BOOKENDS
Airhead by Meg Cabot
Airhead, audio version
Meet Emerson Watts, Em for short. She pays more attention to school than to what she wears there, appreciates the computer game JourneyQuest more than the scads of fashion magazines her sister reads, and believes more in supporting small local stores than the new superstore opening close by. Coerced into accompanying her younger sister to the opening of the Stark Megastore (where there are all kinds of pop stars, models, etc), Em is gravely wounded when a giant plasma-screen TV falls from the ceiling and lands on her. The next thing she knows, she's in the hospital, a month later, hooked up to wires and machines all monitoring her bodily functions. Except that her body wasn't her body. All of a sudden, she has the body of a super model -- the super model, complete with contracts, BFFs, and everything. And she doesn't want it, doesn't want to be one of the so-called "walking dead."
I started this book by listening to it in my car, but then the hardcover finally arrived for me and I started reading and listening. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to finish it. And I enjoyed it; it was entertaining and took a good look at actually getting what many people think they want -- but not having a choice about it. Imagine having the regular life of a regular, nothing-too-special girl and then suddenly waking up in the hospital with a body to die for, except that it's not yours and you didn't have a choice about it and now you have to give up your whole previous life.... Definitely tough.
A reasonably interesting read; my biggest disappointment being that there was no resolution at the end -- just a first chapter of the next book. Whether this will be a long-running series like the Princess Diaries, I couldn't tell you, but I would have been happy to have Airhead finish up in one read. Guess I'll be waiting for the sequel.
Y FICTION Cabot

Labels: audiobooks, book review, books for girls, chick lit

~emily - 11:41 AM~
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BOOKENDS: Fly On The Wall
Fly on the Wall by E. Lockhart
audiobook read by Caitlin Greer
To Gretchen Yee boys are alien beings -- she just can't understand them. Everyone at her arts school is working so hard to be "different" and Gretchen just feels ordinary. And when her best friend starts hanging out with the art geeks and her parents announce they're getting divorced, she feels lonely and lost. She wishes she could be a fly on the wall in the boys' locker room, so she could really start to understand them -- and finally work up the courage to talk to to Titus, her crush. And then one Saturday morning, she wakes up and she is a fly on the wall -- in the boys' locker room...!
This is another in my attempts to find audiobooks I like and can listen to -- and it was a fun "read." Truly, who hasn't, at some point in their life, wanted to be a fly in the wall to hear and see what's going on in someone else's life? There are parts of this book that don't lend themselves to audio particularly well, but if you forget about those and don't mind the swearing (lots of f-words flying around) and the sex talk (she's a teen girl in the boys' locker room, after all), it's a pretty funny story.
Y COMPACT DISC FICTION Lockhart

Labels: audiobooks, book trailers, books for girls, school

~emily - 11:46 AM~
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BOOKENDS: FLUSH
Flush by Carl Hiaasen
Audio version: read by Michael Welch
When Noah's blows up a casino boat, the Coral Queen, because he believes the owner is dumping sewage into the bay, he ends up in jail -- a slight problem for Noah, his sister, and his mother. But the protest fails, and the Coral Queen is back in business before Noah's dad gets out of jail. So Noah decides to take things into his own hands and succeed where his impulsive father has failed. With the help of his sister Abbey, Lice Peeking, Shelly the bartender, and a strange old pirate, he sets out to prove that the Coral Queen is illegally (and disgustingly) dumping sewage into the ocean.
I'm usually not a huge fan of audiobooks, but I'm trying to learn. I picked this one up last week as an attempt to save myself from repetitive radio stations -- and I chose it because it's only 5 discs and a story I hadn't yet read. And I'm reasonably pleased -- in fact, I looked forward to driving this week so I could listen to the story. First of all, the story is fun, full of spicy characters getting into scrapes and helping each other out. Second, the reader does a fine job, except in a few places where his voice gets so soft you have to turn the volume way up; he's expressive but doesn't overdue it with the voices.
All in all, I'd say this is a good choice for audiobooks.
Y COMPACT DISC Hiaasen

Labels: audiobooks, book review, green

~emily - 9:31 AM~
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ELSEWHERE
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zavin
Imagine you wake up one morning to find yourself dead. On a boat on an ocean. And you don't know where you are.
This is what happens to Liz Hall, when she's 15 years old, and killed by a hit-and-run. She awakes and finds herself on the ship to Elsewhere. She has no family with her, no friends, and most of the other people on the ship are ... old. Soon she finds herself living with a grandmother she has never met in a place resembling Earth, but it's not, and she's homesick and angry and only wants to go home. But home is not an option.
I finally got around to listening to an audiobook, and despite previous attempts and failures, I actually enjoyed this one. The book itself is a good story of life, death, learning to accept the blows of life and live with them, and adjusting to change.
The audio is done by Cassandra Morris, who does a great job.
Y COMPACT DISC FICTION Zevin

Labels: audiobooks, book review

~emily - 10:25 AM~
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