Tag: 2024 audiobook challenge

Book Review | Funny Feelings by Tarah Dewitt

Posted April 9, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Funny Feelings by Tarah Dewitt

When falling in love is the punchline…

Farley Jones is a loud, chaotic, and hilariously clever standup comedian on the way to stardom. The only thing she loves more than the rush of telling jokes in front of a revved-up audience is her hot older manager Meyer, though he doesn’t have a clue. Keeping her feelings hidden from him is agony (a tragedy, even―in lieu of flowers, please send cash…) but Meyer has been Farley’s closest and most treasured friend, not to mention vital to the trajectory of her career. She can’t risk ruining their relationship by telling him how she truly feels. After all, who else would have the patience to put up with a hot mess like her?

A former standup star himself, single father Meyer Harrigan left the stage years ago in order to focus on raising his deaf daughter Hazel. Farley has been everything to them since she came into their lives three years ago, and despite his grumpiness, his protectiveness over Hazel, and his disdain for public attention, Meyer will do anything to make her standup dreams come true.

When the biggest opportunity of Farley’s career comes along and forces the pair to fake-date in order to stir up publicity, it doesn’t take long for their act to bring all those other funny feelings out into the open. Like most matters of the heart, it quickly begins to feel like anything but a joke.

Touching on the creative spirit and all that comes with sharing that gift, Tarah DeWitt’s Funny Feelings is a swoony story about friendship, love, and looking for the laugh in life.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge

The Reason

I’ve had this on my TBR for a while. I’d also been reading a lot of heavy books all at once, and I really needed something lighthearted. It was also available on audio just as I felt I needed it most. So here we are!

The Quotes

“Well, how interesting. Men are afraid of women being funnier than them, and women are afraid of, oh, I don’t know, being oppressed, beaten, raped, or killed by men. But look out! Funny chick here might follow you down an alley and make you chuckle without consent!”

“This book is dedicated to all the women who’ve ever been told that they’re Too Much. Maybe you’re too loud, too crass, too open, too bawdy. You overshare too often, say too many bad words, you’re too weird, or too emotional. To the women who, in their quiet moments, still think back on their social interactions and wonder if they really are too much, if they should feel embarrassed, or ashamed. You are fucking incredible. You are my people. Don’t you dare dilute yourselves to make yourselves more palatable. You are all heart and fire.”

“There’s a Swiftie song for everyone.”

“As long as I remain true to myself, I know that my silly streams of words have the power to make someone’s day brighter.”

The Narrator(s)

Nelson Hobbs and Stephanie Bentley. They were pretty good. I did have some trouble hearing properly at some points, but they were few and far between.

My Thoughts

The beginning started off really strong. I love the premise and I’m always up for a fake dating trope. I also really love that there was a deaf character named Hazel, and deaf-specific jokes. I had an ear operation when I was 10 years old, and have had hearing problems and tinnitus ever since, and my name is Hazel! I’m not deaf, and I don’t think I’m even in the category of being hard of hearing, but I do struggle occasionally.

Unfortunately, I think that the later part of the book kind of slowed down and wasn’t as strong as it could be. It seemed like it lost momentum and the drama that popped up wasn’t really convincing at all. It wasn’t bad, and I still enjoyed the book, but it wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been.

My Feels

A lot of the book really resonated for me with the comedy, the sentiment, and many of the quotes. The romance itself didn’t do as much for me, but it was still the nice fun read that I needed.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Posted March 5, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 4 Comments

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid–a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #36: Has futuristic technology)
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge

The Reason

I’ve been seeing so many recommendations for the Murderbot Diaries everywhere, and always in conjunction with a few other books I’ve loved. Everyone who talks about it says how much they loved it, and it just got to a point where it seemed like everyone has read it except me. So I got on the bandwagon!

The Quotes

“I liked the imaginary people on the entertainment feed way more than I liked real ones, but you can’t have one without the other.”

“Yes, talk to Murderbot about its feelings. The idea was so painful I dropped to 97 percent efficiency. I’d rather climb back into Hostile One’s mouth.”

“You may have noticed that when I do manage to care, I’m a pessimist.”

“All right,” she said, and looked at me for what objectively I knew was 2.4 seconds and subjectively about twenty excruciating minutes.”

The Narrator

Kevin R. Free. He did a great job! No complaints there. My only issue with this being an audiobook is that I often don’t get the characters’ names, and/or location names, mission names, etc., but that’s a common issue with scifi and fantasy and made-up names. I heard the series was good on audio, so I’ll continue it on audio, but I might check out a print copy just to see the names written out.

The Characters

The Murderbot – I don’t think we ever find out its name, unless I missed it. But I love it! It may be a murderbot, but it’s one of the funniest, most relatable characters I’ve ever read about, and ironically, so humanly-flawed! I love it!

The other characters are interesting too, or rather, have the potential to be interesting. Their personalities are quite distinct, but we don’t find out a lot about them. Some readers have criticized this aspect of the book, saying that the characters fell flat, but to me, it seemed like a deliberate decision. We see the story through the Murderbot’s POV, and the Murderbot tells us repeatedly that it doesn’t care to know anything about the other characters. I thought it made perfect sense.

My Thoughts

I’ll be honest and say that half the time I had no idea what was going on in terms of plot. The beauty of this book is in the Murderbot’s thought processes, and again, the Murderbot admits it has no interest in information about the crew or their missions, or anything to do with why it’s there, and it certainly shows through how the story is told. I think that it’s just brilliantly written, how Martha Wells managed to write a story where we don’t get a lot of clear information, but we get to know the Murderbot, and how invested we can become in a story like that.

My Feels

I want more. I started the book knowing that it’s the first book in a series, and I think I might not like it as much if it stopped here because while I enjoyed getting to know the Murderbot, I feel like this book was just an introduction and I need to see its character develop and grow. So I’m looking forward to the next books!

My Rating

4/5 stars. I’m hooked, but I need more!

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | The Storyteller by Dave Grohl

Posted February 26, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 2 Comments

The Storyteller by Dave Grohl

So, I’ve written a book.

Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (“It’s a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!”) I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.

This certainly doesn’t mean that I’m quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it’s like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge

The Reason

I’m a fan of Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, and I’ve been wanting to read this for a while. I don’t read a lot of memoirs and biographies in general so it takes me a while to pick them up, but one of my reading goals this year is to read more nonfiction, and the audiobook became available to me at just the right time.

The Quotes

“Life is just too damn short to let someone else’s opinion steer the wheel.”

“But with friends, you design your own relationship, which in turn designs your grief, which can be felt even deeper when they are gone. Those can be roots that are much harder to pull.”

“I love my children as I was loved as a child, and I pray that they will do the same when their time comes. Some cycles are meant to be broken. Some are meant to be reinforced.”

“Courage is a defining factor in the life of any artist. The courage to bare your innermost feelings, to reveal your true voice, or to stand in front of an audience and lay it out there for the world to see. The emotional vulnerability that is often necessary to summon a great song can also work against you when sharing your song for the world to hear. This is the paralyzing conflict of any sensitive artist. A feeling I’ve experienced with every lyric I’ve sung to someone other than myself. Will they like it? Am I good enough? It is the courage to be yourself that bridges those opposing emotions, and when it does, magic can happen.”

The Narrator

Dave Grohl himself. I loved it. I loved listening to the book directly from his voice, to hear him tell me his stories about his life and his musical journey. It was perfect!

My Thoughts

Dave Grohl isn’t just an amazing musician, he is an amazing writer and storyteller. I’ve been a casual fan of his and of Foo Fighters, but while I liked his music and what little I know of his public persona, there is a lot I never knew about him and I’m glad he decided to tell his story in this book. The stories he tells in this book made me laugh, made me cry, filled me with awe and amazement, inspired me, and made me a bigger fan.

My Feels

What I love most about this book are the stories Dave Grohl tells about his connection to the people in his life. His relationships with people who are important to him; his mother, his family, his friends, and band mates. The way he connects with his fans, and other celebrities whom he is a fan of. He is such a down-to-earth person, even with all that fame and stardom from a relatively young age. Listening to him narrate the book, you feel like you are having a conversation with a close friend, and he is a person whom I’d truly love to be close friends with.

My Rating

5/5 stars. I loved listening to the book so much and I was sad when it was over. I almost wanted to start over just to hear it all over again. I’ve told my husband (who’s also a fan of Dave Grohl) little anecdotes while I was reading so he has put a hold on the book as well. Who knows? I might reread when he does!

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

Posted February 23, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 6 Comments

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.

Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile—a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.

From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #30: Picked without reading the blurb)
2024 Bookish Book Challenge
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge

The Reason

It’s a bookish book, it was available, and I was in between books.

The Quotes

“Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can’t fix anything. And your life might turn out full of regrets.”

“Because every day with a book is slightly better than one without, and I wish you nothing but the happiest of days.”

“There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them.”

The Narrator

Lucy Price-Lewis. I really liked her as a narrator. I did have trouble understanding the accents, but that’s mostly on me.

My Thoughts

I enjoyed it very much at first, even though it’s just a little bit cheesy. But I started to get really annoyed with Nina (and other characters) at the second half of the book.

Spoiler
I really didn’t like that she was so forgiving towards Marek after finding out he had a romantic partner who’s the mother of his child. I also don’t like that Marek is somehow still portrayed as a sympathetic character. Nina can be naive, but I think this is a little over-the-top. The fact that she continued talking to him even after that, I just don’t like it.

I also really didn’t like the way she handled that whole thing with the two siblings and their sick mother. That whole scene with Ainslee being unhappy about Nina getting involved, and then all of a sudden being okay with it didn’t ring true to me. And her sick mother’s interactions with Nina also felt weird and unrealistic.

And there was the part where Lennox had a sick animal he was rushing to get to the vet, but then he came back to drive Nina home first, I was in disbelief.


I could’ve overlooked one or two issues, but there were too many and I couldn’t enjoy the book anymore. I’m sorry I don’t have more to say about the book that isn’t spoilered. I guess I don’t really have a lot of nice things to say, and that makes me feel really bad, but it is what it is!

My Rating

3/5 stars. Because I don’t think it’s badly written. I just didn’t like the story or the characters.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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