3 Recent Audiobooks

One of my favorite recent rhythms has been to get out for a neighborhood walk in the morning in between breakfast and baby’s first nap. It’s a chance to get some fresh air and I pop in an airpod and listen to my audiobook while we walk. It’s been a glorious summer and we’ve been lucky that the air quality has been so great too. We still have another month or so of clear weather before the rain really sets in and my hope is that this habit is engrained enough that I’m able to maintain it once the weather shifts. Even if the rain is light, it can be so hard to get motivated to leave the house. We have one stroller rain cover and I’m looking for a secondhand one for the jogging stroller too. I’ve been utilizing LibroFM and the Libby app to download audiobooks and I’ve been flying through them it feels like! Here’s what I’ve been listening to lately:

A BEAUTIFUL WORK IN PROGRESS

I have followed Mirna Valerio from my personal instagram for several years now and have loved seeing her journey. I’m not sure how I even found her but she is so inspiring to me and encourages me to get outside and to move in the body I have. I also feel like most “fitness” people fit a single mold and it’s refreshing to see a body that’s bigger and looks different than what you usually see. I’ve had it on my radar to read her book but never really got to it and decided to use a LibroFM credit on the audiobook. It’s narrated by her which is always a huge bonus and as much as I wanted to love it….I didn’t. It felt so pieced together and hopped around and I found myself inching up the listening speed in order to get through it faster. I think I wanted a more cohesive story or synthesis at the end and overall, it just wasn’t my favorite.

I’M GLAD MY MOM DIED

I had no context for Jennette McCurdy or the show iCarly going into this. I only knew that I’d seen it buzzing around with incredible reviews and when I saw it was a free ALC copy for LibroFM, I downloaded it. I think that this one absolutely lives up to the hype and McCurdy is an incredibly compelling storyteller. This was a lot of short vignettes and she goes into depth about the abuse she endured growing up, being pushed into child acting, and her battle with eating disorders. Despite the heavy content, I REALLY loved this one.

So I got almost halfway through this and decided to quit. It’s such a short audiobook and I really wanted to finish if only to mark another book off my list…I hated it. I found it to be incredibly repetitive, reductive, and just boring. The author’s central message is to go through your things so that you don’t leave a mess behind for the family after you. If you’re looking for a decluttering book, go with Marie Kondo.