My new-found love of Audible and what I'm reading now!
I am currently obsessed with Audible. If you haven't yet checked it out, it's a website where you can pay a subscription fee ($14.95 for one credit, one credit buys you one book per month) to download audiobooks (and if you know how expensive audiobooks usually are, you fully understand what a steal this is). My commute recently increased from 25 minutes each way to double that, and I felt like I was missing out on so much great reading time. So I decided to ditch my Sirius in exchange for an Audible subscription! And I'm absolutely loving it!
Since Audible is an Amazon company, they have this amazing thing where your audiobook syncs automatically if you also are reading the ebook. I was astounded by this! I had purchased Gone With the Wind on ebook moooooonths ago. Then, on a whim, I decided to purchase Gone With the Wind (it was SUPER cheap) on Audible so I could get a little further by listening to it during my commute. One weekend, I had been reading it exclusively on Aldeux and Sunday night, I went to find what chapter I was on in the audiobook so I'd be all ready to go for my drive to work the next morning. When I logged into the Audibleapp, it asked me if I wanted to sync to where I had left off on Aldeux!!! I hadn't purchased the ebook anywhere near the time I purchased the audiobook and they weren't even by the same providers. But it knew! BLACK MAGIC, YO! So, what have I been enjoying during my ride into work? I recently "read" Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. Both were incredible books.
Amazon's synopsis of Gone Girl: On the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick's wife Amy disappears. There are signs of struggle in the house and Nick quickly becomes the prime suspect. It doesn't help that Nick hasn't been completely honest with the police and, as Amy's case drags out for weeks, more and more vilifying evidence appears against him. Nick, however, maintains his innocence. Told from alternating points of view between Nick and Amy, Gillian Flynn creates an untrustworthy world that changes chapter-to-chapter. Calling Gone Girl a psychological thriller is an understatement. As revelation after revelation unfolds, it becomes clear that the truth does not exist in the middle of Nick and Amy's points of view; in fact, the truth is far more dark, more twisted, and more creepy than you can imagine. Gone Girl is masterfully plotted from start to finish and the suspense doesn't waver for one page. It's one of those books you will feel the need to discuss immediately after finishing because the ending doesn't just come; it punches you in the gut.
Gone Girl kept me guessing at every turn. And I was really impressed by how the author managed to make you completely sympathetic to the plight of each character as their narration was occurring. That is a feat and Flynn managed to pull it off impeccably.
Amazon's synopsis of The Virgin Suicides:
First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters--beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys--commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.
Jeffrey Eugenides first caught my attention with Middlesex, and his beautiful and haunting writing style was just as present in The Virgin Suicides.
Stay tuned... as I'm currently reading In One Person by John Irving (on Aldeux) and Honolulu by Alan Brennert (on Audible)!
#audible #gonegirl #gillianflynn #thevirginsuicides #jeffreyeugenides #middlesex