Audio Book Review: The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy, read by Bronson Pinchot
Release Date: May 2012
Publisher: Harper Audio
Hours: 9 hours 5 minutes, unabridged
Received: Audio copy from publisher

Review

This is a review of the AUDIO version

If you are interested in my review of the book, check out my review. This is only a review of the reader in the audiobook format.

I should preface this review by confessing that I am not much of an audiobook listener. I try every now and then to listen to an audiobook because I feel like I should do something productive and entertaining while doing boring things like walking on the treadmill or folding laundry. But, embarrassingly, my mind wanders.Try as I might, audiobooks are often a struggle for me.

So that is why it is especially notable when I say,

This is the bestest audiobook in the ENTIRE WORLD!

At this point you're probably sick of me gushing about The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom because I've mentioned it, oh, maybe once or twice before...but that's because I'm so gosh darn in love with it. I didn't think my love could grow any larger than it already was, but then I listened to the audiobook...

...and dare I say it, but I think I'm even more in love with the audio version than I am with the print version. It was like taking all of the best traits of movies and all of the best features of books and smushing them together into a package of awesome.

The voices!

Bronson Pinchot doesn't just read the book. He becomes the book. He gives every character their own unique voice and channels all of their character traits perfectly.

You know how in a book the author needs to include things like "X character said" or whatever so you know who is actually speaking? I didn't need that at all here because Bronson Pinchot made all of the voices so distinct that it was as if I were listening to different people talk.

Even the girl characters sounded good, which is a pretty big feat considering Bronson Pinchot is not actually a girl (in case you couldn't tell).

Also of note is that each character has a different accent. Yes, accents! And they totally make sense for the characters. I don't remember the book specifying things like "said Liam with an Irish lilt" but somehow each accent Bronson Pinchot chose seemed like the exact right choice for each character and made me love them even more than I already did.

It's the little things like this that I think really made this reading. It's clear he took the time and effort needed to truly get the book and embody the characters. He did such a good job I almost want him to be the voice actor for every single character in the upcoming movie version (even though I'm sure they'll get, you know, real women and stuff like that).

It's like he took perfect chocolate, and then somehow made it better

Bronson Pinchot managed to avoid one of my biggest pet peeves with audiobooks, namely, I don't like it when the characters don't sound like they do in my head. Erm, I mean, when I read a book I imagine a character's voice sounds a certain way and audiobook readers usually sound NOTHING like how I imagine the character would sound (I cringe every time a woman reader does the "deep manly voice" for the hot hero).

It's like, ok, anyone read the Mortal Instruments series and totally NOT picture that tiny strange-eyed little guy they horribly miscast as Jace? Totally wrong, right?? Any tiny bit of desire I might have had to see that movie shriveled up and died when I saw that casting (especially after holding out hope for Mr. Hot Abs. I mean, Alex Pettyfer).

That's pretty much akin to the crushing, gnawing disappointment I experience with most audiobook voices.

But now think of the joy you experience every time you flip on The Vampire Diaries and see the smoking perfection of Ian Somerhalder not only capturing but enhancing all of the gorgeous goodness (and badness!) of Damon Salvatore (what, please tell me I'm not alone here??).

THAT is what I'm talking about. I mean, no, of course there are no shirtless men in the audio version of The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (or any version, for that matter. It's MG, ladies! Sheesh). But what I do mean to say is that Bronson Pinchot's voice acting was the absolute beyond-my-wildest-dreams perfect "casting" for The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom. Every time he opened his mouth I basked in the sweet sounds of exactly what an audiobook should be.

Bottom line

I was thoroughly entertained and my mind didn't wander once while listening.

I doubled my workout times so I could listen to just one more chapter, and just one more (don't worry, I made up for it by eating extra ice cream).

I contemplated dropping my freshly laundered clothing into the dirt just so I would have to spend more time re-washing and folding so I could have an excuse to continue listening.

I think I'm going to go now and listen to it again.

I will now and forever compare all audiobook readers on the scale of 1 to Bronson Pinchot.

So, yeah, I recommend it.

Add it to Goodreads!
Buy it on Amazon!

Do you have any questions about the audiobook version of The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom that I haven't addressed? 
Feel free to ask in the comments!

Have you ever listened to an audiobook that had a beyond amazing reader? (My workout routine could seriously use your recommendations!)

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Audio Book Review: Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan
Release Date: September 27, 2011
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Hours: Unabridged
Received: Audio copy from publisher
Goodreads Page

Review

This is a review of the AUDIO version

If you are interested in my review of the book, check out my Glow review. This is only a review of the readers in the audiobook format.

I should preface this review by confessing that I am not much of an audiobook listener, so I don't have many audio experiences with which to compare. This is also my first audiobook review, so any feedback is very welcome!

Structure

The book is set up with alternating perspectives between Waverly and Kieran, so I thought it was a nice touch that the audiobook also had two readers (one male, one female). This enhanced the experience and helped me to really see Kieran and Wavery as two very distinct people, with two different personalities, experiences, and views.

Kieran's reader

My immediate impression was that I didn't like how he read. His voice didn't engage me and his reading sounded almost robotic at times. As the book went on, his narrative smoothed out and I was able to forget the reader and focus on the story. To me, this is a mark of a good reader.

When I read the book, I really didn't like Kieran's character. And that's still true. I don't like him at all, but the reader almost made me start to like him with the way he conveyed Kieran's thoughts and fears through the tone of his voice. I felt like I was able to make a deeper connection with Kieran as a person, whereas when reading the book, I had a more objective focus on Kieran's actions.

The biggest complaint I have about this reader is the way he voiced the character Seth. Seth, despite his turn to the horrific, was my favorite character in the book because of his combination of intelligence and masculinity (well, at least in comparison to Kieran).

But the reader's voice made him come across like a dull oaf. Talk about disappointing. Do you remember the character Biff from the Back to the Future movies? Yeah, that's pretty much how I pictured Seth based on the reader's voice. This is totally different from the wiry, stoic, sharp-minded boy with tightly controlled anger simmering beneath the surface that I pictured when reading the book.

I don't like how the reader's voices affected my impressions of the characters. I felt like I was almost guided in how I was supposed to feel about the characters, whereas when reading the book one of the things I liked the most was how objective the writing seemed. Reading the book, it felt like Amy Kathleen Ryan was merely presenting a situation and leaving all judgments up to me. That approach made Glow stand out to me in a very positive way, and I'm disappointed that this did not translate in the audio version.

Waverly's reader

My immediate impression of her was that I preferred her sections, but, just like Kieran's narrator, this changed for me too. While her reading voice was immediately pleasant and seemed like a good "Waverly" voice, I could never get into the non-dialog parts.

Her reading was stilted because she put strange emphasis on certain words or inserted pauses where there shouldn't be a pause. This had the effect of completely changing the sentence, putting weight and focus on the wrong parts. I compared her reading to the print version, and her pauses and emphasis do not line up with the grammatical structure of the sentences.

As a result, I was never able to settle into the story and I was always very aware of the reader. It really wasn't terrible and I'm sure I'm being overly picky, but it wasn't ideal for me.

Where this reader did shine, however, was in the dialog. For whatever reason, the strange pauses disappeared when she was reading dialog and all of these parts flowed smoothly. I wish she had read the whole book like this because she did a great job here.

The voices she used for the different characters were not hugely distinct, which is fine, but they were different enough that I was able to tell the characters apart. Her voice for Mather was especially impressive. The reader perfectly captured the combination of calming, motherly strength and the insidious streak of menace lying below the surface that makes up Mather's characterization. The reader really captured the essence of this character.

Bottom line

This was a mixed bag for me, but overall I liked both readers and I would listen both readers again, especially by the male reader. Surprisingly, at least to me, I enjoyed both readers' dialog more than their narrative sections.

I do think I would have had a totally different impression of the book if I had listened to it before I read it, and I'm not sure that's such a good thing. The readers both succeeded in making a stronger connection between myself and the two main characters. This would normally be a great thing, but what I liked the best about Glow was the distance and objectivity between the characters and the reader, so I was disappointed with the change in the audio version.

Do you have any questions about the audiobook version of Glow that I haven't addressed? 
Feel free to ask in the comments!

Do you listen to audiobooks? Do you like them? Dislike them? Have you ever listened to an audiobook and read the book, and then had two different reactions to the story?

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