I’m super sick and I can’t stand to lift a page. I finally got a Storytel subscription, got too trigger happy and started a bunch of books (I haven’t marked all of them here).

I’m really enjoying all the ones I’ve listened to and been listening too.

Here are a few I like: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (very immersive, and Lameece Issaq has a very dynamic voice) Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (rip king. I love the impressions he does) Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (the passivity of Rebecca Lowman’s narration juxtaposed with the toxically jovial dialogue reading is hilarious) Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones (I liked when Malcolm Sinclair swore in his mirthless and angry British accent).

I’m not an avid listener. I only just got a subscription and still figuring out the kind of narration I like. But I understand their necessicity when I need a distraction.

I wanna ask avid audiobook listeners this: what do you consider to an objectively good audiobook? What is the magnum opus of audiobooks to you? Whether they’re your favourite or not doesn’t matter.

And in the same vein I have another question, what narration do you think is so bad that it is good? Like each reading choice makes you laugh in shock?

Quick question before I continue, why does it always involve sacrificing women, whenever it's a religious or cultural or even just sacrificing for the greater good its always women??? Like maybe let's sacrifice the men, maybe something will happen Just a thought

I'm consuming this novel via audiobook while I'm at work or playing video games, and tbh this is the only reason I haven't DNF'ed it. I wanted to give Morgenstern another chance after I read The Night Circus and identified its potential.

The Starless Sea has the exact same issues as Morgenstern's other book, except this is even more drawn out. The references within the book were outdated when it hit the shelves in 2020; this reads like something pulled from COVID-era BookTok, complete with Original Characters (OCs) who are all beautiful and unique-looking, and a vaguely proper tone strung throughout the dialogue and descriptions (quite, naturally, and other adverbs and adjectives used in the books referenced in here, dot the pages).

The action is so anticlimactic that when some big plot point happens, it barely registers. The characters aren't developed enough for me to care about them, and the protagonist is strung along by the plot, as was the case for The Night Circus. You can't create an air of fate or destiny within a story when you are constantly telling the reader everything could be fate or destiny.

TL;DR The Starless Sea isn't using the 'show, don't tell' rule. As a result, the characters are one-dimensional and the story suffers.

If I could just read the letter portions, I would absolutely love this but I am just so confused about what exactly the plot is. I get there's some kind of war happening but it's not very clear. Like are they in different timelines? Or is the "time war" to save the dying planet?

Like I do enjoy the letters part and love how both have their own style. Red is more formal and Blue is more poetic but I just..I don't know. If I finish it, I know it's going to be a low rating but I don't want to DNF either.