Not every book makes a great audiobook, but a lot of books are so much better when read by the author and listened to.

I didn’t start listening to audio books until a couple years ago and it’s been a game changer. I can get through so many more books in a year if I listen to a few while I’m driving, at the gym, cooking, etc.

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This month I listened to three audio books that I’d like to share with you:

The Catch Me If You Can – Jessica Nabongo

To start, congrats to Jessica Nabongo for officially traveling to every country in the world! What an amazing accomplishment. 🌍 🏆

I really wanted to love this book. I hadn’t ever heard of it or Jessica Nabongo before or this book. However, when I was searching through my libraries “available now” audiobooks, I found it and was instantly interested. I love to travel and I love to hear other’s stories about traveling.

Unfortunately, Nabongo’s book just didn’t do it for me. The book was far too short! She chose not even to talk about her visits to a few countries because they didn’t feel significant to her. In my opinion, some of the countries she did write about were still insignificant as she added little detail about her visit and sometimes only spend 24-48 hours in the country.

After reading the book intro, I was really excited to laugh, learn about cultures in other countries, hear about how Nabongo planned and financed her travels (as we all know that’s the hard part!). Instead, I found myself hearing repetitive stories about great food, travel delays and visa issues, and very little that kept me engrossed in the book. ✈️

Usually when I read book about travel I am immediately motivated to spend hours on google researching destinations, travel deals, and planning vacations I may never take. But the motivation is there. After reading about Nabongos speed visit to ever country in the world, I truly didn’t feel motivated at all.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t recommend the book, because there wasn’t really anything wrong with it per se. I just had high hopes and it fell very short of the reach/impact I feel it could have had.

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Broken (In the best possible way) – Jenny Lawson

Jenny Lawson does it again. She may be one of my favorite writers to be honest. I haven’t put a lot of thought into who would be on my favorites list, but she’d definitely make the cut.

That being said …

This book is a rollercoaster in the best possible way. 🎢 Jenny Lawson writes about living life with a memory disorder, anxiety and depression, and being autoimmune compromised all while living through a global pandemic.

She is funny and honest and it’s so easy to listen to her read through the book. I HIGHLY advise you listen to any book by Lawson as she adds so much character to the story. I think if I were reading through some of the chapters where she trails off on a massive string of unrelated thoughts I’d get lost as a reader. Hearing her read it though and listening to the progression of thought makes everything much clearer and adds a level of entertainment many other audiobooks just don’t have.

I spent hours laughing in my car while listening to this book while Lawson tells stories about her marriage, her health, and her daily struggle with finding happiness and hope. 😂

To give you an idea of the the crevices this book crawls into, here are four quotes that made me laugh, made me feel, or otherwise were just so off topic I couldn’t help but remember:

“Whenever something truly mortifying happens, you have a choice. You can let it haunt you for the rest of your life or you can celebrate it, as today’s awkward moment is tomorrow’s fantastic story.”

“LIFE IS LIKE RIDING A BICYCLE … It’s hard and sweaty and surprisingly tough on your genitals. Also, you’re going to fall a lot.”

“I have managed to fuck shit up in shockingly, impressive ways and still be considered a fairly acceptable person.”

“Forgive yourself. For being broken. For being you. For thinking those are things that you need forgiveness for.”

— Jenny Lawson (Broken (In the Best Possible Way))

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Find Me – Alafair Burke

Book 6 in the Ellie Hatcher Series (I didn’t know this before I started it, but it’s fine as a stand alone.)

This was another book I found on a whim when none of the books I wanted to read were available yet so I just picked one that was “available now”.

But I’m not mad about it.

I don’t typically read a lot of thrillers, but it’s not that I don’t like them, I just like other books better.

Find Me is about a friendship between Hope and Lindsey that was founded in unusual circumstances. Hope was in an amnesia inducing car accident that Lindsey witnessed. As Hope had no recollection of the accident or her identity, Lindsey took her under her wing and helped her rebuild a life for herself. 💥🚗

Hope was stuck in amnesia limbo for 15 years staying glued to Lindsey’s side and developing a bad case of co-dependence.

Hope decides she wants to move and try to live on her own, apart from Lindsey to prove to herself (and anyone else) that she could.

She moves to a new town, and quickly thereafter, vanishes. Lindsey sets out to find her enlisting help of NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher (whom the series is about). Lindsey refuses to believe Hope just changed her name, started a new life somewhere, and left her behind without any closure.

Lindsey basically becomes obsessed with finding her friend, and in doing so, uncovers a lot more about Hope than she probably wanted to. Piecing together who Hope Miller really is lead to reopening a 23 year old unsolved serial killer investigation.

The phrase “one step forward, two steps back” explains how Lindsey’s attempt to find her friend was going. With each clue, came more unanswered questions. ❓❓❓

Find Me, like any good thriller would, kept me guessing “what happened to Hope Miller?”.

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Audiobook Apps

As mentioned in my post Love to Read and Save the Planet’s Resources? I do not spend money on audiobooks. I use two apps that I learned about from my local library (and I’ll be writing a post about here soon!). My favorite one, and the one I use most is called Libby and the other is SimplyE. My local library published a post in November 2022 introducing SimplyE to everyone who had a local library card.