October 21, 2020

Scary Movie Marathon Fail

Jerry and I just got done watching The Roast of Donald Trump from way back in 2011. The weather felt so nice outside that we opened up the garage doors and sat in the "man cave" to watch. We'd watched it back in the day, but it was so much funnier now! ;)


Jerry and I had planned on having a scary movie marathon today (we've actually only watched one so far, hahaha! We started at noon and it's now 8:00 PM). He's going up north tomorrow, and he was off work today, so we decided to have a lazy day and watch horror movies.

We started with the 2019 'Child's Play' (I'd actually never seen the original one, and never had interest in it, but we watched the new one to kind of poke fun at it). Then we decided to go out to the garage to watch another, but when we got out there, I ended up putting a coat of paint on the shelves I made for his sister and that's when Jerry turned on 'The Roast of Donald Trump' for us to watch.

Joey came out there with us and curled up on the couch. He looked so sweet!


The shelves for Laura are finished and Jerry will be able to drop them off to her on his way up north tomorrow. I really like how they turned out!


Finally...

Help! I need a good audiobook. The last week or so has been so hard for me to get motivated to go out the door for my morning walks because I just can't seem to get into a good audiobook.

I've been loving the thriller/suspense genre for walking, and I had just finished two books by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen: 'You Are Not Alone' and 'An Anonymous Girl'. 

Neither of those ended up being oh-my-god-you-MUST-read-this-NOW books, but they started out with something exciting and then they were fast-paced throughout the book and held my interest throughout. That's what I need! I want to listen to a book that moves quickly so that I can get engrossed within my first walk.

Over the last week or so since I finished those, I've tried to listen to several other books: 

'Chasing Fireflies' by Charles Martin
'Confessions on the 7:45' by Lisa Unger
'Face of Death' by Stella Gold
'Stranger in the Lake' by Kimberly Belle
'Dear Wife' by Kimberly Belle
'The House We Grew Up In' by Lisa Jewell

I actually did finish another book after the Greer books--I listened to 'Three Days Missing' by Kimberly Belle (which is why I tried the others by Belle). 'Three Days Missing' was just okay. It started out with some excitement, but then it kind of fell flat for me and I had a hard time even wanting to finish it.

So, I'm looking for recommendations! The problem is, the narration can make or break an audiobook for me. I might LOVE a particular book if I'm reading it, but listening to it with the wrong narrator can make me not even want to give it a try.

That's how it is with my current listening, 'The House We Grew Up In' by Lisa Jewell. I tried another of her books a while ago--'Then She Was Gone'--but I didn't like the narration of that one, either, so I only made it about three minutes into the book. Those are books that I'd probably enjoy if I read them instead of listened to the audiobook version. 

My audiobooks are my lifeline when it comes to doing my morning walks. It's what I look forward to! So I really need to find a good thriller with a great narrator.

Now, Jerry and I are going to watch another scary movie now, although I'm not sure what one... this decision usually takes longer than the movie itself! (I can't really call this a movie marathon if we only watch two--that's just sad! hahaha)

24 comments:

  1. I have a bunch of movies I want to watch this month. Final Destination, The Ring, The Grudge, Scream, Sixth Sense, Shutter Island, I know What You Did Last Summer, and Night of the Living Dead. Maybe one of those can add on to your two to form a proper marathon!

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  2. If you haven’t already listen to it the Dutch House by Ann Patchett read by Tom Hanks is a great one.

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    1. I was going to suggest this too. I told my husband Tom Hanks should narrarate all books!

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  3. I enjoyed "The Perfect Wife" by Blake Pierce. It's the first in a series but I haven't read the others yet. My friend recommended it and we're meeting for lunch to discuss it.

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  4. I have been following your blog for a long time but have never commented before. However, we seem to have very similar taste in books. I don't know how the audio versions of these books are, but here are some of my favorite thriller books that I've read over the years:
    - Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine (I didn't realize it at the time, but this is a series. The first book is great! The subsequent books have been good, too.)
    - Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (This is an older book, I read it in 2014, but it's by the same author who wrote Gone Girl)
    - The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

    These books aren't thrillers, but historical fiction books. Frankly, I did not think I was interested in this genre but have found these to be my absolutely all-time favorite books. It's easy to get caught up in the stories.
    - The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer
    - Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
    - The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

    And you're going to laugh, but I highly recommend Jessica Simpson's book, Open Book. I thought it would be superficial and laced with "celebrity" gossip that I didn't care about. It is actually well-written and was a quick yet interesting read.
    Good luck!

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    1. I also loved Jessica Simpson's book.

      I don't know if you can get them on audio book, but I love anything by Ann Rule. She writes about true crime. She is probably most famous for the book "The Stranger Beside Me", which is about Ted Bundy.

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    2. Another Yes to Jessica Simpson's book!

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  5. Have you tried listening to podcasts? Small Town Dicks is a good one if you like true crime, and there are seasons and seasons of it at this point.

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  6. Gone Girl & The Woman in Cabin 10 are both great thrillers!

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  7. The Wife Between Us
    When No One is Watching
    The Guest List

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  8. lmagruder115@gmail.comOctober 22, 2020

    Not sure about the audiobook versions, but I would recommend anything from Blake Crouch. I can't put his books down. https://www.amazon.com/Blake-Crouch/e/B001H6U8X0/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1
    I've enjoyed your blog for years now. Thank you for sharing your journey!

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  9. Have you read The Good Girl, by Mary Kubica? It's really good and seems like your kind of book.

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  10. I've been jumping around genres lately and given some highly rated ones a chance that I normally wouldn't think I would have liked but I have thoroughly enjoyed.
    The Giver of Stars
    Where the crawdads sing
    Bitter Brew
    The Institute(I have listened to a lot of Stephen King)
    The Silent Patient
    Becoming

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  11. The best audiobook I ever listened to was Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I much prefer suspense/ thriller as well, but the vocal narratives of this biography of a 60s band was so good I actually thought it was a real band and not a fictional book. The Only Plane in the Sky is a bunch of 9/11 survivors describing the day, so that drew me in. Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman was really good and suspenseful, but I can’t remember the narrator very well!

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  12. I really enjoy listening to Mike Rowe - he has a voice built for narration. I listened to "The Way I Heard It" that he read (and wrote) which was very reminiscent of the old Andy Rooney end of 60 minutes clips or Paul Harvey and the "rest of the story". I then read Mike's mother's first book "About my mother" which is actually about HER mother (mike's grandmother and her mother as a young girl/woman). I would suspect that he's recorded that audiobook, but I haven't checked. She just released another book and I find her super funny and think it is so cool she wrote her first book at like 80! Anyway..something to look at.

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  13. I splurged on Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. I'm not into Audible books as I retain more from actually reading something, but because he narrates it, I decided it would be awesome to listen to him tell me interesting stories about himself. I'm about two hours in, but I stopped listening to it because I don't want to finish it! I'm taking a queue from you and I'm only going to listen while I'm out walking, in hopes it will encourage me to get out and walk every day. I'm really enjoying it and if you are a fan, I think you would like it. It just came out on Tuesday so it might be a while before you can pick it up from your library, but definitely get on the list to get it.

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  14. Hi Katie! Longtime reader, first time commenting! I appreciate narrators who elevate the story with amazing performances: Kate Mulgrew’s narration of NOS4A2 (Joe Hill), Cathleen McCarron’s reading of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (Gail Honeyman) and Bronson Pinchot’s amazing performance (using an accent for the entire book!) of The Child Thief (Dan Smith) are my favorites. Also loved the Bill Hodges Trilogy by Stephen King and Heart-Shaped Box and The Fireman by Joe Hill.

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  15. Hi Katie! Longtime reader, first time commenting! I appreciate narrators who elevate the story with amazing performances: Kate Mulgrew’s narration of NOS4A2 (Joe Hill), Cathleen McCarron’s reading of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (Gail Honeyman) and Bronson Pinchot’s amazing performance (using an accent for the entire book!) of The Child Thief (Dan Smith) are my favorites. Also loved the Bill Hodges Trilogy by Stephen King and Heart-Shaped Box and The Fireman by Joe Hill.

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  16. First, I assume you're read Born to Run. Listen to the audiobook. It's read so well. And that's a book I tend to listen to every few years because it makes me want to keep moving.

    Love and Ruin, a fictionalized account of Hemingway and his third (fourth?) wife. Sorry, not looking it up. It was heartbreaking, but so good.

    Also, The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. A "mystery" of sorts with a mental health twist.

    Good luck finding something that suits your tastes!

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  17. The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn was really good! I read it so I'm not sure how the narration would be. It's a mystery/suspense book. Also, anything by Lisa Gardner is good. She is one of my favorite suspense/thriller/mystery authors.

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  18. Did you already listen to The Girl on the Train? I especially liked it as an audiobook as it's narrated by three characters and a different actor does each character. Then obviously Gone Girl if you haven't read/listened to that, and I've read and enjoyed Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn as well. Finally Dark Matter is kind of a sci-fi thriller but definitely gripping.

    Hope you find some good ones!

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  19. The audiobook I recommend always is: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. This is an alternative history set in the 50s/60s (I forget) about space travel. It's read by the author, which in this case is NOT a mistake. She used to be in theater I guess. The protagonist has such a good relationship with her husband, and is so smart!

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  20. Hey, Katie - have you listened to any of the Louise Penny Inspector Gamache series? There are 16 of them and I've finished 8 so far - they just keep getting better and better. I would binge listen to all the rest of them, but I force myself to space them out so they last longer! The reader, Ralph Cosham, has such a great story-telling voice and he does droll sarcasm to perfection :-) First book is Still Life, and I would recommend listening to them in order, as there are some back stories that carry through from book to book.

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  21. Lots of recommendations here, but I decided to throw in a couple. Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty, The Dead Key by D. M. Pulley, and I couldn't "put down" (on audio) The Winter Over by Matthew Iden. Good luck!

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