My Favorite Audiobooks (Which You Should Read, Too)

Confession: Years ago, I swore off audiobooks and utterly refused to give them any thought at all. Also confession: I was wrong.

Go ahead, bookwyrms, take a screenshot of that because it doesn’t happen often! That I admit I’m wrong, I mean. I tend to be wrong on a fairly regular basis, but shhhh let me have this one. Forgive me, for I knew not what I did. Thankfully, I am now older, wiser, and have decided that, you know what? This audiobook thing is a pretty big deal after all.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday is technically books with numbers in the title, but I did that not too long ago here and I really have nothing to add. So instead, I want to talk about audiobooks. Because someone has to.

I’m going to admit, with my ADHD, I find audiobooks to be a unique sort of challenge. I have a tendency of having something playing in the background in general as background noise to help me focus . . . which means that sometimes when I listen to an audiobook, I tend to kind of tune out. Oops? I struggle with listening to epic fantasy, because I end up missing too many details, but I’ve found that I actually tend to like contemporary books more when I listen to the audiobooks! I’ve found a few other pros (for me, personally, at least).

Pros of listening to audiobooks:

• Can squeeze reading into many more random parts of the day (like driving!)
• More reading time is always a plus! More books!
• Totally different experience from physically reading a book.
• The voices! A good narrator can completely transform a book.
• Some books are just inevitably better when listening to them.

Illuminae

Let’s start with my very first audiobook experience, shall we? This one came highly recommended to me by a lot of people, so of course I was going to check it out. It’s also one of the first ones I recommend when people ask where they should start with audiobooks.

One-Line Summary: A group of people manage to escape a planet that was under attack only to find that a plague has broken out on their escape ship, and their fates now lie in the hands of two teenagers and an AI with dubious intentions.

Why I love it:

• Full cast audiobook means it’s more like a movie streamed right into your ears.
• Very different experience from the extremely unique epistolary book.
• Get to hear the characters in all their sarcastic glory and teenage sassiness.
• When AIDAN finally appears, it will legit give you chills.
• Fast-paced and actiony enough to feel like you’re watching a movie.
• Background noises and sound effects that bring the story to life!

Anxious People

Listen: if you’re not immediately pulled into this book DON’T PANIC. Keep pushing through it and trust to the magic that is Fredrik Backman’s writing. I promise, it delivers in the end. I had trouble getting into this one at first, too, but it ended up being an incredible book. One of my coworkers, who is also a Backman fan, actually DNF’d it, and I made her pick it back up again and keep going. She said it turned around right after she’d set it down, and she ended up reading the whole thing again in one day. Slow beginning, but ultimately worth the listen!

One-Line Summary: The world’s worst bank robber finds themselves unwittingly in a hostage situation with what have to be the world’s worst hostages. Also, there’s a bunny. It’s . . . complicated.

Why I love it:

• A cast of highly relatable, entirely unique, and slightly eccentric characters.
• No, seriously, you will fall in love with each of these characters.
• Narrator does a fantastic job of differentiating each and every character.
• Also, one sounds like a former colleague . . . who was very similar to the character, now that I think about it.
• The narrator drives home the emotional parts in a way the text doesn’t quite manage.
• (It’s Fredrik Backman. Expect many and varied emotional parts.)
• With a large cast like this, it’s a little bit like listening to a soap opera.

Howl’s Moving Castle

I think many of us have seen the Studio Ghibli film Howl’s Moving Castle, which was actually the movie hubby and I watched on our second date, despite me complaining about not liking anime. Shhhh, don’t tell him, but it’s still one of my favorites (though I suspect he knows by now, given how many times we’ve watched it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). The book, however, is very different from the movie and an experience all unto its own.

One-Line Summary: An unassuming hat maker finds herself cursed by a witch, leading her to leave town, where she ends up living in a moving castle with the world’s most dramatic wizard, a sassy fire demon, and an adorable apprentice.

Why I love it:

• Narrator does a perfect job capturing the cantankerous indifference of older characters.
• Sophie is a very enjoyable character to listen to.
• Easy to get swept into the world and conflict of this.
• Howl. I just can’t even with that man. Even though I love him.

Swordheart

If no one’s told you yet: read aaaaall of T. Kingfisher’s books. She also writes under the name Ursula Vernon, so read those, too. She’s an absolutely amazing author. I haven’t read all her work yet, but I’ve fallen head-over-heels in love with the ones I have read so far, so that says something right there! Namely, read this woman’s books!

One-Line Summary: Hella is interrupted from her half-baked suicide scheme by a man emerging from the sword she’s planning to use to off herself, who them promptly kidnaps her from her late husband’s family (who has already kidnapped her for her money) in an attempt to protect her.

Why I love it:

• I basically am Hella, and my husband is definitely Sarkis. Minus the sexy accent.
• Sarkis has a sexy accent. Probably doesn’t need to be repeated, but it should be.
• Adventure romance between older protagonists.
• Talking sword! Erm . . . well, sort of? Man turned sword? Well, it’s complicated, but it’s great.
• The banter between Sarkis and Hella is *chef’s kiss* with this narrator.
• Feels a lot like all the best parts of eavesdropping/snooping on someone else’s life.
• You know, like a soap opera where everyone is sarcastic instead of dramatic . . . but with swords?

The House in the Cerulean Sea

I’d like for you to please act surprised that this book is on this list. Whaaat? Never saw that coming, did you? Who’s this T.J. Klune bloke? I’ve definitely never talked about him before, right?! Well, this here is a little book that you may or may not have heard of before, and the audiobook is every bit as good as the reading experience. I couldn’t choose between them, so I did both. What can I say?

One-Line Summary: Linus is really good at his job and asks no unnecessary questions . . . until he’s assigned to a curious orphanage filled with unique children who ask a lot of unnecessary questions and an enigmatic caretaker who somehow makes Linus question . . . well . . . everything.

Why I love it:

• Just when you think you can’t love Linus’ awkwardness any more . . . this narrator shows up.
• The orphans on the island! Hearing the different voices for them is just such a different experience.
• The writing style (with its dry, tongue-in-cheek humor) is so well suited to being read aloud!
• The book is just awesome in general and deserves to be consumed in every possible media.

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry

Another Backman book! Oh no, you’re definitely shocked right? Okay, but hear me out. I’ve actually physically read this one several times, but this year, I thought nah, I’ll go ahead and listen to it. But oof, my heart. Again, totally different experience! This is one that I think would be really good to read as you listen, actually.

One-Line Summary: Elsa’s granny always told her stories about the Land-of-Almost-Awake and all the magical creatures that lived in the Kingdom of Miamas, but when Granny dies suddenly of cancer and leaves Elsa one last adventure to go on, Elsa discovers that the best stories have a grain of truth in them.

Why I love it:

• Granny is somehow even funnier in the audiobook?
• All the accents! Different characters sound very different (read: better) than how I imagined.
• Storytelling is a main focus of this book, so listening to a story about stories is a little like book Inception.
• The audiobook really brings to life all these very different characters.

Aurora Rising

I’m fairly certain this one was recommended to me by Dini @ DiniPandaReads during our buddy read, since she was listening to the audiobook. Note the authors. I think it’s no surprise that this also made the list. Of course, it has its own merits, totally unrelated to the authors’ other series, and I don’t mean to imply it doesn’t. All I meant is these are freaking brilliant authors.

One-Line Summary: Aurora awakes to find that 100 years has passed, everyone she knows is dead, and the government wants her for some reason, and her only chance to discover the truth about her past is a maladjusted squad of misfits.

Why I love it:

• Kal’s. Voice. OH MY GOSH. *melts just thinking about it*
• Finn’s banter is just 1,000% better when hearing it versus reading it.
• Multiple narrators for a fuller, more nuanced audiobook experience!
• The interactions between the characters are enhanced in a way that text just doesn’t get across.
• What I mean is they sarcasm a lot. We all know by now that tone is hard to convey in writing.

The Extraordinaries

Yes, I know, this is also my second Klune, but you know what? I HAVE NO REGRETS. The list is what it is, and all of these books have rightfully earned their place on it. I actually wasn’t going to listen to the audiobook of this one, because I was more than satisfied with just having read the book. However, when I was poking around OverDrive for my next audiobook, this one happened to be available, and I’m always up for a re-read listen of a good book. I was not disappointed! Nick’s hyperactive extraness is doubly good in audio format!

One-Line Summary: Nick wastes way too much of his ADHD-addled brain fanboying over the superheroes in his town (known as extraordinaries) that he sometimes forgets what’s right in front of him . . . like his adorable best friend.

Why I love it:

• The only thing better than reading about cinnamon rolls is listening to cinnamon rolls.
• Especially Nick’s utterly adorable, utterly oblivious self.
• So funny listening to (and identifying with) Nick’s ADHD brain.
• It’s almost like listening to a comic book.
• Nick’s embarrassment is much more palpable when listening to it.
• Is it possible to die of second-hand embarrassment?

Have Sword, Will Travel

Someone had recommended I read this book for the talking sword, but the only copy I could find was the audiobook. So I listened to the audiobook. After all, talking swords should talk, right? 😉 Took no time at all for the narrator to suck me into the plot. The writing is very humorous, and the way the narrator delivered lines had me cracking up! I’m of the opinion that funny books usually make good audiobooks.

One-Line Summary: An unassuming boy named Odo accidentally frees an ancient talking sword named Biter from the bed of a river, and the sword then declares him to be a knight (a role which Odo is painfully unqualified for and doesn’t even want). But knighthood comes with its own set of problems.

Why I love it:

• All the accents are fun and not quite what I expected!
• Talking swords are always a win. Especially when you get to actually hear them talk.
• Dragons! Always a plus in any book.
• Fast-paced storyline that’s easy to get sucked into when listening.
• Keeping track of lots of characters is so much easier when they all sound different.
• Narrator delivers line perfectly for optimal funniness (and it’s a really funny book).

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue

I had actually owned this book for, like, two years and just never read it. It’s actually still sitting on my shelf untouched and, in all honesty, will likely remain there. Someone told me the narrator’s voice was to die for, and that’s all I really needed to hear to make the decision to switch to audiobook. And they were right. We all know that a narrator can make or break an audiobook, and I’m such a sucker for nice voices!

One-Line Summary: In an attempt to teach him responsibility and prevent him from further embarrassing the family, Monty’s father sends him on a tour. It fails splendidly on both fronts, but hey, it was a long shot to start with.

Why I love it:

• The narrator’s voice is so smoooooth. Is it possible to fall in love with a voice?!
• Monty’s accent and tone are absolutely perfect for his character.
• The narration absolutely brings the characters to life.
• The audiobook somehow feels more intimate and in-the-action than the book.
• Almost like you’re spying on these random people, who are having a crap time of it.
• These characters are utterly dramatic and extra, which is really brought out in the audiobook.

Are there any audiobooks you highly recommend I check out next?

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