7 Amazing Audiobooks You Will Love

This year, my goal is to read 100 books.  That is double what I read last year. Go big or go home, right?  To date, I have read 23 books, which Goodreads tells me is 3 behind schedule – not bad!

One reason I have been able to read so much is because I have been listening to audiobooks.  Audiobooks allow me to multi-task. I can “read” while I am driving to work, doing the dishes or folding laundry.   This has been a game changer for me. Click here to find all the reasons I love listening to audiobooks. In this post, I talked about the Hoopla app, through which I can listen to books from the library.  Since then, I have found that not all libraries use this app. But there are others! Libby is another app that libraries use, and Overdrive. Check with your local library to see how you can listen to audiobooks for free.

I realized in looking through my list, that I have listened to a lot of thrillers and nonfiction.  This is not intentional, I just chose what I thought sounded interesting at the time, although I admit I have been gravitating towards thrillers lately.  It is something I am going to look at in the future. I want to make sure I am reading more widely.

Here are the best audiobooks I’ve listened to this year!

Thrillers:

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
My Rating:  ***** out of 5 stars
Published: July 2016 by Crown
Length:  10 hours, 9 minutes
Buy It:  Amazon

This is actually science fiction, which I don’t usually read/listen to but I heard so many good things about it, I had to give it a try.  And I was not disappointed! This book was so different from anything I’ve read it was fun to listen to. The hours flew by!

James Dessen has a nice, ordinary life.  He is a college physics professor, living with his wife and son in the Chicago suburbs.  He is happy in his normal life, until one evening on his way home, he is abducted by a masked man.  This man seems to know him and his routines. He asks him very specific questions about his life. Then he strips him of his clothes, injects him with an unknown substance, and when he wakes up, he is on a gurney surrounded by men in lab coats welcoming him back to a world different than his own.  Who are these men? Where is he? And where is his family? This book had me gasping at all the twists and turns.

Eeny Meeny by MJ Arlidge
My Rating: ***** out of 5 stars
Published: June 2015 by Berkley
Length:  9 hours, 1 minute
Buy It:  Amazon

Detective Helen Grace is baffled when a serial killer begins to randomly abduct 2 people at a time, leaving them no food, no water, and just a gun between them.  They have a choice – to die together, or to make the ultimate decision, which one will leave their captivity alive? Helen and her team can’t find any connections to the people abducted and the killer leaves no clues.  Time is running out and too many people have died already. Will her team be able to stop him before the he kills again?

I could not put this book down.  I literally left it playing all day one Saturday.  It is that good! The ending was a shocker. I’m so excited to find a new series of books that I love.  Arlidge has 8 books in his Detective Grace series. I already have Pop Goes the Weasel, book #2, on order.  If you haven’t read these, I highly recommend!

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
My Rating: **** out of 5 stars
Published: April 2018 by Atria Books
Length:  10 hours, 12 minutes
Buy It:  Amazon

I think one of the reasons I liked this book so well was because of Helen Duff, the narrator.  She has this beautiful accent that was so cozy, it was relaxing to listen to. The story itself was good, although a little predictable – there were no surprises here.  But that didn’t make it any less interesting. Jewell is a great writer, who is great at developing interesting and multi-faceted characters. I would definitely read another of her books.

Laurel’s daughter, Ellie, went missing 10 years ago and Laurel has been struggling with that loss ever since.  Since then her marriage has broken up, her relationship to her other daughter is strained, and she feels like she has no life.  All she can think about is what happened to Ellie. Then one day, she meets Floyd, a dashing American, and his daughter, Poppy, who looks amazingly like her own daughter Ellie.  Laurel and Floyd become an instant item and Laurel and Poppy hit it off beautifully. Everything looks absolutely perfect, until Laurel begins to find strange coincidences that just don’t seem to add up.  Is Floyd being completely honest with her? Or does he know more about Ellie’s disappearance than he lets on?

The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
My Rating: *** out of 5 stars
Published: August 2017 by William Morrow
Length:  17 hours, 52 minutes
Buy It:  Amazon

Samantha and Charlie Quinn have lived through a devastating loss.  Their mother was murdered in front of their eyes and they were very nearly murdered themselves.  This is mostly due to the fact that their father, Rusty Quinn, is a defense lawyer for some pretty unscrupulous characters.  Now, 28 years later, Sam is living in New York, away from her family and Charlie is working in her father’s law firm. When another tragedy strikes, Charlie is again caught in the middle of it.  And as Charlie and Sam work through this new trauma, they begin to learn more about what happened to them in their youth and the answers to their questions aren’t always easy to hear.

This is a looooong book – almost 18 hours.  And this is before I realized that you could listen to audiobooks on different speeds! But I included it here because of the WOW factor.  This was the first Karin Slaughter book I ever read, and she sure packs a punch! The first part of the book was all about the murder described above and then it is followed right up with a school shooting.  This book is not for the faint of heart. It deals with tough topics and can be pretty graphic in parts. After the initial shock, however, the book slows way down. The author kept revisiting the opening scene over and over again from different points of view.  Although I can see what she was doing there, it got to be a little much for me, therefore 3 stars.

Nonfiction:

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark:  One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
My Rating: ***** out of 5 stars
Published: February 2018  by Harper
Length:  10 hours, 7 minutes
Buy It:  Amazon

This book is about Michelle McNamara’s search for a man who raped and killed over 50 women in the late 1970s-80s.  This man was never found, and McNamara an investigative reporter, was determined that he should be brought to justice.  She put in countless hours of research, interviewing police and victims, visiting crime scenes and poring over old documents.  She began to piece together vital evidence that was crucial to the case. And then, tragically, Michelle died right in the middle of this project.  She was only 46 years old.

Only a few months after this book was released, an arrest was finally made.  72 year old James DeAngelo was put into custody due to DNA evidence and is currently in jail awaiting trial.  Michelle never got to see this, unfortunately, but her work was instrumental in detailing the atrocities this man who preyed on and victimized unsuspecting women.

Dopesick:  Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy
My Rating: **** out of 5 stars
Published: August 2018  by Little Brown and Co
Length:  10 hours, 16 minutes
Buy It:  Amazon

Macy gives us a chilling look inside the pharmaceutical world where a drug company misled an entire country and hooked America on painkillers.  Purdue Pharma, creator of Oxycontin, sold the drug to primary care physicians as a drug that can deal with pain with no side-effects. They assured doctors that there was a very slight occurrence of addiction, and encouraged them to prescribe liberally – even to the point of offering Hawaiian vacations to doctors that did.  Purdue pushed these drugs hard, and people across the nation, used them and became addicted. Patients could almost just ask for prescription and get one. Some truly needed it for pain, others needed it to satisfy their addiction, and some asked for it so they could sell it to others to supplement their income. Doctors prescribed regardless.  But by the time the government realized what was going on, we had a bonafide opioid epidemic on our hands.

I found this book fascinating and disturbing all at the same time.  It brings to light some uncomfortable truths but doesn’t really go into solutions of where to go from here.  Hearing the stories of the mothers that lost their children broke my heart. It is a tragedy that could have been avoided if not for the unethical distribution of doctors, drug companies and dealers.  It’s sad.

The Good Neighbor:  The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King
My Rating: *** out of 5 stars
Published: September  2018 by Harry Abrams
Length:  14 hours, 7 minutes
Buy It:  Amazon

He really was as nice as he seemed.  

I thought about just leaving it at that:)  But you might want a little more information.  I learned so much about Mr. Rogers from listening to this book.  First of all, he grew up wealthy, which I never would have guessed.  His grandparents were very well off and spoiled him with whatever he wanted.  Being an only child for a long time, his mother also spoiled him. But still he grew up kind and caring.  Rogers was also very talented. He wrote studied music in school and even wrote full operas. He also wrote all of the music on his show.  Fred was dedicated to children and really started the first social emotional curriculum on TV. Where Sesame Street dealt with academics, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood let kids know that their feelings were okay and helped them figure out how to navigate them.

I have always loved Mr. Rogers, but 14 hours was a lot for me.  Overall, it was an interesting biography of a man that shaped children’s television in America.

Those are some of the audiobooks that I’ve listened to and loved recently. What books are you listening to?

That’s all for today. Until next time, happy reading!