Ladies by the Lake

 Before this year I had never tried listening to an audiobook before, and with a 14 hour road trip (each way!) this spring break I decided to download a couple of audiobooks on Spotify to listen to on the drive. I downloaded a couple from 2 different genres-- Imogen, Obviously  (YA), and The Great Gatsby  (Classics?). I chose to start with Imogen, Obviously , and soon began to regret beginning on my audiobook journey. To start, the chapter pacing in this one is a bit slow-- it would likely be fine if you were reading it as a book, but as an audiobook it can get hard to keep track of the chapters, which are ordered by days. The person reading the book started off very slow, but I was able to speed them up. However, the balancing of description vs dialogue was off. The dialogue was too slow, and again, would have been fine if you were reading it as a hard copy, but was a little odd to listen to. Dialogue is also hard to follow, and is clunky when listening. If the book jumps from time to

     Hi guys, It's Shanna again. While wracking my brain for ideas on this blog post, I realized I haven't read many quote-on-quote 'classic novels.'  I could have just written this on my current literary adventure, but the thought of these unread books stuck with me. So, instead of simply diving into them blindly, I thought it would be fun to take a different approach. I'm going to try my hand at guessing the plot lines of some of these literary classics based solely on their titles, covers, and the vague impressions I've gathered over the years. It's like a literary guessing game, and I'm excited to see how close—or hilariously far off—I am with my predictions. Here, I take 'judging a book by it's cover' very literally. Join me on this journey as I embark on a ‘ whimsical ’ exploration of some of the best-known literary classics—and stick until the end to hear my A Midsummer Night’s Dream prediction, which you’ll just have to wait and see

            Sword Art Online (SAO) written by Reki Kawahara is one of the most influential pieces of media to hit Japanese (and American) markets ever. Originally published as a Japanese web novel on the author’s own website in 2002, it is often credited with “creating” a sub genre of portal fantasy (fantasy world is accessed via a portal) called “isekai” or “other world” where characters typically get sent to another world (as the name implies). This genre is extremely popular with multiple isekai anime airing every season with even more unadapted manga and light novels (basically Japanese novels; abbreviated LN) being made. So, did SAO actually contribute to the amount of isekai being adapted to anime form or is this all just the Mandela effect? The short answer is it’s complicated. The long answer is…             First I will briefly summarize SAO. SAO takes place in the hypothetical year 2022 (remember this was made in the 2000’s) where VR technology has progressed to the poi

14 Ways to Die by Vincent Ralph is another murder mystery book in the rapidly growing genre, however, the murder being investigated is over 10 years old. Jess' mother was strangled in a alley with the number 1 carved into her torso while taking a shortcut home when Jess was 7. Now, 12 women later, the killer is nicknamed 'the Magpie Man', who around every nine months, targets a women, strangles her, then carves the number into her chest.  To catch the Magpie Man, Jess plans to broadcast herself as another possible victim-- without outright saying it, of course. Luckily, a news station near Jess is offering a 3 month show to anyone who wants it-- the catch being you need to secure the most views against 4 other participants.  Throughout the book is a level of anticipation, as slowly Jess starts getting more letters and threats. In the end, (spoiler!) 'the Magpie Man' is revealed 2 times before Jess is able to actually catch him. I would definitely recommend this book