Review: Arrows

By Melissa Gorzelanczyk
Narrated by Laura Knight Keating and Nick Cordero
Available now from Recorded Books
Print version available from Delacorte Books (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

At least once a year, I listen to an audiobook.  They'll never be my favorite way to experience books, but they've been growing on me.  ARROWS had the advantage of being a mere 6 and a half hours long.  It took me a week of driving to listen to the whole story - but far better than one of those 24 hour audiobooks that would take me a month.

ARROWS tells the story of Aaryn, son of Cupid and Psyche, and Karma, a human.  (Great thing about listening: I didn't have to look at that spelling of Aaron for the entire book.)  Aaryn was supposed to shoot a couple with arrows to become a cupid himself, but he accidentally misplaced one while busy with social media.  The result: Karma is hopelessly in love with Danny, who takes her for granted (and worse).  Aaryn has to get Danny to fall in love with her in return or be banished.  The problem: No one would wish Danny on their worst enemy, much less a perfectly nice girl.  Even worse, Karma got pregnant, and so him being a terrible father is also a factor.

I preferred Laura Knight Keating's narration to Nick Cordero's, but I enjoyed the sections of the story through Aaryn's point of view more.  (Cordero did grow on me.)  The result of the arrow is just horrific.  It's not like real love - Karma physically feels herself getting sick if she gets angry or upset with Danny.  She can't even think ill of him when he hurts her.  It was hard to hear her continually stuck in that rut.  Aaryn, meanwhile, gets to be more dynamic and realize how broken the system he dreamed of becoming a part of is.

Remember the 6 and a half hours running time?  ARROWS is a short novel.  That can be an advantage, and I don't think there was more story to explore.  (Except maybe any sort of explanation for why Karma, a serious dancer, never seems to have considered an abortion.  She clearly didn't keep Nell to make Danny happy.)  But I felt like what was there spent too much time spinning its wheels and that the climax played out too quickly.  In ten minutes, everything gets resolved.  I was also bothered that Karma seems to overcome her cursed love for Danny more for Aaryn than herself.

Listening to ARROWS livened up my commute, but I think I found it more disturbing than it was meant to be.  I might, however, look for more novels narrated by Laura Knight Keating.

Are you in Sync?

The SYNC program, which provides free YA audiobooks each summer, is well under way.  It runs through August 13, so there are four weeks left.  That's still plenty of time to pick up some great books.

You can go to the SYNC website to see the 2015 titles.  Each week thematically pairs a newer book with a classic, encouraging a deeper read of each title.  It's a great program, and here's hoping it continues to deliver books to the readers that need them!

Review: The Lovely Bones (Audiobook)

By Alice Sebold, Read by Alice Sebold
Released by Hachette 30 September 2009
Review copy provided by publisher



I read THE LOVELY BONES in the ninth grade and loved it. I picked it up because I knew it was getting a lot of buzz and felt it deserved it once I was done. I enjoyed seeing the world through Susie's eyes, as her family dealt with her death and her killer seemed to escape justice. I have not read it since, so I remembered little about the details of the story when listening to the audiobook, but they came back quickly.

As for audiobooks, this is my second one. They seem popular, but I'm still not sure they're for me. For one thing, it takes longer to listen to the book than it would for me to just pick it up and read it. I listened to THE LOVELY BONES in my car, driving from my apartment to my home and back, but I kept missing little snippets when something happening on the road took my attention from Alice Sebold's voice.

As for this audiobook in particular, I have a love/hate relationship with Sebold's narration. She's rather dull. No effort to distinguish between the voices of different characters or to add emphasis to dramatic parts. On the other hand, her lulling voice makes the worst parts of THE LOVELY BONES that much more horrifying. I felt like crying as her family realized Susie was truly dead with the discovery of her hand-knit winter hat, soaked in her saliva - her mother's love aiding her murderer. It's a scene already wrenching in print, but Sebold's flat, emotionless voice makes it more thematically naturalistic.

However, the aural presentation slows the novel to a glacial pace. I remember the digressions being charming in the text, fleshing Susie and her world out. It fit the narration of a young girl, that she would be somewhat flighty and need to explain little bits of the story to explain the whole thing. It also fit with the idea of a dead narrator, one who has all the time in the world to tell her story and has lived her life - all she has to tell is her past and what others do, necessitating that the two weave together. I remember Susie's death happening so quickly. In the book, she warns you what will happen in the opening lines and her brutal rape and murder is complete by the first chapter. You've been put through the emotional wringer before the book truly begins. In audio format, this takes around 20-30 minutes. The digressions became distracting, making me think, "Is she dead yet?"

THE LOVELY BONES is a great story, and I look forward to seeing the movie. But I must recommend the book version over the audiobook. Perhaps the story would've been better served in this format by an abridgment or a different narrator. I'm not familiar enough with the format to tell.

The excellent movie trailer: