Audiobook-Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Although Graceling isn't my preferred genre, I truly believe I enjoyed this novel because the audiobook was so good. The fact that is was a full cast narration made it easy to follow, and really put me in the moment. I think that this was probably the best choice for this novel, since Graceling has so many vital characters it's important for the reader to get a true feel for who they are, and the one of the best ways is to hear the character.

The quality of voice in this audiobook was really great. I got a real feel for the time period and could picture the story in my head like a movie. The narrator was clear and engaging, as were all the characters. I think there was really only one time that I replayed a particular part to try to understand what was being said, but the character speaking was supposed to be mumbling, so it was actually very accurate. One thing I found really fascinating was that the description of a character matched the voice of the person reading that character's part. It was spot on.

The music at the beginning of each chapter and through out the novel really helped to place me "in the moment" of the story. The story takes place in castles and inns, so the music that was used was harps and violins. It was all very medival sounding. I have to say that none of it was over done either. There were no sound effects which I think worked out perfectly, had they used them I think it would have been over processed. I think it would have been too much.

I listened to the audio version of Gracelings on a Play-a-way which is how most of my students would listen to an audio version of a book. I like listening to the book on Play-a-way because I have control of the speed of the story and when I had to stop the story as soon as I turned it back on the story picked up exactly where I stopped. The sound was clear, clean and crisp without a lot of white noise. The package for this Play-a-way is extremely sturdy, so much so that I took it with me on my daily walks and had no problems at all. The cover of the audio version is exactly the same as the book both of which are very appealing. As I said before, this is not my preferred genre, but the conver definitely interested me.

I would give this audiobook TWO big thumbs up! I will for sure be recommending this one in the future!