We probably all have heard of the Try A Chapter Challenge or Tag before but in case you didn’t, it’s basically that you pick a couple of books (usually 5) and you read the first chapter and see what you think and whether you would like to continue it. I have decided to do a little twist on this tag by listening to audiobooks! I’ve recently gotten really into audiobooks and I have quite a list of books that I’ve been thinking about reading but am unsure of. So that’s why I’ve decided to listen to some audiobooks and see what I think!
The books I’ve picked are:
Release by Patrick Ness
The first chapter of this book is 21 minutes and to be quite honest, I have no idea what’s going on. The main character (I don’t know his name) is buying a rose for his boyfriend and there’s a car ride, I think. And they talk about some party he and his friends are going to and there’s also a girl that died. Somewhere at the end of the chapter it suddenly switched perspectives to a girl, I think the dead one, who is not as dead as a dead girl should be because she’s up and talking about a dress. It sounded a bit gibberish-y to me.
My verdict: I’m not continuing. I’m not intrigued enough to keep going and frankly if I have no idea what’s going on in the first chapter already, I’ll probably only get more confused. The narration by Michael Crouch was okay, but – I also noticed this when I was listening to Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda (also narrated by him) – I don’t like how he does the narration of female characters.
American Panda by Gloria Chao
The first chapter of American Panda is 26 minutes, which was very long so I listened to it on 1,2x speed. It was… enjoyable. The first chapter is about a girl called Mae(?) who is meeting her mother at a Taiwanese restaurant and they talk about… things. Her mother is very traditional and wants Mae to marry a Taiwanese boy who is also a doctor and she’s trying to set her up. We also hear about how her brother was disowned and how she has a crush on a Japanese boy (forgot his name). At one point the boy comes up to Mae and they talk.
The verdict: I might continue. I haven’t really made up my mind yet but the story sounds like fun and I really liked the representation of Taiwanese culture even though I don’t really know much about it. It wasn’t really funny like people told me it was, but that might change. Going through this made me realize that I have zero opinions on narration for the most part, I really don’t care about it that much unless the narrator has an annoying voice haha.
Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine
I listened to the first and second chapter since the first was an epilogue and they were 5 and 6 minutes respectively. So what happened in the first two chapters… I have no idea. It started out from the perspective of a living space ship??? And that was VERY distracting to me and also somehow VERY unsettling. I just got so distracted I barely noticed what was going on in the second chapter. I think there was some kind of interview and there was a guy called Washington and it was about some space trip. That’s all I got.
The verdict: uhm, I don’t think so to be honest. Something about the perspective of the living space ship was very weird to me and I can’t put myself to read more of it. I might just not like Rachel Cain’s work, since I once tried reading Ink and Bone and didn’t like it. Also, it turns out I do have opinions on narrators and this one was kinda odd, idk, not my taste.
You know I love American Panda – I don’t know what to say as far as the audiobook goes but there are a lot of Chinese words in the book so it might be interesting to hear them to see how they’re pronounced rather than seeing them written but also if you don’t like the narrator it’ll probably ruin the book for you xD
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Yeah they did speak Chinese in the audiobook (I don’t know how accurate the pronuncuation was because I obviously don’t speak Chinese). I’m not sure I dislike the narrator but I liked it a lot less than the others. I’m sure I’ll be able to get over that if I continue.
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Hopefully it’s accurate haha – if you continue I hope you enjoy 🙂
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I recently sort of did that, but it was more I listened to the first 5 minutes or so of each of my audiobooks I’d bought within the past few months from Audible. I have very definite opinions on narrators and ended up returning 6 of the 9 I’d recently bought!
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Oh that’s a good idea! I didn’t know you could do that with audible, I’ve never had audible.
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This is interesting! I have heard a lot of mixed things about Release. I have also noticed that narrators can make or break an audiobook for me.
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I hadn’t heard much about Release actually, I knew there was some hype when it came out but I never heard much about whether it was good or not.
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After seeing this around booktube, I started to read the first chapter of different books to find my next read and it’s actually really worked for me, but I didn’t think about making it a blog post because I wasn’t sure how to adapt the format from video to writing…. you made a really good job! This was so fun to read!
I haven’t read any of these books but the only one on my tbr is American Panda, I’m really excited to read because it totally sounds like the type of book I enjoy. I hope you like it if you keep reading it!
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Thank you! I’m glad you liked it! I’ve seen it around on booktube as well, but I’ve also seen some other bloggers do it, so I got a bit of inspiration from that 🙂
I hope you love American Panda too!
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For some reason women seem to do better males voices than males do females…. but there are always exceptions. 😊
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It seems that way!
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I haven’t listened to the audio for any of those, but I read American Panda and Honor Among Thieves. I would recommend American Panda first. I really liked that one a lot.
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Thank you! Did you like Honor Among Thieves too?
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I did like it, but it wasn’t a favorite.
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I used American Panda for one of my Try a Chapter Tags as well and thought the first chapter was quite enjoyable! I wasn’t a huge fan of the novel overall but it was still a pleasant read and the characters were pretty interesting. Plus, i’m starting to become obsessed with stories that take place in college so the more I read the merrier! Lovely post 🙂
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Ohh I love books set in college but my favourite thing is when they’re set in the final year of high school, I’m not sure why haha
I’m glad you enjoyed it somewhat 🙂
Thanks!
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You picked some great books to pick for this tag Lia. I will admit I have not read these, but I have my eye on a few of them i.e. American Panda and Release. I enjoyed hearing your opinion of the first chapter. I listen to a few audiobooks a month, I really love them. I think my top ones I listened to recently was The Witches and Strange Weather.
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Thanks! I’ve gotten really into audiobooks lately, I might try those books next!
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I hope you like them if you do!
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I personally haven’t read any of these books. However going by your descriptions I think my verdicts and feelings would have been quite similar. A living Space ship?! that weirds me out a little but maybe it would get better more interesting later on?
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Maybe it will? I’m actually kinda curious but also I heard there’s romance between a space ship and a human?????
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What??!! Ok thats a bit out there!
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Yeah a bit haha
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Ouuh cool tag! It’s basically what I do every time I don’t know what to read haha!
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Yeah haha it’s a good way to decide what to read! I do it too sometimes but usually I do end up reading all the books I already own so I thought it might be fun to try books I wouldn’t normally have picked up!
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One of my favourite audiobook (well, audiobooks since it’s a trilogy) is A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty. It’s really obscure but I have a strange love of the series. It’s narrated really well and has multiple narrators, including different narrators for the two main POVs. The book is part magical realism and part fantasy.
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That’s great! It really doesn’t sound like my kind of thing though 🙂
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This sounds fun Lia! But also like, I mayyy just continue on everything I try because when I start a book, I hold out for several chapters (and sometimes even more than halfway through) before I have a clear verdict if I should continue or not. I’m weird like that 😄 There was only one time when I DNF-ed a book a few chapters in.
As for recs, I hope you could give the first chap of Hidden Dawn by Elke Silvarain a try 😊
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Oh haha I’m more the other way around. I can easily read 10 pages and decide I don’t want to read it and never pick it up again haha
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Gahh I wish I was like that sometimes 😩 Imagine the maaany stories that upset me in some ways that I could have avoided.
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I love this new thing you’re trying out here! 😍 I would love to do something like that (just not with audiobooks, but the try a chapter idea is really cool!).
I’ve read Release entirely as an eArc and I can say that for me continuing wasn’t worth it. It gets even weirder and I honestly didn’t know that there would be Magical Realism elements
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That’s good to hear I guess haha I’m glad I didn’t read it then because I don’t like magical realism.
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This sounds fun! I might do it on the books at the bottom of my TBR, you know the stuff that has been there since the beginning of time but you never get to. This tag could help figuring out if i should keep them or not. Great idea (mental self-high)! I’ll do this 😁😁 thanks! Btw it’s been a long week, I think I’ve lost some of my sanity…
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That seems likea great idea!
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Yeah it does, doesn’t it? I did do it, but it didn’t go so well, 😂 http://ivyslibrarycard.com/2018/04/23/tag-try-a-chapter-tag/
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Ahhh I love Ink and bone but can’t make myslef pick up Honor Among thieves just yet?? It sounds cool I guess sorry you don’t click with her writing! I’m so excited to read American Panda and I’ve just decided Patric Ness’ books are NOT for me at all.
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I read two of Patrick Ness’ books and I kinda liked them, but not a lot so idk. Maybe they’re not my thing either. I hope you like Honor Among Thieves though!
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Oh my gosh, sounds like you had quite the adventure through these books! I love your thoughts on Patrick Ness’s book – just when I thought I should read more of him, I realized I should do it cautiously. So funny that finishing the first chapter left you feeling so confused. I’ve seen American Panda EVERYWHERE – frankly, out of the three I would continue with that one.
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I don’t know what to think about Patrick Ness’ books, I always seem to like his book but never love them. I think I would too! Maybe I will pick it up soon 🙂
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I really like this version of the challenge! I haven’t read any of these, but I think you’ve actually got me more intrigued about Honor Among Thieves.
Where do you get your audiobooks from?
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Thanks! I get my audiobooks from Scribd. It’s super nice because you can get unlimited audiobooks and ebooks for a fairly low price 🙂
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I read Release by Patrick Ness… but I was really underwhelmed by it. I didn’t see the point to the other narrative – I felt like it went nowhere. You’re not missing out! This looks like a fun tag!
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I’m really glad I didn’t continue then! I don’t know what it is about Patrick Ness’ books, I just never really click with them.
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