An early end; dating the undead
Before I Die
By Jenny Downham
Listening Library, unabridged fiction, six CDs, seven hours, $34, read by Charlotte Parry; also available as a download from audible.com, $23.95.
The Gemma Doyle Trilogy
By Libba Bray
Listening Library, three unabridged audiobooks, read by Josephine Bailey: "A Great and Terrible Beauty," nine CDs, 11 hours, $44, or as a download from audible.com, $20.95; "Rebel Angels," 14 hours, 12 CDs, $50, or as a download from audible.com, $34.95; and "The Sweet Far Thing," 16 CDs, 20 hours and 29 minutes, $50, available from audible.com later this spring.
Twilight
By Stephenie Meyer
Listening Library,unabridged fiction, 11 CDs, 13 hours, $48, read by Ilyana Kadushin; also available as a download from audible.com, $33.95.
Young adult fiction sure has changed from the days when S. E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" was considered cutting edge. Much fiction aimed at teenagers has become so sophisticated that there is a very blurry line between it and its adult counterpart.
Jenny Downham's serious, sad, gripping novel about a teenager with leukemia is one example of a story for teenagers that could just as easily be appreciated by their parents. In "Before I Die" a 16-year-old British girl tries to check off everything on her life list before cancer gets her: sex, silliness, petty larceny, and drug use.
Though reader Charlotte Parry is a bit inconsistent with her accents, overall she gives a spot-on performance that matches the intensity of the narrative. This is a heartbreaking, realistic ride, and Parry was a perfect choice for the driver's seat.
Libba Bray immersed herself in all things Victorian to produce "The Gemma Doyle Trilogy," a strange but endearing Gothic period piece blended with fantasy and rooted in feminism, with a little romance thrown in. Sounds a muddle, but it actually works.
We meet Gemma in "A Great and Terrible Beauty." After her mother's suicide in India, Gemma is shipped to an English finishing school, where she discovers she has the power to cross into a parallel world known as the Realms, populated with gorgons and centaurs. She spends much of this and the next two audiobooks battling evildoers who want to grab all the power from the Realms and use it both there and in 1895 England.
The first audiobook, flawed by a few gaps in logic and an ending that screams "sequel on the way," is the weakest of the three. Neither it nor its successors - "Rebel Angels" and "The Sweet Far Thing" - stand alone, but Bray mostly ties together the complicated plot threads by the time you've heard all 45 hours, though the ending is a bit too pat. Be sure to catch the author interview at the end of "A Great and Terrible Beauty," in which Bray talks with great passion about her subject and her technique.
Narrator Josephine Bailey does a commendable job with regional accents. Although her pacing and performance are convincing, she sounds more middle-aged than 16, which is a problem for the audiophile trying to suspend disbelief. (The abridged version of "A Great and Terrible Beauty," available from both Random House and audible.com, is not recommended. )
"Breaking Dawn," the fourth in Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight Saga" series, is due out in August. You have to go back a few years to find the first in the series, "Twilight," but thanks to the Internet it and the rest of the series are readily available. It is worth the effort, because this is a fun vampire fable perfect for a long summer's drive.
Bella is the new kid in town, having moved from her mother's house in Phoenix to be with her dad in tiny Forks, Wash. At first this seems a convincing tale of an outsider trying to get through high school, but it becomes a love story between Bella and the bad boy, a teenage vampire named Edward.
Though "Twilight" could have been about an hour shorter, Meyer creates a plausible world in which bloodsuckers inhabit the Pacific Northwest, thanks to the dearth of sunlight. Especially nifty is the fact that Bella is not a vampire but a fragile mortal loved by Edward and his family, who have vowed not to harm humans.
Much of the fun in hearing this series is that narrator Ilyana Kadushin sounds youthful, impassioned, occasionally awestruck, and sometimes flippant, just like Bella. Her performance illustrates that an actor need not distract with an array of vocal personae as long as he or she can express the author's intent.
Rochelle O'Gorman is publisher and editor in chief of audiobookcafe.com.
