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My Experience with Audiobooks

This past weekend, I took a long road trip, and to combat boredom, I brought several audiobooks to listen to. It was my first time with audiobooks, so I was a little apprehensive about the experience, but to my surprise, I ended up really enjoying them.

At first, it was a bit hard to adjust to the fact that I wasn't, well, reading and was instead listening to a voice read, but soon it felt completely natural. It was actually rather relaxing to be able to just lean back, close your eyes, and listen. (Unless you're driving. In that case, I highly recommend keeping your eyes open.)

There were some things that bothered me about audiobooks, though. Mainly, it really bugged me when the narrator gave voices to the characters that just didn't sound right to me, and I often find myself re-imagining certain characters saying things in the voice I had for them in my head.

It was also unfortunate when sometimes I found myself zoning out for a few minutes and coming back to see I had no idea what was going on. When reading, if I space out, I can easily just reread whatever paragraphs I missed, but it's not so simple with an audiobook.

Overall, I did have a positive experience with audiobooks and would strongly recommend them for if you're doing household chores or on a long drive or whatnot, but if given the choice, I would prefer regular books.

What do you think? Have you ever listened to an audiobook? How was your experience?

5 comments:

Jillian said...

You know I'm truly curious about this because I have never actually tried audiobooks before. I've been hearing mixed reviews about them, but I think at the end of the day, it really just depends on what specific book it is you're listening to.

I heard the HP series is fantastic to listen to though! Might give it a try one of these days.

Melody said...

I appreciate audio books, and I enjoy them on long car trips. However, I rarely listen to them otherwise, because it feels like they go so slow. I'm a fast reader, and I just can't fathom taking that long to go through a paragraph. So I definitely prefer books unless I'm in a situation (car trips) where I don't have anything else vying for my time. :)

fakesteph said...

I LOOOVE audio books, but the narrator makes or breaks them. Jesse Eisenberg narrating White Cat and Jim Dale narrating Harry Potter are both suburb, but I couldn't sit through American Gods because the narrator drove me nuts! I'm about to drive from California to Virginia (in a long roundabout way) and will probably join audible so that I have a few things to listen to in the car. :)

Alexis @ Reflections of a Bookaholic said...

My experience is very similar to yours. It took some getting used to but if I absolutely can't read, I'll listen.

Cialina at Muggle-Born.net said...

I'm a fast reader so I think that audiobooks really drag. And I do have a tendency to just block out the sound so the experience of "reading" is really not the same for me.

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