Audiobook Review: The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial by Peter Goodchild

Published: November 2nd, 2006
Publisher: L.A. Theatre Works
Listened to from May 11th to 16th, 2016
Synopsis from Goodreads:

The Scopes Trial, over the right to teach evolution in public schools, reaffirmed the importance of intellectual freedom as codified in the Bill of Rights. The trial, in a small-town Tennessee courtroom in 1925, set the stage for ongoing debates over the separation of Church and State in a democratic society - debates that continue to this day.
An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Edward Asner, Bill Brochtrup, Kyle Colerider-Krugh, Matthew Patrick Davis, John de Lancie, James Gleason, Harry Groener, Jerry Hardin, Geoffrey Lower, Marnie Mosiman and Kenneth Alan Williams.
The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial is part of L.A. Theatre Works’ Relativity Series featuring science-themed plays. Major funding for the Relativity Series is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to enhance public understanding of science and technology in the modern world.
©2006 L.A. Theatre Works (P)2006 L.A. Theatre Works

Review:

Before listening to this, I hadn't listened to an audiobook since the Harry Potter series years ago. Recently, I'd wanted to listen to them, so when I learned that this site was releasing two free audiobooks from download each week over the summer, I was interested. I figured this would be a good way to explore audiobooks for the first time.

I was genuinely interested in this audiobook as well. We watched the movie about the Scopes trial in high school, and I also observed in a classroom last year while they were studying the play. Of course, we also talked about it in history class in high school, which is actually why we watched the movie, but I don't remember discussing it in huge detail other than watching the movie. At any rate, nothing in this audiobook felt new per se, but I wasn't expecting it too.

It's worth mentioning that this isn't an audiobook with one narrator reading the entire story. It's a recorded play, which isn't what I would necessarily think of as an audiobook. Because of this, there are also times where you can tell that actors forget or stumble over their lines, and you also hear audience reactions in several places (in addition to reactions that are part of the play that are meant to be the crowd in the story, which I admit felt a bit confusing at times).

Overall, I enjoyed listening to this audiobook. I probably wouldn't have bought it myself. There were some parts that felt too summarized when the narrator just told you what had happened. I would rather watch the movie, which I felt explored the story more effectively and didn't summarize chunks in such an obvious way as the play. I would probably watch the actual play if I had a chance, but I'm not sure if I'll ever feel that interested in listening to it in audiobook format again. I think the play is something that was meant to be seen and not just listened to. It just didn't always seem to translate well.

Book Review: Rewind to You by Laura Johnston

ISBN: 1601833504
Published: September 15th, 2014
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Read from May 4th to 16th, 2016
Synopsis from Goodreads:

One last summer before college on beautiful Tybee Island is supposed to help Sienna forget. But how can she? This is where her family spent every summer before everything changed, before the world as she knew it was ripped away.
But the past isn’t easily left behind. Especially when Sienna keeps having episodes that take her back to the night she wants to forget. Even when she meets the mysterious Austin Dobbs, the guy with the intense blue eyes, athlete’s body, and weakness for pralines who scooped her out of trouble when she blacked out on River Street.
When she’s with Austin, Sienna feels a whole new world opening up to her. Austin has secrets, and she has history. But caught between the past and the future, Sienna can still choose what happens now…

Review:

The story within Rewind to You was enough to hold my attention although there was nothing about it that particularly wowed me. It was, overall, what I expected going into the book. I did enjoy some of the attempts to incorporate the setting into the story and make it an important part of what was going on. In fact, if I had to choose a favorite part of the story, I would probably choose its setting on Tybee Island, which made it very much feel like a summer book.

My least favorite part of the book would without a doubt be the characters. Aside from Sienna's boyfriend Kyle, who you figure out pretty quickly is not someone you're meant to like, I wasn't particularly interested in any of the characters.

I did like Austin. He's just about the only character I can say that about. While I get the impression that I would have liked both Brian and his mother if we saw them more, the fact of the matter is that we don't. Sienna and Brian are meant to have been friends since they were kids and spend every summer with each other, but that didn't come across that well in the book. Once Sienna meets Austin at the beginning, I think she interacts with Brian maybe twice. Or once? I honestly don't remember. At any rate, it left their friendship being something that you were told about far more than you actually saw.

I also think I would have liked Sienna's brother Spencer more if we actually saw him. I think I was supposed to be left with the impression that their relationship greatly improved over the summer based on the ending of the book, but I'm not really sure how that could be when it wasn't shown in the book itself.

Really. Sienna's relationships with everyone except Austin and Kyle is neglected in the books. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I went into this book knowing it was a romance, so I expected such a thing to be the case. It's just that the author seemed to try to make the book about Sienna's relationships with everyone at the end, which didn't feel accurate to the rest of the book's sole focus on Sienna and Austin's relationship.

All of that being said, I did enjoy Sienna and Austin together, and because of that, I mostly enjoyed the book. The only pet peeve I have is that Sienna spends the majority of the book dating both Austin and Kyle, which Austin knows about and Kyle doesn't. While Kyle is set up as a jerk who has repeatedly cheated on Sienna from the beginning, it didn't leave me feeling any better about Sienna's reactions. Sienna also gets very defensive when her mom is angry about this, which seems a bit unfair considering the circumstances. Was Sienna's mom unfairly prejudiced towards Austin? Yes. She treated him horrible as a person. However, I would have been more worried if she'd seen her daughter cheating on her boyfriend and not been angry about it. I was actually surprised that she didn't do or say more to condemn what Sienna was doing.

Overall, Sienna seemed to get a huge pass for cheating from just about anyone. Almost everyone knows she's dating Austin despite the fact that she has a boyfriend back home, and hardly anyone seems to care, which is an aspect of the story that I can't seem to wrap my head around. It made what would have been an otherwise more positive experience instead leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I didn't like it, and it made it far more difficult to support Sienna and Austin's relationship.

I almost would have appreciated a bigger focus on Austin anyway. I enjoyed the development he went through over the course of the book, and he was a far more likable character than Sienna. I greatly enjoyed the parts of the book in his point-of-view, and that might have been what helped me stick through and read the entire book.

Armchair BEA 2016: Wrap-Up

It's time for this year's Armchair BEA to come to an end. It really did fly by. Even after posting daily for the first time in who knows how long, I have to say that it left me feeling far more energized than tired. (Granted. It's easy to say as much when summer break just started and I'm reveling in the previous semester being over.)

I have found some new bloggers to follow, which is particularly great as I'd been itching for new blogs to subscribe to for a while. Over time, I'd been finding it harder and harder to find new blogs even when I was searching, so I've loved Armchair BEA for that.

Plus, you can never complain about more opportunities to discuss books with people who enjoy reading as much as you do. The Twitter chats were perhaps the funnest part of Armchair BEA for me. I've had some excellent discussions surrounding books (and even some slightly off topic discussions) the past few days.

For anyone who missed any of this weeks posts, here's what I posted this week:

Introduction and Diversity in Books
Aesthetic Concerns - Books and Blogs
Beyond the Books & Beyond the Blog
Surviving Fictional Worlds

I look forward to participating in Armchair BEA in 2017. While I was excited this year, I think I'll be even more excited come next year now that I know exactly what to expect. I'm very glad I participated this week.

Armchair BEA 2016: Surviving Fictional Worlds

Day for of Armchair BEA is here! We're reaching the end, which is definitely bittersweet. I've had such a fun time participating this year.

We're talking about fictional worlds today, which is one of my favorite aspects of many books. I mentioned in my Armchair BEA introduction post that world building is a big part of why fantasy is my favorite genre. Needless to say, it's something that I'm excited to discuss.

When it comes to the fictional worlds I want to live in the most, it will surprise no one who knows me when I say: Harry Potter. I'm too old to go to Hogwarts now, but even so, if I could magically appear in the Harry Potter world right now and live in it as an adult, I'd take the opportunity. I don't know how I could not. There might be some lingering sadness that I couldn't go to Hogwarts, but I would still be over the moon about getting to explore the wizarding world.

Just strolling around Diagon Alley would make me happy. Or Hogsmeade. Or the Ministry of Magic. Honestly, I would just explore. I'd probably be satisfied with being able to explore as a muggle, but if I was lucky enough to discover that I was a witch, I would, of course, immediately make my way to Flourish and Blotts (assuming I was still too old to attend Hogwarts) and Ollivander's to get everything I needed to begin learning magic.

That being said, I'd like to be in the Harry Potter universe when everything is peaceful, not in the midst of the war. If you were to ask me if I'd want to live in our reality or go to Hogwarts during the war, I'm not sure what I would choose.

That's what makes saying I'd want to live in fictional worlds difficult for me. There are plenty of fictional worlds that I'd love to explore, but I'd also like to not get caught up in any life or death struggles that the main characters often go through. Give me the option of explore them free from all that, and I'll probably say yes.

As for fictional worlds I wouldn't want to visit no matter what the circumstances, just about every dystopian world would apply. It's such a cliche answer, but there are reasons for that. I could visit many of those worlds without threat of death if I stayed out of the main conflicts shown in the books and if I was careful to follow the status quo. But following the status quo would mean being complicit in all of these terrible systems, and I just don't know if I could consider that a positive experience. I think I'm much better off sticking to reading about dystopian worlds in books.

Although maybe I would visit some of them once everything had been resolved and they're building a better world. Panem, for instance, might be cool to explore once they're rebuilding just to see how things have changed and how they've made their world a better place (hopefully).

For the most part though, I'd consider dystopian worlds as off limits for me.

Armchair BEA 2016: Beyond the Books & Beyond the Blog

It's day three of Armchair BEA! I'm still as excited as I have been the last two days. Maybe it's reaching the point where I'm overusing that word. I don't know. It doesn't change the sentiment. Now, on to day three.

Beyond the Novel

Aside from novels, I do enjoy reading manga. I don't read manga anywhere near as often as I would like. It often gets pushed aside in favor of buying novels, and admittedly, the number of volumes of manga makes it difficult for me to stay on top of it. Ouran High School Host Club has been finished for years now, and I still haven't read half of it. I absolutely love Ouran, so it's not a lack of desire. Truthfully, I'm terrible at keeping up with series in general, so the multitude of volumes in a manga series only make it more difficult for me.

One alternate form of books that I would like to get into is audiobooks. In the past, I was always turned off by how expensive they can be, but I love listening to podcasts. I figure I would like audiobooks. (This next part is going to sound like a paid promotion, but it's genuinely not. I just learned about this from another blog and am excited about it.) OverDrive is doing this thing where they're giving away two free audiobooks a week all summer. I downloaded the first two and began listening to one already. I even downloaded OverDrive for it, so I'd say their promotion is working. Maybe this will lead to me listening to more audiobooks even once the summer is over.

Beyond the Blog

The biggest way I discuss books outside of my blog in the past would be in class, since I'm an English major. However, that's changing. Or has changed. This past semester I didn't have any English classes since I've completed all my English credits. I'm actually an English education major, and next semester is my student teaching, then I graduate. So I've lost the one of the biggest ways I've discussed books outside of the blog.

However, I am going to be an English teacher. Even in my student teaching, I know I'll be discussing books with my students. (I've seen the curriculum already, and let me tell you, I'm excited about it.) Still, I wouldn't mark that down as the same thing as other types of bookish discussion. In the classroom, I want the students to discuss the stories they've read. I don't want my views to be the center of attention. For that reason, I think I'm going to have to find some new ways to discuss books now that I'm no longer in English classes. Maybe I'll come to rely on the blog even more for that sort of thing.

I do have a Goodreads account that I use religiously to keep track of the books I read. It's not, however, a place that I spend a lot of time discussing books. I do see that as a possible way to make up for my new lack of people to discuss books with.

I've thought about book clubs before, but I just don't know if they're for me. That's mostly because I like reading books I already have on my shelf, and I don't want to be in a club where I have to go out and buy books I don't already own (when I have so many that I need to read) in order to discuss it with the club. Other than that, I would find joining a book club appealing.