The Hunger Games Trilogy

By Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games was pretty good! Like every story where  the main character is a teenage girl, you have to expect lots of talk about feelings and some very G-rated  kissing scenes. There is plenty of gore to make up for it. It’s kind of written for a mixed crowd, she says she write the books for high school aged kids so they can think about their own lives and how to apply it, while still appealing to a broader audience.

If you have no idea what the Hunger Games are for some reason, the basic plot takes place in the not so distance future. The US (or world?, not clear to me) is called Panam and is broken up into several  districts. Each district is in charge of a different resource, which mostly goes to the district which is run by Jersey Shore & One Direction members. The districts are very poor, and lorded over by The Capitol. Each year one boy and one girl is chosen to fight to the death in an arena something similar to the Truman Show, except its basically wilderness and they know they are on TV. This all somehow reminds the districts how powerful The Capitol is and reminds them not to rebel again.

I listened to these audiobooks twice while at work, with about 5 years between. I enjoyed them on both occasions. The first book is the best, and if you never listen to the second two books you will be just as well off. The second book is interesting but not as much as the first, it’s somewhat of a remix of the first. The third book is very different. I felt like the third book was very scattered and theres a lot of standing around and talking about feelings and peoples back story. I do however feel like the third would make for a better movie than an audiobook. The ending? It was a pretty good ending, I won’t spoil it.

I will recommend you listen to this audiobook, if the movies haven’t ruined it for you. I actually don’t know if the movies are any good. I did watch the first one and thought it was ok, but had no interest in watching the other 2? or 3? Why was it made into 4 movies? These audiobooks definitely made my work days go pretty quick, even upon the second listen. 

Runtime: Aprx 35 hours

                                                                                          ★★★★☆ 4/5 Stars

                                                         Genre: Adventure, Science Fiction, Drama Action

Book to movie rating: B+?

Gullivers travels

By: Jonathan Swift

When starting  this audiobook I had no idea the book was written in 1726. This fact makes the book for way more interesting for me. I knew it was old but not that old. This was my first listening to a Vibrivox recording audiobook. It was not too bad. I have since started a few others and as most of us avid audiobook listeners know, a reader can really make or break an audiobook. In this case, the main character was a man, but the reader was a woman. This unsettled me throughout the listen, but I eventually got used to it.

So the book is basically about an odd fellow named Gulliver who prefers to spend more time exploring the seas than with his wife and kids, sailing and exploring for many years at a time. He stumbles upon all of the strangest lands imaginable. One place he is a giant and the next place he is the opposite. He ends up in one land where horses are intelligent and humans are wild and stupid. He takes a lover from the horse people and later despises his family.

This audiobook was enjoyable because it shows a lot of how our society then and now are so stuck on things that really don’t matter, or things like war and how evil we can be. I felt this audiobook was very comparable to the Lemony Snickets series of today. Kind of the same story remixed several times, yet still entertaining while on the work grind.

It was a good listen and a literary classic, put it on your “to-llsten-to” list. 

Run Time Apprx 11.5 hours.

★★★☆☆ 3/5 Stars

Genre: Satire, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Book to Movie Rating: A

Twilight Series

By Stephenie Meyer

Oh boy, where do I start? Basically Twilight is exectly what you think it is. If you think it is a romance story best suited for 13 year old girls, then you are right. If you are a 13 year old girl, I would listen to this audiobook while you are doing homework. If you are a 30 year old man at his day job, I would say you’d be better suited to enjoy something like… Anything else.

I endured this book for two reasons: 1. Because it was so big in my time. 2. So I can write this review.

My next thought: This series would have been great if Bella had been left out. It’s basically her diary on how she loves the smell of Edwards breath. There are gobs of scenes where she is smelling it. It’s like the same non-sex scene through out the entire series. Light kissing and breath sniffing. 

What made this even worse was the narrator Ilyana Kadushin’s very unfortunate accent. Could someone Please! buy Stephenie Meyer a friggin thesaurus? I wonder if anyone has counted how many time the word “horrible” is used. What is worst is that Kadushin says Harrible the entire time, along with Flarida, Priarities, and Sawns (sans). Is that how people talk in the North West? Gross.

There are two bright spots in this series and Im not talking about the sparkling vampires. That is Jacob was pretty cool. Sometimes a different narrator was used for him. (Kadushan called him Jay-Cup) Also the last book was slightly more about vampires. It was 10x better than the first book.

I thought it was a little hokie how the vampires had special abilities on top of being vampires, like they were basically super heroes and also weird how Jacob wasn’t actually a werewolf, and what he was, he was very in control of. Spoiler? Impossible.

This audiobook series was a colossal waste of time. I’m glad I was listening while I was at work, so at least I was getting paid. I seriously have no idea how this series ever got big.

I will not recommend this series for any reason, even to a thirteen year old.

Oh also how the heck does a 90 year old fall in love with a 17 year old? She wasn’t very attractive. Only perverts and weirdos past the age of about 21 would ever pay the slightly attention to an average looking 17 year old high schooler and all their drama crap.

Run Time Apprx 64 hours.

★☆☆☆☆ 1/5 Stars

Book Listing:

Twilight

New Moon

Eclipse

Breaking Dawn

Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Young-Adult, Fiction

NPH: Double Feature

By: Neil Patrick Harris

The Bro Code & Choose Your Own Autobiography.

Neil Patrick Harris, the Legend. NPH has released two creative books for our listening pleasure. These audiobooks are both very multidimensional. They are much more than a listening experience. In both cases he encourages listeners to be very hands-on. A PDF is included with the Bro Code, with facts, figures, diagrams, and lots of fun pictures. Choose your own Biography is much the same, be sure to have a deck of cards on hand because you will learn a lot of magic throughout this magical listening experience. I feel like both of these audiobooks are best enjoyed in paper form, but are still great for listening. Try not to laugh too much while listening at work, your co-workers might give you strange looks and before you know it audiobooks will be banned because of you and NPH.

The Bro Code, written by NPH’s Alter Ego Barney Stenson, is a book of rules and regulations on how to be a Bro, what Bro’s do and what Bro’s do not do, also what is a Bro? Are you a Bro? Is your sister a Bro? While written largely for men who want to “bang more chicks” There are a few things that Barney speaks to women about. No matter your sex, this is a hilarious listen and is relatively short. If you are a HIMYM fan, you will love this audiobook.

When you were a kid did you ever read Choose-Your-Own Adventure books? Where you read a chapter then you decide if you go into the creepy Circus Tent, or go explore the Ferris Wheel of Death? Well, that is how NPH chose to write his autobiography. If you are into magic and the personal lives of celebrities, then you will love this book. Of the autobiographies that I have listened to, this was probably the best. He talks all about his life, growing up, all the way through the creation of Barney Stenson, and today with his man, David and kids… and hanging out in Greece with Sir Elton and his man, David.

NPH is an extremely talented Actor, writer, and self proclaimed magician. If you have enjoyed his work on his various platforms I would suggest both of these highly entertaining and innovative books. NHP is his own person, has come a long way from the in-the-closet Doogie Howser and doesn’t care what you think. He’s friends with Sir Elton John, and almost got beat up by Tweeter from Varsity Blues.

Bro Code: 1hr 43 Minutes.

Choose Your Own Autobiography: 7 hr 16 Minutes

 ★★★☆☆ 3/5 Stars

Genre: Non-fiction, fiction, humor, autobiography, adult, memoir,