This was a DNF. I’m not sure if the DNF is for the narration, or the book itself. While listening to this on a car trip, it felt like I was plugged into the middle of the story and was lost. I got about 30-35 minutes into this before I said OK I’m done.  This is normally the type of book that I like but it feels like I woke up in the middle of a video game somebody else was playing. I might like this better if I read it instead of listen. 

 

This was a DNF. I started this as an audiobook three different times, and each listen only lasted an hour and a half to two hours into a 20 hour story. The main reason that I DNFed this book is that every time I started this book I couldn’t remember anything I had already listened to. This is because so much of this book is telling not showing. At least in the beginning there is so much set up for who the characters are what they’re doing, etc. It’s almost never ending. Even now, though I have listened to those first two hours multiple times I still cannot tell you anything that happened. I’m not saying this book was bad I’m just saying it wasn’t for me as an audiobook. 

 

This was a DNF. This book starts with a prissy man getting in a fight with his girlfriend while the room service waiter is setting the table. The girlfriend storms off, there’s a big explosion and now we’re in the apocalypse. The room service waiter who is military is taking care of the trillionaires son and things are not going well. Nuowan doesn’t want to live if life isn’t easy and he doesn’t have access to money. While in the first few pages Nuowan kissed the server now three days later when the server kisses Nuowan, Nuowan, calls him a pervert and runs off, almost killing himself because they’re in a ten-story building, and he’s forgotten it in Apocalypse. I find this is an enemies-to-lovers book. I have no desire to get there. I think the repetitiveness of the server being called a pervert, just for kissing a guy doesn’t make me want to see them together in the end. So this book is a no thank you. 

 

This was a DNF. I started and stopped at least four or five times all throughout 2023. I’m surprised I couldn’t get into this considering how much I adore and love both the original book and the movie. I think part of it for me was the illustrations. And while they are fit for the topic because they’re so brown and dreary, they seem disheartening, instead of hopeful and enlightening. This is a great introduction to the story, but I think the original novel does it better and keeps one’s attention way more than the graphic. 

 

This book is both an exploration and a history lesson of reality TV. It’s seen through the eyes of a character who loves and wants to be part of reality TV. Unfortunately, the obnoxious lesson and the comparing of reality TV to fine art was heavy, handed, and boring. Therefore, this is a DNF 

This is exactly what you expect from the title. It takes place in Tokyo, and a man is pregnant. Not a trans man, a biological man. It starts by telling you that genetics has changed and for the past 10 years men have been able to get pregnant.  Our main character is single and has become pregnant and we as the readers see their pregnancy in context of society. This pregnant man is treated almost as if he was a pregnant teenager in the US. First off people are wondering if he’s gay or had sex with another man since they’re pregnant. Then people are debating if he should have the baby. There there were the arguments that a pregnant man is unnatural and what is he gonna do without a woman. The main character also debates with themselves frequently about should I keep it are should I abort.  However, there’s no simple abortion for men. It’s a full on weeklong recovery abdominal surgery because there’s no birth canal. This book isn’t crazy, it’s just boring. I wanted to like it. I thought it would be fun and I find that there’s so much commentary on how society feels about pregnant men that I have no interest in continuing.

This book is just sad. I cannot finish it. It’s a memoir of a woman who is constantly wanting to run away from home, but has return home when her mother with dementia falls ill. She has to do what she can to take care of her mom while laminating her brother‘s death and her sisters indifference. These two can’t get along. Most of this book at the halfway point has been how she feels about her mom and a little bit about her mom‘s history,  It's also about what she hates about living in the US. There are some interesting things, for example death as a character shows up on multiple pages and even talks with the protagonist.  Death is looming over the entire story. The reader knows where this book is headed but I have no desire to get there. It’s sad the protagonist is unlikable and I really have no desire to finish this book.

 

DNF. The illustrations led me to think this was a picture book and it’s a chapter book and I have no interest in it. 

I really wanted to like this.  It's a Hallmark book at Christmas, so I knew exactly what to expect.  And if this was a movie, I probably would have ate it up.  However, the main character is so worried about the danger her son could be in, because his dad dies doing something dangerous, that she cant enjoy life.  And I do not speak of daredevil escapes.  Her son, at 6 wants to be a firefighter, and he loves everything firefighting.  He makes friends with a local firefighter.  And mom worries about the danger of firefighting.  He constant worrying grated after a while, and took the enjoyment our of what was supposed to be a Hallmark movie on paper.

I am sorry to say, but this was a DNF.  I had high hopes from the description, a century years old vampires are expelled and forced to live among the humans of Iowa.  Sign me up.  But it didn't work as an audiobook.  I am not sure of the pace of the story, the narrator, or the story itself.  I tried to listen to this book at least 3 times and and never got further then an hour.  Maybe if I was reading it, I might enjoy it, but not as an audiobook.