Audio Review: Teen Idol by Meg Cabot

 Teen Idol by Meg Cabot

Author: Meg Cabot Website|Twitter
Narrator: Elisabeth Moss IMDB
Published: 31 October 2006 (Listening Library)
Format: MP3 download
Running time: 5 hours, 59 minutes (unabridged)
Buy the paperback: Amazon|Waterstone's|BookDepository
Buy the e-book: Kindle|Kobo
Buy the audio: Amazon

Source: Borrowed from e-library

Plot Summary (from Goodreads):
High school junior Jenny Greenley is good at solving other people's problems ... so good she's the school newspapers' anonymous advice columnist. Even if solving other people's problems doesn't make her own—like not having a boyfriend—go away, it's still fun. But when nineteen-year-old screen sensation Luke Striker comes to Jen's small town to reserach a role, he creates havor that even levelheaded Jenny isn't sure she can repair... especially when he asks her, and not Jenny's Luke Striker-groupie best friend, to the Clayton High Spring Fling.

Can Jen, who always manages to be there for everybody else, learn to take her own advice, and find true love at last? 

Plot review:
Teen Idol tells the story of Jen who works as an agony aunt for the "Ask Annie" segment of her school paper. Her teachers then entrust her with the knowledge that famous actor Luke Striker will be joining the school as research for his latest film project, and they assign Jen to be his student guide.

I'll be honest, it took me a little while to get into the flow of this one. The story starts out with Jen telling lots of anecdote about her school life as a way to introduce us to her fellow characters and setting the scene. I thought this part of the book went on for far too long and soon I was getting slightly impatient and itching to get to a part where something important happens.

The story really picks up when Luke Striker arrives at the school. Understandably all the girls go crazy for him so it added a lot of interest to the story. Luke as a character didn't play quite a big a role as I was expecting, but he did surprise me by being a really fascinating character. I loved how he saw the best in Jen and tried to help her out, even if it didn't always go as planned!

I really fell in love with the whole idea of the school's Ask Annie project. At the start of each chapter you get a question from someone who's written in to the paper which is then answered by Jen who writes secretly as Annie. I thought it was a great platform for Jen and really helped me as a reader get inside her head. I ended up agreeing with all the advice she gave too! The girl talks sense. I also loved the sarcasm and humour Jen demonstrates as well as her sensitivity. There were other aspects of school life I loved too, like Jen's reluctant involvement in show choir which had me giggling away.

There's lots of romance to get stuck into with Jen developing a crush on Luke. There's also the matter of her best friend Scott who is a really nice guy. Then of course there are the many, many girls who want to try and win Luke's affections, as well as Jen's best friend having relationship drama.

Jen herself goes on a real journey as a character throughout Teen Idol and we see her change and develop in both good ways and not so good ways. I loved seeing her stand up for herself a bit more and take on some of Luke's advice.

Despite it's slow start I did settle into this book and ended up enjoying it, particularly the second half. The ending was really sweet and I liked how all the little bits of the story came together.

Plot rating: 4*

Audio review:
Unfortunately I didn't really enjoy the audiobook experience of this one. The copy I downloaded from the library wasn't the best quality, but obviously that might have just been a problem on my end so I'm not going to judge it on that. It was more the narration that was a bit of an issue for me. It didn't flow very well and there were pauses in odd place sand it sometimes sounded like the narrator was running out of breath.

I did, however, think the narrator had the voice of Jen spot on and it did help bring her character to life. The slightly sarcastic Ask Annie segments at the beginning of each chapter really packed a punch. I just wish that could have carried to the rest of the story.

Audio rating: 2*

What to read next: The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
Books like this: Hidden Gem by India Lee

Audio Review: Avalon High by Meg Cabot

Avalon High by Meg Cabot

Author: Meg Cabot Website|Twitter
Narrator: Debra Wiseman IMDB
Published: 27 December 2005 (Listening Library)
Format: MP3 download
Running time: 6 hours, 50 minutes
Buy the paperback: Amazon|Waterstone's|BookDepository
Buy the audio: Amazon|Waterstone's
Buy the e-book: Kindle|Kobo

Source: Borrowed from e-library

Plot Summary (from Goodreads):
Avalon High seems like a typical high school, attended by typical students. There's Lance, the Jock. Jennifer, the cheerleader. And Will, senior class president, quarterback, and all-around good guy.
But not everybody at Avalon High is who they appear to be... not even, as new student Ellie is about to discover, herself. What part does she play in the drama that is unfolding? What if the bizarre chain of events and coincidences she has pieced together means — as with the court of King Arthur — tragedy is fast approaching Avalon High.

Worst of all, what if there's nothing she can do about it?

Plot review:
I'll admit that when I started Avalon High I didn't know it was a retelling of the King Arthur legend. I'd downloaded it from my library's e-library based on the fact it was written by Meg Cabot, and I'd enjoyed a previous audiobook by her. Going in blind didn't bother me too much, and I actually quite liked figuring out what was going on, but I think in hindsight I would have liked to have known a little more beforehand.

The first half of this book started out pretty well. I quite liked Ellie as a character and I could sympathise with her as a character. Her parents are academics who have taken a sabbatical, which means Ellie is uprooted from her regular life and planted in a new environment, which involves starting a new school. I liked the fact she was using it as a bit of a fresh start.

The book features excerpts from the poem The Lady of Shallot at the beginning of each chapter. I remember doing that poem at school so it was quite cool to have it slotted into a book like this! It also fitted in with what was happening in Ellie's life as she pieces together who the modern day character represent in the story of King Arthur. It was a really nice way to break up the story/chapters.

The first half of the book was really interesting and I loved learning who all the characters were and the theory that there was something a bit bigger going on. I did like the relationship between Ellie and Will, even if she was a bit giggly and annoying around him sometimes. The second half of the book, however, was where I started to lose interest. The pace slowed down a bit too much and then the plot got a bit overcomplicated. There's one scene where Mr Morton, Ellie's teacher, explains a lot of what's going on and that exposition seemed to go on forever and I just found myself getting a bit bored.

It's an interesting concept for a novel but I'm not sure it was one that completely paid off. There were bits I liked and bits I didn't. Overall I can really appreciate how good Meg Cabot is as a writer and her books have really made me laugh, this one included. And the characters were pretty cool.

Plot rating: 3*

Audio review:
The narration of the book really did draw me in. I thought the narrator was really natural and I really liked Ellie's voice throughout the story. Where it really won me over was the excerpts of the poem which were read out before each character. They were read in such a lyrical, softly spoken way that not only did they stand out from other parts of the text, but they were really enjoyable on their own as well. I loved all the different voices for the characters. The only place it really fell down was when there were long conversations between two characters which happened a lot. I would liked to have got them over more quickly but that's hard with an audiobook. Really enjoyed the listening experience overall though and would definitely recommend the audio!

Audio rating: 4*

What to read next: Teen Idol by Meg Cabot
Books like this: Oh. My. Gods. by Terra Lynn Childs

Teaser Tuesdays: 23rd April

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"Hey, there's nobody you like. Why do I have to like someone if you don't?"

- 55 minutes, 33 seconds, Teen Idol by Meg Cabot (audiobook version)

Audio Review: How to be Popular by Meg Cabot

How to be Popular by Meg Cabot

[Goodreads page]

Author: Meg Cabot Website|Twitter
Narrator: Kate Reinders IMDB
Published: 10 October 2006 (Listening Library)
Format: MP3 download
Running time: 5 hours, 34 minutes (unabridged)
Amazon: Paperback|Kindle|Audio Download|CD
Waterstone's: Paperback|CD|e-book
Book Depository: Paperback|CD

Source: Borrowed from e-library


Plot Summary (from Goodreads):
Do you want to be popular?
Stephanie Landry does. That’s why this year, she has a plan to get in with the It Crowd in no time flat. She’s got a secret weapon: an old book called–what else?–How to Be Popular.
What does it take to be popular?
All Steph has to do is follow the instructions in The Book, and soon she’ll be partying with the It Crowd (including school quarterback Mark Finley) instead of sitting on The Hill Saturday nights, stargazing with her nerdy best pal Becca, and even nerdier Jason.
But don’t forget the most important thing about popularity! It’s easy to become popular. What isn’t so easy? Staying that way. 

Plot review:
This was my first experience of reading (or in this case listening to!) Meg Cabot and she's an author I've always wanted to read. I was drawn to this book by the title because it sounded right up my street! The book follows Steph Landry in her conquest to go from social outcast to one of the most popular students in school using a book she discovers that gives hints and tips on how to be popular.

There's so much to love about this story! Firstly I loved Steph and her friends. They're the sort of outsider group at school who look have distanced themselves from the popular kids. Then Steph decides she's on a mission to be popular which causes all kinds of tension. I still found Steph to be a really likable character, because we get to see her before her descent into popularity when she has a great relationship with her best friends Jason and Becca. I also really liked the relationship between her and her grandfather which was a constant throughout the book.

I instantly found this book to be relatable. The opening chapters of the book see Steph counting down to the first day of school, which is when she plans on launching her mission to become popular. I think we've all been the one counting down to the first day back after the summer holidays. I know I used to fuss about how I wore my hair that day or what school bag I was going to use! Of course in this book there's no school uniform so Steph is stressing a lot over what she's going to wear. I just thought it captured that teenage dream of wanting to reinvent yourself perfectly!

The book also dealt with some pretty serious issues. I'd say some of the stuff Steph went through during the course of the book was verging on cyber bullying, and she'd definitely been a victim of some not so nice attention in the past. Her desire to reinvent herself stemmed from an incident with the popular girl Lauren when they were kids, in which Steph spilled a red drink over her. Ever since then, her small town has caught on to the phrase "pulling a Steph Landry" which understandably Steph hates. It was interesting seeing her try and turn that around and show those people who she really was.

There's a lot of potential relationship drama dotted throughout the story, all of which I loved. Steph is hoping to win over popular boy Mark Finley once she's established herself amongst the cool kids, but from the start I was so rooting for Jason who Steph is totally in denial about having feelings for. I just thought the relationship between Jason and Steph was brilliant because, again, it was something so true to life. They're friends but there's so much sexual tension between the two of them! I was practically screaming at my iPod willing the two of them to get together.

I thought it was great how, although the main focus of this book is about Steph becoming popular, there's also some great little subplots in there. From Steph's grandfather's upcoming marriage and Steph's mum disapproving, to Jason potentially liking somebody else, to the talent auction that Steph has helped organise.

Also I adored how the book Steph is reading was incorporated into the story. We get little excerpts at the beginning of chapters which fitted in with the story and really helped mix up the narrative a bit. It helped get that insight into what Steph was reading and thinking as well.

I usually mark a book down if the plot is a bit predictable and I was expecting this book to go that way, but I just found myself rooting for the things I was hoping would happen at the end and enjoying everything too much to worry about it being predictable. It definitely gave me so much more than I was expecting and I'm wondering why on earth I haven't read this author sooner!

Plot rating: 5*

Audio review: 
Firstly, this is a book I'm definitely going to recommend you listen to on audiobook because it was hilarious, and I think a large part of my enjoyment of this book was Kate Reinders' narration. She had the voice of Steph absolutely spot on! I really felt like I was inside her head and the book felt just like she was speaking to me. The book is written in first person so having it read aloud really added something to the story.

What was great about the narration was that Kate Reinders was clearly completely immersed in the character, and when it came to things like Steph laughing during a sentence she'd add in a little laugh herself which made it so much more natural. I really loved her voice for the other characters as well, especially Steph's best friend Becca who's kind of wistful. The voice for that was just spot on.

The only flaw I can really point out is that this book relies on little excerpts from the book Steph is herself reading. Obviously in the physical edition, these excerpts would be in a different font or separated from the rest of the text. In the audio it was sometimes hard to tell straight away that what was being read was an excerpt from Steph's book. I also felt the same way when emails were dotted into the story. That probably would have worked better written down.

But overall I can honestly say that I think my experience of this book would have been a lot different had I not listened to it, and it's not often I really say that. It was the most fun I've had listening to a book in a long time! If you can grab this book on audio then do it - you won't regret it!

Audio rating: 4*
Books like this: Teen Idol by Meg Cabot, Revenge of the Homecoming Queen by Stephanie Hale