revenge, and godspawn half human/half god children who were forgotten and reviled. It’s a sad story, a complicated story, a heartbreaking one of choices made, and consequences of those actions and choices. It’s a story also about love and falling in love, the learning of kisses and emotions, of longing and pleasure.

I enjoyed the puzzle of Weep and Lazlo’s patience in piecing everything together. He really grows as a character from an orphan, library apprentice to finding out who he really is.

Triggers: death, violence, violence against children

Because it was an audiobook I felt like there were a lot of repetition in the story like when it came to describing life as a godspawn or even just the kissing scenes (which are beautiful) but Minya is about to kill everyone and the Godslayer is about to do something also…I wanted all that action! Would I have read through these areas faster? Maybe. There was a few parts in the beginning where I felt like things could have moved faster but there is a lot of describing going on! It is almost a 600 page book and although I love the flowery prose, at times I wanted to get to the point. Once again – this might be because I was listening to it as an audiobook, I’m not sure? I had to listen while my kids talked to me or had Roblox playing in the background haha. It was a challenge!

Why you should read it:

  • Intricate, unique world and story building, beautiful imagery
  • Amazing characters
  • Emotional story about love, hate, war

Why you might not want to read it:

  • Overly descriptive prose, sometimes repetitive and not a lot of action
  • Flowery prose is not your thing
  • Slow beginning

My thoughts:

This book was hyped up years ago and though I LOVE this author, but I couldn’t get into the story until now…4 years later! And only through audiobook I could get through the beginning because it is so slow. I just borrowed Muse of Nightmares as an ebook just in case there are slow parts again that I can speed through, I hope. Underneath all the fluffy and sumptuous words, is a beautiful, creative story about gods, humans and godspawn. I need to know what happens next and I hope it’s good.

📚~Yolanda