ADVENTURES IN AUDIBLE REVIEWS: IQ by Joe Ide

Patricia's review caught me because it was the "Most Helpful" on an Audie Award nomination for Mystery in 2017. She has a really cute hand-on-the-cheek pose. Notably, she's also showing restraint and only using 1 exclamation point per sentence versus !!!?!, which I completely respect. This woman throwing out words like "gritty" and "fresh!" can probably make a mean batch of cookies. 

The book she is reviewing, IQ, is about "a rap mogul whose life is in danger". And for that reason Patricia wins my Audible Reviewer Award for muthafuckin' representin. 

I READ A BOOK: I Love My Love by Reyna Biddy

Well, Valentines Day is right around the corner so if you're going through a break-up or angry-single (like me), then boy do I have some poetry for you.

I LOVE MY LOVE by Reyna Biddy

People who like this book will relate to it on a "spiritual level". Reyna definitely writes from her heart over the head. But these poems are not the ramblings of someone drowning in love; they're about Reyna and about being hurt (so perhaps it's not a gift to someone you're currently dating). They're about someone learning how to love themselves and learning other people do not have the interests of your heart at the top of their to-do list. She says it herself: "the girl who writes poems about loving too hard - and not being loved hard enough."

This book will not be everyone's cup of tea. If you're into traditional poetry, this is not traditional poetry. I think the poems were a little all over the place and don't flow together as a collection. Writing a whole book about love can be a little melodramatic. I saw signs of codependency and other mindsets that will set most people up for future disappointment. I suspect this book is geared towards a specific age range - teens to twenties.

But if you get this book, I want to know who crosses your mind while you read it!

I would recommend this book to people who are new to poetry, people who like pleasefindthis, or people who just want to get themselves their own Valentines day present. (Why not, you deserve it).
If you're going through a hard break-up, this book will *get you*.

At the end of the day, I'd file this under Tumblr poetry (as I do pleasefindthis). Before you scoff and run away though, Tumblr poetry is emotional, excitable, accessible, (and all lower-case). But I enjoy these collections - because they are emotional and excitable, because they are accessible.

And because they are lower-case. Lower-case are all the same height, not one more important than the other. Unified. Worldly. I get it, man. I'm hip with the new world order.

Check Reyna Biddy out on Twitter: DearYouFromWe

ADVENTURES IN AUDIBLE REVIEWS: Ghost Gifts

I find this review hilarious!

GHOST GIFTS is about a female named Aubrey who can probably communicate with the dead. This gift ruined her life so she now works at a newspaper. A story about a dead girl hits her desk and then she finds herself getting involved again with spirits. 

Here is the audible review from Trish R. 

This book is labeled as romantic suspense. That is absolutely NOT true. Levi (Hate that name), the hero, and Aubrey, the heroine, have been together since almost the beginning of the book and there is absolutely no chemistry whatsoever, no thoughts or feeling, no nothing. Heck, they didn’t even kiss until 75% and there still weren’t any feelings involved. So, here we have another author whose publisher tells her “sex sells” so she drops a sex scene in here and there and calls it romantic. Like the sex between Missy and Dustin was just ridiculous, she’s 20 and he’s 46 and she’s been doing “it” with him since she was 16? Eww. And THEN she went to Frank’s apartment after she finished with Dustin and did “it” with Frank, too. Eww again. Nothing romantic about that. And there was nothing romantic about Levi and Aubrey’s sexual encounter either, at 88% of the book. If there’s NOTHING that leads up to the sex then the sex is not worth having in the book. LMAO, one reviewer on Amazon said this: “I think this book tried to incorporate just a bit of "50 Shades." You’re freaking kidding me, right? I don’t think this reviewer read this book at all. The sex between Missy and Dustin lasted about 2 sentences, in his truck. And between her and Frank it lasted about a page of two pages, without any real description, and the sex between Aubrey and Levi lasted a few pages and it was sooo vanilla it wasn’t worth reading. How is that anything like 50 Shades?

Now, I’ll tell you something I find amazing! One reviewer mentioned how many times Aubrey’s name was used in the first 2 or 3 chapters. In actuality, in this 386 page book Aubrey’s name was used 1,338 times, according to my iPad. That’s a little much, if you ask me. Levi was only used 926 times. Good grief!

Overall, I will admit this was a pretty good mystery. I had an idea, about half way through, who did it but the reader didn’t find out who did it until very late in the book. What was nice about this book was that it wasn’t based on just one spooky story. I thought the one that had to do with Levi and Brody was so good and so sad. And what happened to Frank was unbelievable. The author wrote Dustin as somewhat of an idiot, and that fit with his character. And, of course, poor, poor Missy!

As to the narration: Nicol Zanzarella was barely OK for me. Her men didn’t sound like men and that’s really a bad thing. She did read with some emotion but when your men sound feminine the emotions don’t make up for it. I could not recommend this audible book and I will not be listening to this narrator again. She was very disappointing.

 Trish R. knows what she wants and it's not a few pages of sex, goddammit. 

All of the titles to her reviews are "_______ book and _______ narration." Insert awful, ok, great, or horrible and you get the idea. 

Trish R, who are you? Where do you listen to these audiobooks and can we have an audiobook club thanks.