I’ve experimented with what kind of audiobooks I like, through different free trials of platforms, before eventually paying for one. I went through the whole summer on free trials, listening to the beginning of a lot of books. I didn’t like audiobooks until this summer because I really like to read books myself. I’ve read a lot and have become good at it, I don’t need to narrate voices in my head always, so info can go in and translate to pictures in my head – it’s a lot faster. Reading physically I can choose the pace myself, pausing at sections with beautiful writing. Physical books are easier to bookmark or take notes in.

But here’s why I changed my mind and now also like audiobooks:

• Audiobooks can be enjoyed by people who don’t like to read for so many different and good reasons, like just not being able to sit down and focus for that long. It makes books more accessible.
• There’s easier to find time for audiobooks and you can do other things while listening (the reason I love podcasts), like cleaning, training, sitting on the bus for hours or try to fall asleep
• BUT MOST OF ALL – I was admitted to the hospital this summer and because of illness I could not focus enough to read. It’s so hard to read without concentration or your mind in the right place, in a way it isn’t so difficult to listen to small chunks of audiobooks. This really converted me, as I saw why audiobooks are better than physical ones in certain situations or for some people
• It’s so much cooler to hear a memoir told by the author themselves! This is my favourite type of audiobook as you’ll see in my recommendations, it’s just so comforting or adds an extra layer of emotion and realness to the story.

Here’s the recommendations:

Memoirs narrated by the author

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah: IF YOU WANT TO PICK ONE, PICK THIS. It’s so damn good, as Trevor is already a driven comic and an amazing story-teller. It’s hilarious, it’s heart-warming, heart-wrenching, informative. Just 10/10 will listen to it a lot and one that many will love without knowing much about Trevor Noah.

Buffering by Hannah Hart: I wrote and then lost the review of this book, but it’s so heartwrenching, good and honest. She talks about being lesbian and how it was to realize that in a family where her dad later became jehovas witness and her mom was a schizofrenic. About having to make choices for the family and the best of her sister, of growing up to soon and trying to find herself afterwards. I cried, a lot.

My Fight / Your Fight by Ronda Rousey: Listen to this to get motivated to train your ass off or excell at anything really. It’s written before she lost and her popularity went downhill quick, but it really brings out the human sides of Ronda as well, in a sometimes natural way.

Secrets For the Mad by dodie: If you like dodie, her voice is really calming to listen to for so long and the audiobook itself is excellent. If you don’t know who she is, don’t pick it up, it doesn’t really tell a powerful stand-alone story like the others here.

I’ve Only Found One Fictional Audiobook I Loved? And A Lot of Okay Ones

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo reads like a memoir/biography, only it’s fictional and not only is the story excellent, but it’s the only fictional audiobook I really fell into and embraced as possibly better than the physically reading it. The narrator is excellent.

If you just want to find audiobooks that have good narrators here’s a short list: If we were villains by M. L. Rio, The poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, The price guide to the occult by Leslye Walton (didn’t like the story personally) and The power of habit.

PS: If you want more – here’s all my audiobook reviews tagged. And if you like poetry, poetry collections on audio are so great to listen to! I recommend Mary Oliver’s.

Do you like audiobooks or do you prefer ebooks/physical books? I’ll appreciate audiobook recommendations!