I have 9 days to listen to 12 hours of audiobooks
Audiobook Files Episode 1
Every month I get 15 hours of audiobook listening with my Spotify subscription. And every month I fail to use it.
The Audiobook Files is my attempt to change that.
This is not an advertisement for Spotify. I am not a brand ambassador. This is not a sponsored series where I pretend to use a product I would never use in real life.
I am simply a reader who gets 15 hours of audiobook listening a month with her subscription to Spotify and would like to stop wasting this perk and read more.
Some readers charge through audiobooks like it’s their damn job. I forget audiobooks exist. If I had a long commute, maybe I would listen more. But I’m ten minutes from my office on a bad day. My current job requires just enough of my brain power and attention to make audiobook listening while I work difficult. So each month, I keep letting 15 hours of already paid for audiobook credits go to waste.
Enough is enough.
It’s June 18th and I have listened to only 3 out of 15 hours this month.
My plan renews on June 27th.
I have 9 days to listen to 12 hours of audiobooks.
Most of the 3 hours I’ve listened to already are the last few chapters of The Best Way to Bury Your Husband by Alexia Casale, the book my mystery book group read this month. I’d been reading the physical copy and was almost finished but was getting short on time to sit and read before our meeting, so I pulled up the audiobook to listen to on my daily walks.
Contrary to this kind of silly, tongue-in-cheek title, this book actually deals with the very serious topic of domestic violence, the subtle and subversive way husbands abuse wives, the more blatant ways too, that men hurt women. But the author handles this topic with care, with heart, with depth and empathy.
I can really only recommend this one if domestic violence isn’t triggering to you. There are some scenes and conversations that may be uncomfortable for some readers, but for me it didn’t feel gratuitous or flippant.
Okay, sure, the premise is a stretch—four women find themselves all with a body that needs burying and they band together to help each other out—but the author’s note reminds us that storytelling is exaggeration, often to make a point, or draw attention to a subject that may be uncomfortable to read about.
The moments of lightness in this book, of humor and friendship and shenanigans, balance out with the heavier topics and makes it accessible to most readers without making light of the real struggle and complicated nature of domestic violence.
Side note: this book takes place during the height of Lockdown Pandemic, so fair warning there if that’s something you’re not quite ready to revisit. It was the perfect setting for this plot though!
But I still have 12 hours of listening this month, and I’m at a little bit of a loss about what to listen to next. I’m halfway through two different books and so I might as well finish those up before I start something else. One of those two books is a non-fiction audiobook about weight lifting that I started listening to a couple of months ago so I’ll keep going with this one since I still have a good chunk left to read.
The other is a queer romance novel I picked up at a bookstore downtown, Grand Gesture, which I highly recommend you visit if you’re ever in the area.
I was drawn to Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun because of the cover and because I really enjoyed another book by Alison, Kiss Her Once for Me. I was looking forward to this second-chance, enemies-to-lovers, road trip vibe of a book, and while I did enjoy the first few chapters, I’m quickly losing interest.
I’m not as connected to the characters as I want to be and there are some specific turns of phrase that are annoying me (like one of the characters comparing another character’s mouth to a puckered cat butt), but I’m too far in now, too invested in this road trip to let it go completely.
There’s a grief element to this one. The two main characters are driving a terminal friend across the country to see one last sunset and that is the part of this book I want to see through to the end. Since I’m struggling to sit down and read this one, it’s a perfect opportunity to pull up the audiobook and listen while I walk and do chores. It’ll feel less like I’m wasting time on a book I’m not really enjoying, and more like I’m enhancing my chore experience with a book that’s entertaining enough.
Ultimately, I’m glad to see this one through to the end. I like how it ends. I like the road trip and the themes of grief and regret and anxiety and finding a way to break out of your rut and go do cool shit. But also, I’m not sure it’s a book I really cared all that much about. It didn’t get into my soul the way I always hope a book will, and it’s really not a book I’ll be shoving into people’s hands anytime soon.
So, no, not a rave review. Alas, I can’t love every book.
I have 3 days left before my subscription renews and still 6 listening hours left in the tank. That means at least 2 hours a day to reach my 15 hour limit. I have this sneaking suspicion I’m not going to make it.
At the very least, I want to finish A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting by Casey Johnston. I have 1 hour and 22 minutes left and I’ve been dragging my feet on this one long enough.
I’m actually finding this book to be really interesting, so I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to finish it, other than the problem I always have, the current problem I’m trying to solve: I forget about my audiobook credits. I forget to listen.
I read an article about this book a few months ago and immediately started listening. I’m going through a bit of a health journey right now in my own life. I’ve reached the age where doctors recommend women start doing more strength training to maintain muscle mass. (Yes, I probably should have been doing more of this my whole life but I always seem to get in my own way.)
It’s interesting to listen to Casey’s weight lifting journey while I’m trying to get better about my own strength training habit. She’s power lifting, lifting heavier and heavier, and I’m still struggling with my 10lbs dumbbells twice a week, but I can see a fleck of muscle in my shoulder that wasn’t there before and my pants are fitting better and I have more energy from day to day. And yesterday, I tried 15lbs dumbbells and didn’t drop them and progress is progress.
It’s the last day before my hours renew and according to my account, I still have 5 listening hours available, though it’s probably closer to 4 at this point.
I’m not sure what to read next.
I’m part of a second book club, and the book we’re reading for June, Noor by Nnedi Okorafor, is available on Spotify. I queue that up because we have our meeting in 4 days and I have only read 2 pages. It’s a short book, only 211 pages, so I think I’ll be able to finish it without needing to stay up too late, but switching back and forth between the audiobook and physical book will ensure I get there.
But I only get about one chapter in before I realize that this might need to be a book I read physically. I tend to like listening to non-fiction books on audio more than fiction.
For Noor, there are details I’m missing that I might not miss if I read the physical version. There’s language and delicate sentence structure that I really want to lean into, so I think I’ll try to find another audiobook and just let this one be a feast for my eyes.
I guess I could be pretty happy with 11 out of 15 hours. That’s better than I’ve been doing recently, with my 0-2 hours. I think about not finding anything new until the listening period rolls over, but then I listen to a Book Riot Podcast episode where they’re talking about the buzziest books of the year so far.
They mention a recently released memoir by Shari Franke, eldest daughter of Ruby Franke, who was a popular Mormon family vlogger for a long time before she was convicted of child abuse. I watched the Hulu miniseries about her and her family, and while it was disturbing and devastating and hard to look away, I found myself wondering a lot about Shari. I had no idea she was writing a book until this podcast.
I feel a little icky wanting to read this book, like maybe we should just leave this family alone already, but humans are curious by nature, especially about things that don’t make sense to us. And in many ways, I think this book will be less exploitative than the Hulu series because here Shari Franke is telling her own story, lifting her voice, taking up space, taking back some of what was taken from her, and I think there’s power in that.
I woke up this morning with 8 hours still left before my listening hours renew! I thought it would happen overnight, but I still have time! Between work and life, I manage to cram in another hour listening to The House of My Mother by Shari Franke.
Which brings my total listened hours in June to 12 out of 15. I'm pretty happy with that but already I'm starting to think about July and what interesting stories I might uncover with
Final
Stay tuned for more Audiobook Files!
Now taking recommendations for your favorite audiobook listens!
