Before I headed out for a long weekend, I wanted to pick up a very short audiobook for the couple of days of commuting to work I’d be doing. When I stumbled upon Highway Cats, I remembered putting it on my GoodReads “to read” list a long time ago, and I was excited to see it was only 2 discs long. It’d be a quick one.

I was wrong.

There is nothing bad about this story at all. A group of cats who live along the highway are going to lose their homes to the greedy politician who wants to expand the highway in order to build more shopping centers. A litter of kittens is abandoned there, as well, and it is the kittens who will ultimately help scare away the construction crew and ultimately shift what happens to the politician in the story. It’s a cute premise with a pretty interesting message about human land use versus animal habitats.

I loved the narrator of this audio, James Jenner. He has a nice commentator voice on this, and he manages to make the politician a source of evil with just slight changes in his tone. His reading style reminded me quite a bit of the style of reading that we have in Hold Tight. Tension is build well.

Weighing in at only 2 hour-long discs, this should have been a very quick listen, but it took me nearly two weeks to listen to it. I had a hard time getting into the characters, and I felt all of the cats who played big roles in the story were one and the same. Highway Cats reminded me a lot of The Underneath by Kathi Appelt. It’s the animals as the main characters and people as the bad forces. Perhaps my problem is it’s hard to listen to that, as well as hard to read it. I’m an animal lover, so hearing a story about mistreated or forgotten about animals makes for a less-than-enjoyable experience for me. I haven’t read a single news story about the oil spill for the same reason.

Highway Cats has an audience, and there is ultimately a positive ending in the story. Fans of Appelt’s story will love this, and this would make for a good family listen. For a quick trip in the car, it’s a worthwhile listen. If for no other reason, listen for Jenner’s great narration and the excellent production — everything is seamless.

In my very first post for STACKED, I mentioned my intense love for Philip Pullman’s masterpiece of a children’s fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials (including The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass). Impeccably written without a single flawed section, these books are far and away My Favorites.

Despite that, I was hesitant to pick up the audiobooks. They’re done by a full cast, each character’s voice (and there are many, many characters) performed by a different actor, with a few overlaps, and the narration is performed by Pullman himself. I was concerned that the voices for the characters – in particular Lyra, the protagonist – would not correspond with my own inner voices I had used since I first read the books as a twelve year old.

I needn’t have worried. This audiobook trilogy completely won me over to fully-voiced productions. I am frequently frustrated when male narrators voice female characters, since the voices so often come across as breathy and weak. It would have been tragic to hear Lyra – a strong, impetuous character – voiced in that way, but it obviously wasn’t a problem.

I cannot say enough good things about Pullman’s narration. He speaks neither too slowly nor too quickly, infusing just the right amount of inflection into each sentence. He turns the audio production into a work of art. Normally I need to be active when listening to an audiobook (driving, getting ready for work, etc.), but with these, it was enough to just sit and listen.

I didn’t really believe it was possible, but the audiobooks deepened my appreciation for these books. My attention was drawn to new details, and parts I found only mildly interesting before became fascinating. (For any of you who have read the third book, Mary and the mulefa tended to drag for me, but the person who voiced Mary was so utterly perfect that these sections were a joy to listen to.)

I’m always so grateful when I discover that a book I love has been transferred so wonderfully into audio. I have no doubt that I’ll be listening to these again sometime soon.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m more willing to try books outside my preferred genres when I am listening to them on audiobooks. When I read Janssen’s review of Nancy Werlin’s The Killer’s Cousin, I thought it would be one worth listening to, and let me say: this was one of the more engaging audiobooks I’ve enjoyed lately.

David did something awful, and the rumors are that because his dad is a Very Important Person, he got out of it. No jail time, no probation, nada. But, he didn’t get to finish his senior year of high school, and rather than go back to the place where everyone knew who he was and what he did, his parents decide to send him to live with his aunt and uncle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to finish out his senior year at a private school.

Aunt Julia and Uncle Vic have had to deal with the loss of their older daughter Kathy, who killed herself in the apartment where David would now be residing. But it’s their younger daughter, Lily, who will take on a starring role in this haunting story.

Lily is creepy. She is the epitome of creepiness. Think about your worst, most annoying cousins, and multiple it by thousands. Lily is cold toward David, and she seems to spend a lot of time alone. But rather than spending it alone idlely, she sneaks around the house and David’s apartment, and eventually, she begins calling David some horrible things. Over and over and over again.

David finally breaks. Despite his fear of his aunt and uncle, he tells them he thinks Lily needs psychological help. But will they believe him? He’s the one who has a problem, which is why he’s been living with them in the first place. A tragedy, though, will strike the family again, and this might be when the truth about Kathy’s death finally emerges.

Nick Podehl delivers a fantastic narration for this utterly creepy story. His reading was authentic to an 18-year-old boy, and his ability to partially voice this one kept me engaged, particularly with his spot-on portrayal of a spoiled-sounding 11-year-old Lily. Changes in his tone, his delivery, and his pacing worked here, helping deliver the suspense and intrigue the story contains. The production on this one is top-knotch, as well: the few instances I noticed the editing were so minute that it did not distract from the story or the narration.

The beginning and ending of each disc of the 5-disc audiobook made effective use of music to not only signal where the listener was in the book, but it helped set a mysterious mood. Again, I’m an audiobook listener in the car, so every little aspect like this is not only helpful to me, but it helps break up my listening — somewhat like a new chapter or break in a chapter helps you when you read visually.

While listening to this one, I was utterly captivated by Lily. She is one of the better-drawn characters I’ve read in a long time, and she’ll stick with me for quite a while. Although David is our main character, he definitely serves as the story teller for Lily. I don’t think it could have been done vice versa, nor could Lily have told her own story here.

I think this is one of those books better listened to than read. Podehl wraps the listener in the story and leaves you wanting more, more, more. This is a quick listen with a story well-paced and plotted by Werlin. I will definitely be seeking out Locked Inside, one of Werlin’s other mystery/suspense books, and you better believe it’ll be all audio for me.

Make sure you check out the sample audio available right here.

I am a sucker for audiobook narrators with accents.  John Keating, who narrates Airman, has a slight Scottish accent, and I am sure I would not have enjoyed the book nearly so much without his delightful voice.

Airman has all the components necessary for a fantastically fun adventure story: our protagonist, Conor Broekhart, is born in a hot air balloon while being shot at from below; he spends his boyhood studying the science of flight with a Frenchman; he’s cruelly betrayed by a man named Bonvilain (what a fantastic name) and sent to a prison island where he toils away in the salt mines; and eventually…well, you can probably guess.  And of course, there’s a bit of romance, which any respectable adventure tale should have.

The story is set in the fictional nation of the Saltee Islands in the late 1800s, which gives Colfer leave to do pretty much whatever he wants regarding the royal family and battles and such, without worrying about messing with history.  Is that cheating?  Well…yes, but it’s forgivable.  Airman isn’t meant to be a book that reveals Great Truths About Humanity – it’s a hugely fun story with funny, interesting characters and non-stop action.

While Keating does not have the vocal range of either Jim Dale or Barbara Rosenblat, my top two audiobook narrators, he does a solid job of differentiating the characters, particularly Bonvilain and Conor’s guard on Little Saltee.  There are only a handful of really major characters, so it’s easy to keep them straight, and Keating has a really authentic way with all the required accents (English, French, and American, plus the Scottish narration).

Colfer must have had so much fun writing this book.  I’ve heard it compared to The Princess Bride due to its combination of adventure and camp, and I’d say that’s a fair judgment.  It’s not a book to be taken too seriously, and as an audio, it’s a joy.