marcicat | Entries tagged with audiobooks

Here are my totally random thoughts on the hockey boys audiobook (aka 'Heated Rivalry,' by Rachel Reid). (Note: the audiobook is about 9.5 hours long, and I'm about six hours into it.)

*dangerous crow boy narrator?!?!?!?!?!?!?
[backstory: earlier in 2025 there was a viral moment for Lana Pecherczyk's latest book release, aka the 'dangerous crow boy' meme. It turned out I've actually listened to the first few books in that series, one of which was memorably read by Tor Thom, who ALSO reads 'Heated Rivalry.' So my brain linked all those things together and I had a laugh about it]

*these hockey boys are STRESSED OUT

*my problem with books that do the jumping around in time thing is that I can't remember numbers, and in an audiobook, it's much harder to go back and check dates -- what year did the first chapter take place in??? (apparently I'm willing to live with this mystery, because it's not like I couldn't check)

*those tumblr gifsets make a lot more sense now, I think?

My tumblr dash is full of the hockey boys* right now, and I've been all 'no thanks' because I don't even really love sports AUs? (They're fine? It's just that sports are SO STRESSFUL to me, and if my reading is going to stress me out, I'd prefer it's in a totally fictional way.)

(*aka 'Heated Rivalry,' a tv show inspired by a book that was almost certainly inspired by a fanfic, and honestly, good for them!)

But it's kind of fun to join in the moment, you know? And there's a long wait list on the library app, but my library also offers hoopla, and that has the audiobook. (Also I saw the gifset where they touch shoes and I was like 'aaaaahhhhhh subtle and tender affection is my weakness!')

Soooooo.... sure, why not? Give me the hockey boys.

aka 'why it's fun to put books on hold through Libby'

Waaaay back in August (August 5th, to be exact), after I'd finished listening to Freya Marske's 'Marvelous Light' series, I saw another Freya Marske book was (sort of) available on my best app friend, Libby the library app. I could put it on hold, but had an estimated 24 week wait time.

So I thought to myself 'will I still care about this book in six months?' And the answer was 'maybe,' and I enjoy watching my hold list even when I don't end up reading the books (it's a thing, idk). So on hold it went!

And now the book is mine! (For 14 days, then I need to give it back.) After a mere 12 weeks! A true victory, winning at library-ing, etc, etc. HECK YEAH, LIBBY THE LIBRARY APP!

Audiobooks sometimes have the odd side-effect of reminding me just how much I don't learn by listening. My current audiobook is a whopping 18 hours long, which is Very Long compared to my usual listens, and also has a lot of fantasy names.

After ten hours of listening, I can remember exactly FOUR of the names in the book. No, wait, five, but that's because #5 has a nickname that's an english word.

(Also, two of the names I only know because I saw them written in the book summary, so I probably shouldn't count them.)

This isn't a problem, exactly, although it does sometimes make it awkward when I want to talk about an audiobook. I'm reading a book! It's about some people! No, I don't know their names. There are dragons! I also don't know the dragons names. It's a fantasy setting! I don't remember the name of the city either.

I 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!

This is one of those weather days when we should all be allowed to lounge around inside and take lots of naps. Since I am headed to the office instead...

THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO AT THE OFFICE

*free coffee (it's not as delicious as my Home Coffee, but I also don't need to wash the coffeemaker afterwards)

*free lunch (everyone is in agreement that this promised perk won't last long, so we might as well eat as much free food as possible while it lasts)

*audiobook time (my current audiobook has not been as engaging as I expected, probably through no fault of the book itself -- I couldn't even focus on reading the cat distribution system, by ScarlettStorm last night, a fic so aligned with Things I Like that I made actual grabby hand motions at the screen when I saw it)

So: drive, eat, be seen, drive home again. It's a plan!

I signed up for a non-resident library card at the Queens Public Library in New York last October (which has been great! doesn't always seem to be available, but currently is again, so hooray!)

(PS: Not free, but that seems super reasonable since I am also Not A Local User, and I'd much rather give money to a public library than most other options for getting access to e-books and audiobooks.)

ANYWAY I was curious what would happen once my year was up -- auto-renewal? Auto-expiration? Haha I should have guessed a library would be good at managing these things. Exactly ONE month before my expiration date, I have now received an email notifying me, with step by step instructions for how to renew. (TWO sets of instructions, just in case you prefer one method over the other!)

THANKS, LIBRARIES!!!

My least favorite part of the return to office is the driving, because I'd really prefer to be using those four hours per week to do other things (like not driving, lol). But listening to audiobooks in the car has definitely made the experience better, sometimes in unexpected ways.

As in, I used to spend a LOT of the drive to and from work thinking about work! But now I'm spending the drive thinking about BOOK, which is clearly 10,000x better. It's like as soon as I get in the car at the end of the day, work is OVER and my brain is totally in storytime mode. It feels much less like I need to Get Home for the workday to be over, which makes it much easier to sit in traffic and not get super frustrated and cranky.

ALSO it means that yesterday I arrived at work and some people were a little stressed about various aspects of the day, and meanwhile I was thinking 'THIS MAN HAS 43 HOURS LEFT TO LIVE AND IS TRACKING THE POTENTIAL LIFE SAVING CURE THROUGH A FROZEN LANDSCAPE.' It really put the rest of the day into perspective, is what I'm saying.

I can frequently be found talking to my coworkers about how much I enjoy the Libby and hoopla apps (thanks, local library!!!), and last week one of my coworkers said that they'd tried Libby, but found that a lot of things had long wait times. And I was like 'yes, that's true,' but I wasn't able to gather my thoughts coherently enough in the moment to explain why that doesn't bother me.

But now I've had time to think about it, and I can say with some confidence that it's because I like that part! I put a book on hold and Libby tells me 'there are ten people ahead of you in line' and I'm like 'my people!' I return a book and Libby says 'there are five people waiting' and I'm like 'my gift to you, next person in line, here you go!'

Holds and wait time make Libby feel like a community space to me. And it's often the perfect amount of community for me (aka tiny) -- like, there's a sense that many people are existing in the same space and doing similar things, but I don't actually have to interact with them. When I walk in the woods, I love seeing other people's footprints on the trail, even though I don't particularly want to see the people themselves. That's Libby, for me. I know people are there, and they like books too, and that's great.

Currently listening to an audiobook that has taught me a new British pronunciation! Very funny to have zebras in any historical romance novel set in Scotland, but EXTRA funny to be completely taken aback by the narrator pronouncing it 'zehbra' (rather than the US American pronunciation 'zeebra').

The internet tells me this is Super Normal and that both pronunciations are considered correct! And it's definitely giving me Stargate: Atlantis 'zed-pm' vibes, which I am enjoying very much.

I have now finished BOOK 3 of Freya Marske's 'The Last Binding' trilogy!

(Okay, I really feel like I'm missing something, but I have no idea why the trilogy is called The Last Binding, and not 'The Last Contract'?)

ANYWAY despite my clear and obvious confusion about the trilogy name, I found these books Extremely Fun to listen to! Book 3 especially, because it was pretty much all the things I like:

*basically a growing group of friends who all support each other
*sometimes in the 'friends who commit crimes together, stick together' sort of way
*the houses are magic
*BEES (genuinely was not expecting the bees, but A+ work there, bees!)
*what if ALL the characters gathered together at a house party and CHAOS ENSUED

*First August caturday! BIG GOALS for today, which include: relaxing, resting, doing whatever in no particular rush.

*I finished listening to the second book in Freya Marske's 'The Last Binding' trilogy yesterday, and now I am Very Curious about what happens in book 3. (Note of warning: book 1 and 2 both start with a murder, and book 1's was scary enough that I almost stopped right there. But in general the books haven't been Too Dark for me.) (PS love that Edwin got himself a house that won't let his relatives visit; A+ work babe. Also I TOTALLY called the parrot thing in book 2, which was narratively extremely obvious and yet I am unreasonably proud of myself anyway.)

*In fact, I'm looking forward to book 3 so much that I'm planning on listening to something else first, just to prolong this enjoyable state of anticipation.

*Not for too long, though, I only have the audiobook on loan from the library for another 11 days.

*Also I'm nearly done crocheting a lap blanket to take to the office with me when I have to go back in September. I'm hoping that will take some of the sting out of the whole 'forced out of my cozy home nest' thing. (lol probably would work better if I could just drape it over all of me and hide under it)

*It's cool enough this morning that the cat is next to me on her fleecy blanket, which is truly the best of ways to spend a morning <3 <3 <3

A recent audiobook was WAY more of a journey than I expected, and it went something like this:

*oh, here's one to try, it's only 4 and a half hours long; that seems good

*I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M NOT EVEN ONE HOUR INTO THIS IT FEELS LIKE IT'S GONE ON FOREVER ALREADY

*am I bored enough to stop listening?

*ooh, but I'm mildly interested in what happens

*[trying to explain it] 'there's a volcano! and there was just an avalanche! by all reckonings, this book SHOULD be exciting, but somehow it isn't!'

*okay, I only have an hour-ish left, and I'm now moderately interested in how this is all going to wrap up, because it feels like there's a lot of plot to resolve and not a ton of time to do it

*[checks time remaining] hang on, now there's less than five minutes left?????

*oh, so they're just... not going to resolve the plot, okay, that's cool too

*sometimes ~~the best~~ a way to end a story is to just stop writing

*it was what the author wanted! (I guess? I don't actually know how published books work.) I genuinely love that for them! it wasn't my favorite book of all time, but I sure did have an experience, and I appreciate that!

Just checked and confirmed I did not do a 'I've listened to all the 'Murderbot Diaries' audiobooks now and they were great' post yet.

So, I've listened to all the 'Murderbot Diaries' audiobooks now, and they were great! Would listen to all of them again. Kevin R Free, narrator, hero of our times.

Not sure I have anything relevant to add, but here's some random thoughts to fill out the post:

*Book 3 sure did make me feel some feelings. Book 4 was a fantastic (and fun!) follow up.

*Same with book 5 and 7! (Yeah, the internet was totally right on the 'read book 6 after book 4' thing. That's how they go chronologically in-universe. Book 7 happens directly after book 5)

*Love love love the bot community on Preservation Station

*The idea that constructs are absolutely 100% not allowed on gunships, ever. (MB: I've boarded your gunship and it's my new second-best bot friend, lol)

*MEDIA PIRACY SAVES LIVES

*Timestream Defenders Orion sounds like such a genuinely fun show

I've now read (listened to) the first four Murderbot Diaries audiobooks, plus Fugitive Telemetry (book 6, but the internet advised that it fits into the timeline as book 5, which it definitely seemed to do).

They were great, I loved them! (ESPECIALLY 'Artificial Condition,' because of ART, and also 'Exit Strategy,' because of TEAMWORK)

And NOW I'm up to Network Effect, and I'm NERVOUS! I have a vague idea of stuff that happens, and it's SO MUCH! I'm taking a break right now by listening to some other more relaxing audiobooks before I dive in.

I'm trying to space out the Murderbot Diaries audiobooks to give me time to enjoy the anticipation, so I've been sprinkling in other books in between. And the library very conveniently delivered 'A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet' (by Becky Chambers) from my hold list at the perfect time!

Things that are GREAT about this book:

*I fell asleep almost instantly. Woke up about an hour later, fell back asleep. VERY RESTFUL. (Full disclosure: I was already planning on napping)

So, yeah, the narrator has a very calming voice, I guess? (I just checked the book; it's narrated by Rachel Dulude. Thanks Rachel! That was the nicest nap I've had in a long while.)

Things that make it unlikely that I'll finish this book:

*The loan is for 7 days, and the book is 14 hours long, and I'm not actually planning on napping for 14 hours in the next week. I mean, that might be good for me? But also maybe not.

I've only listened to one Becky Chambers book before (Psalm for the Wild Built), and found it similarly calming, although I'm pretty sure I managed to stay awake for that one. (Different narrator!)

[NOTE: I'm so intrigued by how much the narrator impacts the audiobook experience! In my limited experience of listening, it seems like there are narrators who read the book, and there are narrators who tell the story, and those are way more different than I would have guessed.]

I'm two books into the three-book series 'Chaotic Orbits' by Beth Revis, and looking forward to book three today. Well, 'looking forward to' in the 'squinting through my fingers and hoping this turns out okay' sense.

On the one hand, it seems like there is definitely an opportunity for some clever plot stuff to happen!

But on the other hand the plot is stressful, and I would mostly just like the two main characters to hold hands and have a nice vacation!

[note to self: write more stories where characters hold hands and have a nice vacation]

In the spirit of 'neither A nor B, but a secret third option,' my audiobook adventures have presented another option for that most intensely-debated question: how to pronounce 'tousled'???

A: how I always thought it was pronounced: tuss-eld

B: the internet says: taus-eld

C: A WILD NEW CONTENDER APPEARS: toss-eld

Honestly, I like this one! Works great in an American accent, which is what the audiobook reader was using at the time.

Yesterday I started listening to an audiobook that was ten hours long. I usually try to listen for at least 20% of the run time before deciding if I'm going to bail out, because that's ABSOLUTELY what the 80/20 rule is.

(Note: that is not what the 80/20 rule is. Except that it sort of is, in the sense that we all seem to have collectively agreed that we can call almost anything 'the 80/20 rule.')

I got an hour and a half into the book, and thought to myself, 'these characters are absolutely UNHINGED,' and I couldn't decide if I was reluctantly admiring of that fact, or just reluctant. But I wasn't at the two-hour mark yet, and there was an action scene, and so I kept listening. I made it to three-ish hours before I threw in the towel.

(I completely agree that in real life, people can feel nervous and playful and angry all at the same time. We contain multitudes! But I read fiction because I prefer to relax with characters who are LESS complicated to figure out than real people.)

Also, it was right about that point when the library app informed me that a copy of 'Murderbot' was ready to borrow, which turned out to be Extremely Entertaining! EXCELLENT TIMING, LIBRARY APP!

I've been working my way through the Dianne Duvall's 'Immortal Guardians' audiobooks (after starting with her 'Aldebarian Alliance' SPACE ADVENTURE books, so I got kind of a backwards introduction, which I personally loved -- spoilers: yes, suspense: no thank you).

And I've been interspersing them with other stuff (still impressed at how easily the narrator of my current audiobook says 'marquess,' a word I can't seem to manage despite having now known the correct pronunciation for one (1) whole day).

Mostly this is just a post to appreciate how much fun I'm having listening to a story about people kissing in the rain (it rains a lot in England, I guess) in a book that uses the word 'marquess' a lot yet has a surprising lack of the actual marquess even now, more than 80% of the way through the book, while at the same time part of my brain is all 'BUT WHAT ABOUT THE VAMPIRES AND THE ALIENS.'

Still haven't decided what to listen to next, because I'm enjoying the anticipation so much. Ah, the delights!

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The Marci Rating System

Entries tagged with audiobooks

audiobook thoughts

sure, why not?

WINNING AT LIBRARY-ING

it's been TEN HOURS, who are these people?

the audiobook experience

workaday Wednesday

question answered!

driving with audiobooks

because it's a library!

a what now?

audiobook ramblings

CATURDAY

audiobook rambling

audiobook ramblings

(don't) look at it, it's got anxiety!

more audiobook rambling

audiobook ramblings

I like this one

audiobook ramblings

audiobook ramblings

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January 2026

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