For Thanksgiving this year I drove down to my parents house in Florida. It is about an 8 hour drive, and I was making the haul alone this time. About an hour into the trip I was tired of flipping through radio stations and digging through old CD's (you would have thought I could have planned better, as I am a list maker...). I was coming up to an exit with a Cracker Barrel (yummm) when I realized that they have the audio books that you can rent. I've seen audio books in Borders and Barnes & Noble before but they were always so expensive that I never really wanted to give them a try. I also don't really know when/where I would listen to them. My commute to work is pretty short, and other than that when I'm in the car I want to jam!
I decided that I would stop at Cracker Barrel and see about getting and audio book. I figured, I've got seven more hours to go, I might as well "read" a book. I browsed through the rack of audio books and found one that peaked my interest:
Insatiable by Meg Cabot. I love Meg Cabot and thought it would be a great book to try.
After finding out that I have to put up the full amount of the audio book ($44.00) and would be reimbursed everything except for the $3.95 rental fee, I couldn't take it any longer. I had to see what all the hype was about audio books. I got back into the car, and continued the long trek. I had a lot of things going through my mind going into this.
What if I don't like the voice of the person reading me this book?
What if I can't follow along?
What if it is too fast? Or too slow?
What if I start to fall asleep listening to this?
What if, what if, what if...
Well, as it turns out, the voice of the lady reading the book was awful. She sounded like a twelve year old girl that really enjoyed using accents and making funny sounds. It wasn't hard to follow along with the story line....but after a full CD I thought -- "Wow, there are a lot of CD's in this case -- I wonder how long this book is." 16.45 hours, that's how long. The woman girl reading the book read at a snails pace and I kept getting really bored. At one point I really thought I was going to fall asleep if she didn't pick up the pace.
Once I realized how long the book was and that there was no way I could stand to listen to the little girl any longer, I switched back to channel surfing the radio. As soon as I made it down to my parents house I busted out the Kindle and downloaded the book.
Needless to say -- audio books are not for me. I am way too ADD and such a control freak that I have to read the books myself. My boyfriend jokingly told me that the only way he thinks I would enjoy an audio book would be if I recorded it myself. Half because I love to hear my own voice...
Have you tried audio books before? Do you like them? Am I missing something? The thrill just wasn't there for me. I'm sticking to regular books until someone gives me the secret!
Happy Reading!
All of Erin's life, her older sister has eclipsed her, stolen her boyfriends, and commanded the family's attention with one meteoric crisis or another. Meghan was always smarter, prettier, more daring and dynamic. As a child, she could charm her way out o any situation, usually leaving Erin to shoulder the lame for their various transgressions. But Meghan has been gone for years, and now Erin is eager to leave Butte behind her, too: to go east to art school or west to Los Angeles to become a jewelry designer - anywhere, so long as it's far from Butte, Montana. Then Meghan, a single mother with a six-year-old daughter and an infant, unexpectedly returns, again expecting Erin and their mother to solve her problems. But this time there are other people involved, no easy solution to those problems, and no one else to blame.
