Audiobook Review: After You

Ali Listens is my new review title for Audio book Reviews.  I wanted to start splitting up my reviews into categories.  Something I've been wanting to do for awhile, just haven't had the chance.  So today I have a great audio book review to share with you. 

Title: After You 

Author:Jojo Moyes

Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books/Viking

Audio Publisher: Penguin Audio

Narrator:  Susan Lyons, Anna Bentink, Steven Crossley, Alex Tregear, Andrew Wincott, Owen Lindsay

Reading Challenges: 2016 TBR Challenge

“You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. But I hope you feel a bit exhilarated too. Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle. Just live well. Just live. Love, Will.”

How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?

Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.

Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future...

For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.

I must say this first and foremost, after reading Me Before You then reading After You, this book was exactly what I needed. Me Before You had left me in a funk! After You took care of that and let me know that she wasn't unhappy forever. (Spoiler Alert! Sorry.) But was my thoughts after reading Me Before You. I couldn't help but wonder what was going to happen to Lou. 

The writing style of course is the same as Me Before You and I must say I loved the new characters that were introduced in this book. I wasn't sure what was going to happen when I started reading, but happy that it ended the way it did. 

There were a few twists and turns in this book, just like the first one, and something I knew would happen. I mean Lou never makes anything easy, that's why I connected with the character so much. That and a few other reasons, but I don't want to ramble on and on about that. 

The narrators for the audiobook were perfection, they fit the voices and I loved that there were different voices for the characters. It wasn't just one voice reading all of it. That is something I really enjoy, helps me as a reader dive into the story and keeps my attention. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who read Me Before You and were left wanting, no scratch that, needed to know what would happen next to Lou. 

Book Rating: 

Audiobook Rating: 

Here at Ali's Bookshelf we accept books in exchange for a honest review. The book above though I bought for myself through Audible. We also use Amazon Affiliate links at times.

Audio Book Review: The Darkest Minds

Ali Listens is my new review title for Audio book Reviews.  I wanted to start splitting up my reviews into categories.  Something I've been wanting to do for awhile, just haven't had the chance.  More categories coming soon, but this is the one I wanted to start with. 

 

Title: The Darkest Minds

Author: Alexandra Bracken 

Audio Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Date: 03-08-13

Read From: Jan 1st 2016 - Jan 27th 2016

Narrator: Amy McFadden

Length:14 Hours

Reading Challenges: 2016 TBR Challenge

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something frightening enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that got her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that had killed most of America’s children, but she and the others emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they could not control. Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones. When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. She is on the run, desperate to find the only safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who have escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents. When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at having a life worth living.' to.

Have you ever had a book stay with you even after you put it down or in my case stopped listening to it? Well The Darkest Minds has done this to me.  I can't stop wondering what's going to happen to the characters and where Ruby is going to go next? Seriously not sure why it took me so long to read this book, but I know one thing for sure, I can't wait to read more of this series.

Author Alexandra Bracken's way with words had me in tears at times and grasping for what was going to happen next.  The characters are so well thought out and as you read/listen you can see their growth as they go through each trial that they go through.  Nothings ever easy for this group of kids, I will say that for certain, but for the main character Ruby, there were times I just wanted to pull her into my arms and hug her or at least I had wished Lee would do so.

My favorite plot part in this whole story isn't really the love story that's intertwined throughout and yes I must say I love that part, but I really loved how each of their, let's call them abilities, are different.  The author has a great way of explaining them as well through out the whole book.  It's almost as if she painted a picture with each word that she wrote.  Oh and I must say that I loved it every time he called her darling.  I smiled every time I heard it!

The world she created is a dystopian one I guess you would say, but at the same time it's also something more, at least for me it was.  I mean how would you feel if you woke up on your tenth birthday or even before that and knew that you would either die or have something wrong with you? I'm not sure how I would have handled that.  As the story unfolds and you get bits and pieces of what actually happened to Ruby, Lee, Zu, and Chubs, each detail of their stories, just makes you as the reader love these characters even more. 

I could seriously go on and on about this book and I assure you I have to anyone that will listen.  So much so that I now have my mom reading this book.  If you haven't read The Darkest Minds and you love dystopian books or even books with magic or super hero type characters, then this is the book for you.


Audio Book Review: 

I enjoyed listening to this story so much so and that has to do not only with the authors words and story, but also with the narration of the book itself.  Amy McFadden's voice worked perfectly with the ton of this story.  I hope she narrates the whole series because I'm already getting ready to start the next book.  The way she changed her accent for certain characters was something that I really enjoyed as well.  I could always tell which character was speaking.

 I have found my new favorite line in a book and it's from The Darkest Minds.  It's a quote that is both daunting and beautifully dark at the same time. 

“The Darkest Minds tend to hide behind the most unlikely faces.” 

I'm pretty sure you all can guess what kind of rating I'm going to give this fantastic book! 

Book Rating: 5 Puppies 

Audio: 5 Puppies 

Characters: 5 Puppies 

Here at Ali's Bookshelf we accept books in exchange for a honest review. The audio book above I bought for myself.  It wasn't a review book, but liked it enough to write a review.  We do use affiliate links here on Ali's Bookshelf, the one above is from Book Depository.