the audiobook experience
Oct. 2nd, 2025 07:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marcicatI never pay much attention to how long a visual-reading book is, even in e-books where you can see the page count super easily. IDK, 200 pages, 500 pages, those numbers mean nothing to me. (This is probably especially true in e-books, where the page numbering doesn't always make sense. 'There are 500 pages left in this book!' ::turns to the next page:: 'There are 450 pages left in this book!' ::baffled::)
But audiobooks are measured in hours, which is much easier for my brain to relate to. And I've been having a lot of fun comparing book summaries to book lengths, because they almost never match what I'd expect.
EXAMPLE 1: the entire summary of this book is essentially 'the roommate is a vampire.' somehow the audiobook is NINE HOURS long. I'm so curious what's going to happen for the 8 hours and 50 minutes that aren't the summary
EXAMPLE 2: the summary references a romance and a mystery and supernatural shenanigans and a team-up and cameos and backstory and lore and somehow this all happens in FIVE HOURS, despite the fact that the summary itself is practically a page long
Basically, audiobooks are teaching me a lot about what I like in storytelling, which is not something I expected, but which I'm very grateful for!
But audiobooks are measured in hours, which is much easier for my brain to relate to. And I've been having a lot of fun comparing book summaries to book lengths, because they almost never match what I'd expect.
EXAMPLE 1: the entire summary of this book is essentially 'the roommate is a vampire.' somehow the audiobook is NINE HOURS long. I'm so curious what's going to happen for the 8 hours and 50 minutes that aren't the summary
EXAMPLE 2: the summary references a romance and a mystery and supernatural shenanigans and a team-up and cameos and backstory and lore and somehow this all happens in FIVE HOURS, despite the fact that the summary itself is practically a page long
Basically, audiobooks are teaching me a lot about what I like in storytelling, which is not something I expected, but which I'm very grateful for!
