The Audiobooks I Could Not Stand!

This is the third and final installment of my adventures in audiobook "reading." I love cheat reading, in fact when I started the first part of this blog series I had just hit 150 audiobooks, I'm now on 165. If you really like reading try it, you won't be disappointed!

I usually finish every book I begin and I really try to find something good in something somebody took the time to write; I figure it is the least I could do. The good thing with any book is if your not enjoying it then put it down.

However, occasionally I begin a book that just barely keeps my interest and I get sucked in and just can’t get myself to stop “reading.” Well, here are six audiobooks that I simply could not stand. If you have read any of these books and enjoyed them then speak up; I’d like to hear your defense.

Three horrible non-fiction audiobooks:

A Good Dog, Jon Katz: I’ll ruin the ending of this book for you: he puts his 6-year-old Border Collie to sleep because it had nipped a couple people and he was worried that one day the dog might really hurt someone. But that is not why this is on my list of bad books; it is on my bad list because he was already writing this book before he made the decision to put the dog down, in other words I question his motives after all, nothing else makes a better story than a dramatic death at the end. Oh yeah, who writes a book about a family dog yet drops the f-bomb? The guy needs to get his life in order and figure out his audience.

American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips: Religion is bad blah, blah, blah, blah. At first this book intrigued me as religion and politics in the USA is becoming intertwined way too much but this guy really doesn’t like religion and that is what his book is really about. He seriously feels all people who believe in an organized religion must be stupid. But what bugged me most of all: I can’t speak for other faiths but he didn’t even do simple fact checking in regards to Mormonism. He tried to explain The Book of Mormon but clearly has never even opened one up and misrepresented the church on several social issues. Sure, as Mormons we really lit a fire with Prop 8 but overall the Mormon faith is actually quite progressive (wish I could say the same thing about many of my fellow members…Mitt Romney I’m looking in your general direction).

The Blind Side, Michael Lewis: This is a story about a inner-city black teenage boy adopted by a wealthy white family in the suburbs. This young man’s IQ accelerated and his new family encouraged him to participate in football earning him a college scholarship in Mississippi. Sounds like a great social worker story, right? Well, it wasn’t. This family didn’t really have an interest in improving the plight of African-Americans and thought of this young man as more of a novelty than anything else. In fact, the author bragged about how well he did in school but he didn’t do well. He had to take distance ed courses through BYU (the father said the staff at BYU was really nice but “too bad their all going to hell for being Mormons," ha, ha, ha). When NCAA investigators came to see if the situation was legit the father couldn’t even tell them a single class the kid was taking and was offended when they suggested something strange was going on. Point is, I wanted inspiration and found more problems than anything else.

Three horrible fiction audio-books:

Digital Fortress, Dan Brown: If you noticed I had one of Brown’s books on my favorite list but this book is so predictable and the characters are obnoxious and stereotypical. The other weird thing is that this book is full of profanity while his other books are relatively clean. What gives? But I have come to realize that his books all have similar story lines and predictable “red herrings.” If he really wants to fool his readers he needs to come up with a totally different story line and avoid the same old little tricks he has done in the past. But in all fairness I think this was his first novel.

Plum Lucky, Janet Evanovich: This author has sold millions of her books about this female detective but not only is the story line predictable but the characters are annoying. In this particular story our hero’s team consists of a former hooker turned P.I. that wear skanky clothing and a guy who thinks he is a Leprechaun among other ridiculous, not funny personalities. Sometimes I wonder how some authors are so successful.

The 5^th Horseman, James Patterson and Maxine Paetro: Speaking of successful authors that befuddle me these two sell books like crazy but the characters are so dumb and in this case the story line is ridiculous as well. I mean come on; the villain was actually the guy implied from the very beginning. It’s supposed to be a mystery! Oh, and this group of women call themselves something like the Women’s Murder Club, oh, yes, all those murder mysteries that cross their paths. Best part of all, the main character’s boyfriend works for homeland security and she is so proud of him for keeping Americans safe! Give me a break!