January Round-up: Audiobook Edition

Hello, Reader Friends! One of my intentions for this year is be more thorough in my reading logs. I made a new spreadsheet to help with tracking not only the titles I’ve read, but also genre, format, and publication year. I also have a spot for marking if the title is borrowed, bought, or an advance copy.

I know my audiobook reading went way down last year after I kept devouring podcast after podcast but the current political fiasco has me retreating to my books. January was a great month for listening to books and I was fortunate enough to get my hands on some great titles.

January Audiobooks:

Definitely use headphones for this one! An Almond for a Parrot is a wild ride! I hadn’t heard of this title before stumbling across it on Libby. Tully, an extremely sheltered young woman has found herself in jail accused of murder. Through her writing of her life story, we discover her troubled childhood, her rise as a highly sought after courtesan and magician’s assistant, and the pain she experiences at the hands of her estranged husband. This is a highly juicy story of sexual awakening full of magical realism and is often told in a dream-like prose. I’m very picky about my narrators and narrator Rachel Atkins gives a wonderful performance.


This was very buzzy for a while and with good reason. Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. She left that role to her older sister Olga and after her sudden death, realizes her sister was all she believed to be. An amazing story full of family drama, young love, and learning how to live up your own expectations. Great audio performance by Kyla Garcia.


I really like non-fiction on Audio and this one did not disappoint. James Clear provides a simple, step-by-step path for using good habits to change your life for the better. While much of it is common sense, sometimes you need another person to guide you onto the path of success. The author narrates the book and provides an easy to listen to performance.


A more literary take on the dystopian “sickness takes over the world” novel. Beautifully performed by Cassandra Campbell, it’s a very quiet book about a town quarantined after college students succumb to a mysterious sleeping sickness.


Another amazing narration and story! I had heard of this book several times and couldn’t pass it up when I saw it was available on Libby. Definitely use headphones with this one!

Thinking she is going to be teaching elderly widows how to write creative stories, Nikki finds herself with a group of middle aged women who haven’t been taught basic literacy skills. With her job on the line, Nikki struggles with the women wanting to write erotic stories about their desires and lived experiences. She finds herself more and more protective of her students and the scandal of what truly goes on in her classroom could devastate her entire community.

 

As always, purchasing through the links helps support the site as I earn a few pennies by participating in the Amazon Associates program.