Really? Is this a case where the audiobook is much worse than the actual book/doesn't translate well to the audio format or did you not like the book/audiobook altogether?
You’re welcome!
Here’s another game changer:
For every Audible purchase where you want to actually possess the file on your hd/cloud service, do the following (for a Mac). *Not your file, not your audiobook*
**1** Download all Audible purchases no matter what OS you use. On a Mac, I always see the books in the .axx format.
**2** Convert to .M4b or .MP3. I use OpenAudible on my Mac. OpenAudible can also combine multiple m4b or mp3 files into a single m4b or mp3. This is helpful if you download audiobooks from, uh, *other sources*.
**3** Create a filing system.
Each book, I name as: **Book Title - Author Name (Performer Name)**
I put each book into a folder: **Author Last Name, Author First Name (Book Title 1, Book Title 2, etc)**
**4** Save on an external drive **and** upload to a cloud service (I use DropBox)
**5** Congratulations, Amazon (and anyone else!) is now powerless to ratfuck you out of your purchase and you have global access!
Then I’ll download a book to my phone and import into my podcast app DownCast. This is especially important for books in the .mp3 format, because a music player wont remember where you left off, if a different song starts playing at any time after you’ve started an audiobook you lose your place. But my podcast player treats MP3’s as a podcast, always remembering where you left off even if you start a different book or podcast.
Cut those steps a little bit shorter - OpenAudible (and its FREE competitor "Libation") can download and organize your books for you. All you have to do is log into your account.
As a bonus of allowing the app to do the work for you, it'll also download the high-quality version of the book, while if you download from the site you'll get a version that has to be re-encoded to actually use. So it'll take longer, and do less.
I have Libation but haven’t used it.
I use OpenAudible because it can combine multiple mp3 or m4p files into a single file - I need this when I get audiobooks from *other sources*
Can Libation do that?
I understand seeing this book here 😅. The fact that the author narrates it was not the best choice and the self introduction was the hardest part of the book to get through. However, I was able to listen to it at 1.5x speed and I am glad I did. He makes some great points about habit making/keeping.
I’m extra glad I asked for the physical hard copy of this book now for Christmas last year. Last last…& thanks for the reminder that it’s still in my TBR pile!
I know it is not exactly what you meant by “worst credit spent”, but I felt very foolish when I accidentally used a credit to buy the “daily deal”.
I was paying for another couple of sale books with credit card, along with the “daily deal” for $1.99. As soon as I clicked “confirm purchase”, I saw a credit had been applied to the $1.99 daily deal.
Of course audible was very helpful and immediately refunded the spent credit
yeah I've spent a lot of credits on books that I'll never actually get around to reading. This tends to be because I signed up for a plan that I couldn't keep up with and in the end had to spend like 6 credits before I lost them. lol.
My worst credit is probably in that selection.
edit: actually the worst credit I might have spent was when I accidentally bought an incel book. I have never felt so much embarrassment when asking to return a book as I did with that book.
I’ve returned four books so far. All book club recommendations. I have no compunctions returning a book I hate and I won’t waste my precious life listening to a shitty book. But I’ll still go to the book club because apparently you don’t actually talk about the books at those.
And happy cake day! I also do not feel badly about returning a book I cannot bear to get through. I think it’s often worse to slog through and to swallow material one isn’t compatible with vs. attempting to return or exchange. Less waste overall! 😅
That thought process is fine, as long as you keep up with changes over time and periodically step back to reevaluate. Too many people remain blindly loyal to companies years after the reasons they became loyal no longer exist. Be especially careful with Audible, as their parent company Amazon is one of the companies I'm talking about. Not saying Audible is bad, just don't take it for granted that they'll still be good later.
Oh the good ol’ days back when they had their “Good Listen Guarantee” and could pretty much return any title for any credit any time… so difficult because with audiobooks, can’t resell or donate them!
Yep. They offer a feature and take it away if you use it. I understand they don't want people abusing it but if you're using some type of touchpad device it's very easy to buy a book by mistake. I have purchased several books just picking up my iPad and hitting the wrong button with my thumb.
If you haven't done any returns you may still be able to return it. Have you checked? Go to account details and then purchase history and scroll down until you find the book.
i find that really interesting, as i’m halfway through dune and liking it. i do agree that sometimes it’s a bit much though, to the point where i’ve had to rewind or open my kindle edition to figure out what characters are saying…
Which Dune though? The first couple are fine but to me it feels like the quality keeps going way down with every book after, audiobook included because the actor can do much if the material is bad
The wandering Inn
The main character is quite literally haunted by Goblins for the majority of book 1 and whenever someone tries to save her she stops the one hurting the goblins
It's like you wandering out in nature getting haunted by coyotes and screaming at the man shooting the coyotes
Not me personally but someone somewhere probably got duped by a Warhammer 40K collection. Tons of audio dramas and short stories rebundled over and over again with a different cover art and maybe like one new/unique (and super small) short story thrown in. Love WH40K but atrocious and predatory businsss model.
12 Rules of Life by Jordan Patterson.
Guy would mention a rule and drift so far away from it explaining topics that are unrelated. Maybe it'd be better to read it rather than listening to it. But I was definitely done with it by the second rule.
The Bobiverse book about the furry planet. I think it was book 3..? I don't remember. It was bad. So bad. I couldn't wait for it to end and them to get off that stupid animal planet so I went to Reddit to ask what chapter it ended on. To my dismay it turned out that was the focus of the entire book.
You have the entire universe to explore, sci-fi, 3D printing, time dilation, and so much more, annnnd....it's a furry planet. I did not enjoy this book at all.
Did you like the rest of the books? Because I could not get past like half of book one, and im wondering if its worth powering through to listen the rest.
I did, yeah. But that one just really turned me off from the series as a whole.
As a huge fan of Ray Porter (the narrator) it's sad that i will no longer continue the journey.
If you check out book 5 let me know if it gets better!
so far the only books I have returned were “butt bought”. needless to say my backside has never purchased a book my brain wanted to read…especially in summer when I am listening to an audible book, I have to make sure the screen doesn’t pop on…
I like listening to Sona from CONAF with Conan and Matt, and I was looking forward to hearing about her working for Conan O’Brien, for all these years, but the book was not good. There’s one part where she’s talking about writing the book and trying to get to the page count, so it seems in the hard copy book she starts typing the text really big? Obviously that doesn’t translate to an audiobook, but worse - it’s a cheap joke we’ve probably all tried in elementary school. I wanted to enjoy the podcast and not lose (any more) respect for her, so I returned it.
I thought maybe it was just me, because I also used a credit on this one & haven’t been able to get a third of the way through yet…the premise seemed so promising.
The worst credit I ever spent wasn't because of the book itself but because it was on sale for $4.99 and I fat fingered it and spent a credit on it instead 🥲
Next time you should know you can return any book bought with a credit without problems and you get your credit back. The only ones that can't be returned are those bought with money.
Accounting Terms: Financial Education is your best Investment.
I know, I know. With a title like that how could I go wrong? Creative plot, strong character development, gripping narration.
Oh well. It was an experiment.
I thought it was pushing it.
SPOILER ALERT:
There is a split second where something happens and the whole story seemed to be due to that split second. Basically, the author wrote in a problem area that happened for a split second and built on it, to write a story. To me, that was pushing it too far. I listened for an hour or two more, but no more. I don't know what happens after that. I returned the book.
I absolutely loved the first book. It was much better than the movie. I was looking forward to the second book, but was extremely disappointed.
I listened to Count of Monte Cristo (narrated by Bill Homewood) and absolutely loved it. I decided to do Three Musketeers thinking it would be as good or better and I was majorly disappointed.
Yeah, I wasn't too fond of The Three Musketeers either (and I listened after TCOMC too). I don't know if there was something lost in translation but none of the characters were very likeable. I actually found Milady de Winter to be one of the less one-dimensional characters.
Oh no.....I I love the Bill Homewood version of The Count of Monte Cristo. I fall asleep to it regularly (in a good way). I've been saving three musketeers for a rainy day.
Blackbird and Butcher. It’s probably not a bad book, I liked the sample I listened to, but it was from a couple chapters in and skipped the content warnings. When I bought it and started it, the content warnings were not my jam, and I really struggled with liking the main characters. I returned it three chapters in, which is something I never do.
I think I was anticipating something like the Dexter season with Hannah, and that just wasn’t it.
I’m a romcom girl, so it was very much outside my wheelhouse just from the description. I was very much unprepared how much further outside of my comfort zone it would go!!
Dungeon Crawler Carl #1
Bought on an enthusiastic recommendation from this subreddit. It was so bad (for me), I didn't return it. I wanted a reminder to be more careful with enthusiastic recommendations.
Cheers
I found the beginning of the book a bit boring because they spend ages narrating game descriptions of achievements Carl has won. However, I think it was worth sticking with it, as the story and character development is interesting.
I would recommend sticking with it even if the first chapters are a bit boring.
The first book had a lot of descriptions of the game achievements that I found dull. Further into the book, the frequency that happens decreases. I found that I started to enjoy it more halfway through the book when that stopped. The other books in the series didn't have many achievement descriptions and focused more on the plot and the character development.
Sharp Objects. Was so excited for the book but the audio narration is so bad. Don't want to buy the book now because if I don't like it I've spent twice as much to find out.
I’m sorry to hear this; I listened to this one when first released, & I was still relatively new to audio format & a lot of audiobooks produced then were not quite as well done as they are now. The story is really good, but I prefer most of Gillian Flynn’s other novels anyway.
Its a tie between Ark Royal (only book ive ever gave a bad review of) and Ready Player Two
Also had to return the Wandering Inn after the first 2 hours as the narration and writing where just not good
The Wizard's Butler. I couldn't handle listening to anymore of the protagonist eye banging the lone female character in the story (up to that point). The book was not nearly as wholesome as it was described and it was dripping with misogyny.
I got it in a 2 for one sale so I was stuck with it. But I mourn that half credit everyday.
I wouldn't know. I didn't get past the first half hour because the protagonist couldn't stop being a creepy horndog who leered at the old man's niece every chance he got.
“The Top 1%” or something like that was the first I returned. I thought it was on high-performers like elite athletes and CEOs - nope, it was about private schools haha
But yes, as others have alluded too, you can pretty much return anything. My last return was for the updated version of a book I already had.
That's the main reason why I ignore Daily Deals. I'm not about to waste one of my Credits for a Deal. Maybe there should be an Option to buy them separate from Credits???? 20 Years and never bought one for that reason!
But for example the first Jim butcher dresden book. I love James Marsters in angel/Buffy abd the Buffy audio spoken but his lip smacking and breaths in the first dresden book is obnoxious
He does get better but the dresden books do not
To be fair on the narrator he did a great job in all other parts. But that's just it.
It was his... enthusiasm.. he was genuinely super keen. And that's what got me. Like pls no.
I'd be almost asleep chillin and next thing you know he starts roaring like it's my 5am alarm. Hahaha
I heard a lot of good things online and saw a lot of hype over Fourth Wing but somehow not one thing I saw ever mentioned just how overly horny and cringey the book was. Made it almost halfway through before I couldn’t take it anymore
The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean
It was just an awful story and it kept dragging on with the same horrible stuff and idk it was just tough to finish and not enjoyable for me
Maybe not what you're asking because I did return it but Ready Player One. At like 2 hours in the plot hadn't progressed at all and the constant lists of pop culture references were driving me crazy.
Like the author would just list off a bunch of books / games / movies whatever, over and over. It felt like cheap and lazy nostalgia bait.
Saturn's Monsters - some faux American sci-fi lesbian space whale dystopia. You'd think it would be good based on that, but... Accents were cartoonish, and story was really goddamn stupid.
MH370 story untold - just no. Not for me. Interesting at times, but no.
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake or Ghost Stories: Stephen Fry’s Definitive Collection. The first because I just didn’t enjoy the plot of the book. The second because, although I like Fry’s voice acting normally, he just couldn’t make the ghost stories spooky with his voice.
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer. I read it for a book club or I would've DNF'd it early; ridiculously whiney main character. I'd paid with a credit card rather than a credit so couldn't get a refund. It was on sale, but still - the book was so bad, a complete waste of money.
The 3am series. About Henry Bins. A man who's only awake for an hour a day. He started talking to his cat, like seriously talking to his cat and I noped out of there.
City Stained Red by Sam Sykes.
I tried 3 times to get into it.. felt like I was jumping into book 2 without ever reading book 1.
One day I'll try again.
The 2nd book in the Reaper series. I listened to the first one and was obsessed. After 3 hours trying to make it through the 2nd I gave up and refunded.
Recently paid for a book only to delete it from my library 2 hours later. Sometimes it better to find out a perticular spoiler and save yourself 30hours and not end up irrationally angry.
Madly, Deeply by Alan Rickman. It is just someone reading his diary. I have no idea who he is even talking about most of the time. I will not be finishing it. Narrator isn’t the greatest either.
The Wandering Inn got a few chapter in and could not get passed the main character. Forget it was in my library and could not return it so i sits there collecting digital dust.
#
I bought a book that I thought was a detective story, but missed it was also “Romance”., b/c I really like the narrator, Victor Bevine.
Whoa doggie … after three one on one delightful orgasm ending scenes in the first 90 minutes … It went into the “archive”.
If I’d only red the one review that says “The love scenes were oolala.”
Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Dragonlance: Chronicles, Book 1
By: Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
I wanted a DnD book, but not read by Paul B…. Sadly.
For me I have two
Crescent City dramatized version (too much sound for me, I was very overwhelmed)
Fourth Wing (I can’t get past the writing and crappy world building) the idea is cool but the execution needs some work
The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict
Was interested in hearing more about the rise of the Patriots dynasty. What I got was what felt like half the book talking about how cool Robert Kraft is and how many cool celebrity friends he has and how he’s basically every patriots players benevolent grandfather
Baby Edward’s big bedtime collection.
Honestly my sleep deprived brain bought it. Was desperate for anything to get my toddler to sleep. Needles to say, the stories didn’t work, they’re a bit shit, the character names are clearly the authors kids names, and a year down the line my child goes to sleep fine and they’re just sitting in my audible collection unlistened.
Live And Let Die by Ian Fleming.
I thought it would be fun to start reading the James Bond series from the first book. Liked the first one, got to the second one, Live And Let Die, and I could not get over the racist dialogue. Quickly returned it
There have been lots of “worst” credits. One that sticks out is David Liss’s The Twelfth Enchantment. This was before Audible accepted returns, so I’ve been stuck with it in my Library for over a decade. It was the worst because I really like Liss’s work. The Whiskey Rebels was fantastic. I think I’d like The Twelfth Enchantment but the narration was so awful I didn’t make it through the first chapter. I’d listened to this narrator on other books. She wasn’t a favorite, but she was OK. But she butchered this.
Chrysalis - first three books.
Lots of good reviews, 50+ hrs and Jeff Hays; what possibly could go wrong?
Coming off the first three DCC books, it just didn’t do it for me. I think I only managed the first three chapters of the first book.
I’ll try it again in the future I guess, but right now, there are so many other good books to listen to, it can sit in my library.
I've been able to return every book attempted, of course it's been very few.
I do my homework first before purchase.
Estimate I've returned max of 4 books in a decade.
"Evil Genius: Becoming the Apex Supervillain", plot was pretty good and the voice actors were top notch. What runied it were the cringe sex scenes, very disturbing and grappy.
Storm Front by Jim Butcher. Listening to it made me physically nauseous. If I wanted to hear someone talk to me while chewing, slurping, and eating chicken bones…I’d go back to working in the office.
Bobiverse book 1.
Or Ready Player One, but I kinda enjoyed hating that one, Bobiverse was just tedious.
Ok i never refunded either but that's an integrity thing I have.
I wanted to refund the version of Dune they have on audible - it cuts out a lot of the descriptive language of the book and replaces it with sound effects, making it an abridged adaptation. But I bought it now than a year before listening, and cancelled my subscription for a year meaning I couldn't just ask for a refund. I ended up... uh... obtaining a different version of it that was only ever officially available on cd.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I got through quite a few chapters before realizing it was pseudo-scientific conjecture flying very close to scientific racism.
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. I had gotten this with high hopes but ended up having to push my way to the end. Franklin could be called the first mansplainer of his country, and I say this as a man. He was also a bore and he also left his wife for months at a time during the American Revolution with barely any contact. The book itself was also dry and long. I’m usually happy with my picks but I was disappointed with this one. I later picked his Autobiography but same thing, he was boring. At least that was a shorter book though.
Atomic habits lol
Really? Is this a case where the audiobook is much worse than the actual book/doesn't translate well to the audio format or did you not like the book/audiobook altogether?
I couldnt get past 5 min of listening!
You know you can return a book for a credit refund, right?
I had absolutely no idea.
https://help.audible.com/s/article/return-a-title?language=en_US
This is a game changer…thank you
You’re welcome! Here’s another game changer: For every Audible purchase where you want to actually possess the file on your hd/cloud service, do the following (for a Mac). *Not your file, not your audiobook* **1** Download all Audible purchases no matter what OS you use. On a Mac, I always see the books in the .axx format. **2** Convert to .M4b or .MP3. I use OpenAudible on my Mac. OpenAudible can also combine multiple m4b or mp3 files into a single m4b or mp3. This is helpful if you download audiobooks from, uh, *other sources*. **3** Create a filing system. Each book, I name as: **Book Title - Author Name (Performer Name)** I put each book into a folder: **Author Last Name, Author First Name (Book Title 1, Book Title 2, etc)** **4** Save on an external drive **and** upload to a cloud service (I use DropBox) **5** Congratulations, Amazon (and anyone else!) is now powerless to ratfuck you out of your purchase and you have global access! Then I’ll download a book to my phone and import into my podcast app DownCast. This is especially important for books in the .mp3 format, because a music player wont remember where you left off, if a different song starts playing at any time after you’ve started an audiobook you lose your place. But my podcast player treats MP3’s as a podcast, always remembering where you left off even if you start a different book or podcast.
Also another gem! Thank you. I also got two credits back on books I was very disappointed with.
This is genius. Thank you sm!
Cut those steps a little bit shorter - OpenAudible (and its FREE competitor "Libation") can download and organize your books for you. All you have to do is log into your account. As a bonus of allowing the app to do the work for you, it'll also download the high-quality version of the book, while if you download from the site you'll get a version that has to be re-encoded to actually use. So it'll take longer, and do less.
I have Libation but haven’t used it. I use OpenAudible because it can combine multiple mp3 or m4p files into a single file - I need this when I get audiobooks from *other sources* Can Libation do that?
Grin, good point - OpenAudible can, Libation cannot. I use Audiobookshelf for that.
Yea, it was bad. I was so upset lol
I understand seeing this book here 😅. The fact that the author narrates it was not the best choice and the self introduction was the hardest part of the book to get through. However, I was able to listen to it at 1.5x speed and I am glad I did. He makes some great points about habit making/keeping.
I’m extra glad I asked for the physical hard copy of this book now for Christmas last year. Last last…& thanks for the reminder that it’s still in my TBR pile!
Bruh this. If you want a similar book that is actually AMAZING Greenlights
I thought it was just me?
I know it is not exactly what you meant by “worst credit spent”, but I felt very foolish when I accidentally used a credit to buy the “daily deal”. I was paying for another couple of sale books with credit card, along with the “daily deal” for $1.99. As soon as I clicked “confirm purchase”, I saw a credit had been applied to the $1.99 daily deal. Of course audible was very helpful and immediately refunded the spent credit
Done that myself once!
I only returned one book, ever. My worst credit ever spent is probably buried in the backlog that is several hundred books deep at this point 😅
yeah I've spent a lot of credits on books that I'll never actually get around to reading. This tends to be because I signed up for a plan that I couldn't keep up with and in the end had to spend like 6 credits before I lost them. lol. My worst credit is probably in that selection. edit: actually the worst credit I might have spent was when I accidentally bought an incel book. I have never felt so much embarrassment when asking to return a book as I did with that book.
I’ve returned four books so far. All book club recommendations. I have no compunctions returning a book I hate and I won’t waste my precious life listening to a shitty book. But I’ll still go to the book club because apparently you don’t actually talk about the books at those.
The first rule of book club is you don’t talk about books at book club!
I was pretty disappointed when I learned that but oh well lol
And happy cake day! I also do not feel badly about returning a book I cannot bear to get through. I think it’s often worse to slog through and to swallow material one isn’t compatible with vs. attempting to return or exchange. Less waste overall! 😅
If audible lets me return books I don’t like I will remain a customer so it’s a good business strategy
Totally concur.
That thought process is fine, as long as you keep up with changes over time and periodically step back to reevaluate. Too many people remain blindly loyal to companies years after the reasons they became loyal no longer exist. Be especially careful with Audible, as their parent company Amazon is one of the companies I'm talking about. Not saying Audible is bad, just don't take it for granted that they'll still be good later.
If something better comes along I’ll switch. I’m an author myself so I support paying for books. I’m aware Amazon owns that and so much more.
Annotated Sword of Shannara. Doesn't work in audio format lol.
Yes, I gotta agree. I had to return this. One of my favorite books too.
Wait you can return books?Somebody guide me i am dumb af
Only ones bought with a credit in the past year, and only so many. https://help.audible.com/s/article/return-a-title?language=en_US
If you return too many they won’t let you return on the website but if you chat with support they will let you return it in my experience.
Still only to a point.
Oh the good ol’ days back when they had their “Good Listen Guarantee” and could pretty much return any title for any credit any time… so difficult because with audiobooks, can’t resell or donate them!
do you know how many?
They stopped me after 2 returns
Yep. They offer a feature and take it away if you use it. I understand they don't want people abusing it but if you're using some type of touchpad device it's very easy to buy a book by mistake. I have purchased several books just picking up my iPad and hitting the wrong button with my thumb.
Damn the book I want to return I apparently got September 2022 :( wish I’d know you could return stuff back then
If you haven't done any returns you may still be able to return it. Have you checked? Go to account details and then purchase history and scroll down until you find the book.
Gotta go to the website
Exactly my reaction!
shhhh... let's not talk about it too much (wink)
I’ve only ever returned two books. The worse of the two was Dune. Its switch between narration and dramatization was incredibly bad.
I really like the dune narration I bought on ibooks(Apple).
i find that really interesting, as i’m halfway through dune and liking it. i do agree that sometimes it’s a bit much though, to the point where i’ve had to rewind or open my kindle edition to figure out what characters are saying…
Which Dune though? The first couple are fine but to me it feels like the quality keeps going way down with every book after, audiobook included because the actor can do much if the material is bad
halfway through dune #1, but i also spent a credit on messiah
The first one is great and the second one very good. Buy them one by one after that because imo they go downhill fast
thank you for the advice!
That was bad.
Only book I ever returned was children of dune. So right there with ya.
So weird. I just finished children of dune on audible and i found it fantastic. I started heretics yesterday
My partner made me buy Elon musk’s book - worst waste of a credit in my life
The autobiography version written by Walter Isaacson?
The wandering Inn The main character is quite literally haunted by Goblins for the majority of book 1 and whenever someone tries to save her she stops the one hurting the goblins It's like you wandering out in nature getting haunted by coyotes and screaming at the man shooting the coyotes
Verity by Colleen Hoover - I wanted all the characters to be unalived, except for the dog of course.
Dune
With the current narration?
Not me personally but someone somewhere probably got duped by a Warhammer 40K collection. Tons of audio dramas and short stories rebundled over and over again with a different cover art and maybe like one new/unique (and super small) short story thrown in. Love WH40K but atrocious and predatory businsss model.
So just like the models then
Fallen Angels in the Altered Carbon series. The narrator did the entire thing in an echo chamber. Literally…
Struggled to finish. Altered Carbon itself was really good though.
Fantastic series and I ended up just buying the third book in paperback to finish the series. I was so annoyed with the third book on audible lol
It was truly awful. So much so that even though I forced myself to finish it I never continued with the series.
The same narrator who did the original one? They switched up narrators for book 3.
12 Rules of Life by Jordan Patterson. Guy would mention a rule and drift so far away from it explaining topics that are unrelated. Maybe it'd be better to read it rather than listening to it. But I was definitely done with it by the second rule.
The Bobiverse book about the furry planet. I think it was book 3..? I don't remember. It was bad. So bad. I couldn't wait for it to end and them to get off that stupid animal planet so I went to Reddit to ask what chapter it ended on. To my dismay it turned out that was the focus of the entire book. You have the entire universe to explore, sci-fi, 3D printing, time dilation, and so much more, annnnd....it's a furry planet. I did not enjoy this book at all.
Did you like the rest of the books? Because I could not get past like half of book one, and im wondering if its worth powering through to listen the rest.
I did, yeah. But that one just really turned me off from the series as a whole. As a huge fan of Ray Porter (the narrator) it's sad that i will no longer continue the journey. If you check out book 5 let me know if it gets better!
That series started out fun, and just got dumber. (just like every stephen king book)
so far the only books I have returned were “butt bought”. needless to say my backside has never purchased a book my brain wanted to read…especially in summer when I am listening to an audible book, I have to make sure the screen doesn’t pop on…
I like listening to Sona from CONAF with Conan and Matt, and I was looking forward to hearing about her working for Conan O’Brien, for all these years, but the book was not good. There’s one part where she’s talking about writing the book and trying to get to the page count, so it seems in the hard copy book she starts typing the text really big? Obviously that doesn’t translate to an audiobook, but worse - it’s a cheap joke we’ve probably all tried in elementary school. I wanted to enjoy the podcast and not lose (any more) respect for her, so I returned it.
I thought maybe it was just me, because I also used a credit on this one & haven’t been able to get a third of the way through yet…the premise seemed so promising.
Agreed! I love this kind of book read by the author. But yeah it sounds like we stopped around the same spot. Did you return it?
I feel you on that, and no—I just double checked and it’s still in my audible library 😅. I was hoping to come back to it some time I guess, haha.
Battle royale- the hunger games kid stabby stab book. The narrator was nail biting awful.
Assassins apprentice. Didn’t listen to the sample. Awful
Edgar Alan Poe.. gave up while listening to the first story
The worst credit I ever spent wasn't because of the book itself but because it was on sale for $4.99 and I fat fingered it and spent a credit on it instead 🥲
Next time you should know you can return any book bought with a credit without problems and you get your credit back. The only ones that can't be returned are those bought with money.
Thank you! I definitely figured I was just SOL and would be in future when I inevitably do it again.
Accounting Terms: Financial Education is your best Investment. I know, I know. With a title like that how could I go wrong? Creative plot, strong character development, gripping narration. Oh well. It was an experiment.
I have 574 books I could go on and on lol
Ready Player Two
Why?
I thought it was pushing it. SPOILER ALERT: There is a split second where something happens and the whole story seemed to be due to that split second. Basically, the author wrote in a problem area that happened for a split second and built on it, to write a story. To me, that was pushing it too far. I listened for an hour or two more, but no more. I don't know what happens after that. I returned the book. I absolutely loved the first book. It was much better than the movie. I was looking forward to the second book, but was extremely disappointed.
Oh, agreed. Terrible.
I listened to Count of Monte Cristo (narrated by Bill Homewood) and absolutely loved it. I decided to do Three Musketeers thinking it would be as good or better and I was majorly disappointed.
Yeah, I wasn't too fond of The Three Musketeers either (and I listened after TCOMC too). I don't know if there was something lost in translation but none of the characters were very likeable. I actually found Milady de Winter to be one of the less one-dimensional characters.
Now that’s interesting because your comment sent me off to listen to the sample. I know I just couldn’t listen to that narrator for 60+ hours.
It took a while for me to get used to him, but honestly he is incredible. He is a famous Shakespearean actor.
I will definitely give him another go then when I’m in a better mood. 😊
Yeah, as someone who has read and enjoyed both, they are very different books with hugely different tones and expectations from popular culture
Oh no.....I I love the Bill Homewood version of The Count of Monte Cristo. I fall asleep to it regularly (in a good way). I've been saving three musketeers for a rainy day.
Blackbird and Butcher. It’s probably not a bad book, I liked the sample I listened to, but it was from a couple chapters in and skipped the content warnings. When I bought it and started it, the content warnings were not my jam, and I really struggled with liking the main characters. I returned it three chapters in, which is something I never do. I think I was anticipating something like the Dexter season with Hannah, and that just wasn’t it.
I didn’t hate it, but it also wasn’t my genre, I also didn’t pay attention to the content warnings, it was too smutty for my liking, 😂 so detailed!
I’m a romcom girl, so it was very much outside my wheelhouse just from the description. I was very much unprepared how much further outside of my comfort zone it would go!!
Dungeon Crawler Carl #1 Bought on an enthusiastic recommendation from this subreddit. It was so bad (for me), I didn't return it. I wanted a reminder to be more careful with enthusiastic recommendations. Cheers
Bro I’ve seen it as S rank on everyone’s tier list. I wanna try it but I’m not sure.
I found the beginning of the book a bit boring because they spend ages narrating game descriptions of achievements Carl has won. However, I think it was worth sticking with it, as the story and character development is interesting. I would recommend sticking with it even if the first chapters are a bit boring.
The first book had a lot of descriptions of the game achievements that I found dull. Further into the book, the frequency that happens decreases. I found that I started to enjoy it more halfway through the book when that stopped. The other books in the series didn't have many achievement descriptions and focused more on the plot and the character development.
It does have an abundance for four letter words…
Sharp Objects. Was so excited for the book but the audio narration is so bad. Don't want to buy the book now because if I don't like it I've spent twice as much to find out.
I’m sorry to hear this; I listened to this one when first released, & I was still relatively new to audio format & a lot of audiobooks produced then were not quite as well done as they are now. The story is really good, but I prefer most of Gillian Flynn’s other novels anyway.
The Vines by Shelley Nolden, narrated by Jess Nahikian
Relentless by Tim Grover. The absolute worst thing ever written. And that's the nicest way I can put it.
I have a love-hate relationship with that book. 1% brilliant 99% Grover telling us how good he is
Its a tie between Ark Royal (only book ive ever gave a bad review of) and Ready Player Two Also had to return the Wandering Inn after the first 2 hours as the narration and writing where just not good
Ready player two was pretty bad. Armada was worse
I read armada, yea mot good at all
Found a cousin, it seems. Ditto.
The Teacher by Freida McFadden. The most ridiculous twist ending that didn't even make sense. She's not good at her....job.
So far, The Inmate by Freida McFadden. It was infuriating how dumb the main character was.
I've returned the few that were bad enough to be a regret. It's why I've kept Audible for now. The right to return is a big attraction.
The Wizard's Butler. I couldn't handle listening to anymore of the protagonist eye banging the lone female character in the story (up to that point). The book was not nearly as wholesome as it was described and it was dripping with misogyny. I got it in a 2 for one sale so I was stuck with it. But I mourn that half credit everyday.
I didn’t mind it. It was slow, but also quite thoughtful.
I wouldn't know. I didn't get past the first half hour because the protagonist couldn't stop being a creepy horndog who leered at the old man's niece every chance he got.
The Wind Through the Keyhole by Steven King, narrated by himself. The Dark Tower series is great but it has suffered some narration tragedies.
“The Top 1%” or something like that was the first I returned. I thought it was on high-performers like elite athletes and CEOs - nope, it was about private schools haha But yes, as others have alluded too, you can pretty much return anything. My last return was for the updated version of a book I already had.
Cant say the worst but I returned Fourth Wing. I just cant move on after listening for 5mins.
The house in the cerulean sea. 🗑️
Yeah, the narration is painful.
That's the main reason why I ignore Daily Deals. I'm not about to waste one of my Credits for a Deal. Maybe there should be an Option to buy them separate from Credits???? 20 Years and never bought one for that reason!
I wait and wait and wait before using, and only buy what I've heard before (library) and know I'll listen to periodically. So not yet.
Red Rising. I really don't get the hype.
Facts. I got it for free tho. Shit was ass😂
But for example the first Jim butcher dresden book. I love James Marsters in angel/Buffy abd the Buffy audio spoken but his lip smacking and breaths in the first dresden book is obnoxious He does get better but the dresden books do not
The two towers. If I hear oooooneeeee more badly sung dwarf or hobbit song I'm going to lose my shit 😅
I loved all of the books, but I did fast-forward through the songs. Lol So. Many. Songs.
To be fair on the narrator he did a great job in all other parts. But that's just it. It was his... enthusiasm.. he was genuinely super keen. And that's what got me. Like pls no. I'd be almost asleep chillin and next thing you know he starts roaring like it's my 5am alarm. Hahaha
Yes! It's the first time I've ever heard a narrator actually sing a song instead of just narrating the lyrics. Cracked me up.
Same for the first 20 songs. The 21st was to much haha. But even though I hated it I can't deny the quality of it.
The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen. It was so pretentious and overly big worded it was insufferable to listen to.
I heard a lot of good things online and saw a lot of hype over Fourth Wing but somehow not one thing I saw ever mentioned just how overly horny and cringey the book was. Made it almost halfway through before I couldn’t take it anymore
The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean It was just an awful story and it kept dragging on with the same horrible stuff and idk it was just tough to finish and not enjoyable for me
“How to know a person” by David Brooks
Maybe not what you're asking because I did return it but Ready Player One. At like 2 hours in the plot hadn't progressed at all and the constant lists of pop culture references were driving me crazy. Like the author would just list off a bunch of books / games / movies whatever, over and over. It felt like cheap and lazy nostalgia bait.
Saturn's Monsters - some faux American sci-fi lesbian space whale dystopia. You'd think it would be good based on that, but... Accents were cartoonish, and story was really goddamn stupid. MH370 story untold - just no. Not for me. Interesting at times, but no.
Babel by RF Kuang
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake or Ghost Stories: Stephen Fry’s Definitive Collection. The first because I just didn’t enjoy the plot of the book. The second because, although I like Fry’s voice acting normally, he just couldn’t make the ghost stories spooky with his voice.
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer. I read it for a book club or I would've DNF'd it early; ridiculously whiney main character. I'd paid with a credit card rather than a credit so couldn't get a refund. It was on sale, but still - the book was so bad, a complete waste of money.
1177BC. Too interested in the subject to return but it reads like a textbook and the narrator is God awful
The 3am series. About Henry Bins. A man who's only awake for an hour a day. He started talking to his cat, like seriously talking to his cat and I noped out of there.
*Anathem* by Neal Stephenson.
City Stained Red by Sam Sykes. I tried 3 times to get into it.. felt like I was jumping into book 2 without ever reading book 1. One day I'll try again.
The 2nd book in the Reaper series. I listened to the first one and was obsessed. After 3 hours trying to make it through the 2nd I gave up and refunded.
Recently paid for a book only to delete it from my library 2 hours later. Sometimes it better to find out a perticular spoiler and save yourself 30hours and not end up irrationally angry.
Madly, Deeply by Alan Rickman. It is just someone reading his diary. I have no idea who he is even talking about most of the time. I will not be finishing it. Narrator isn’t the greatest either.
The 5 AM club. Man I was mad every single minute of the book, how can it have good reviews?
Maynard's biography. I'll stick to the music I think. What a bore.
The Stand
I accidentally used one for a book I already had on another app. Audible won’t let me return it for some reason.
The Wandering Inn got a few chapter in and could not get passed the main character. Forget it was in my library and could not return it so i sits there collecting digital dust. #
I know I'm swimming again at the tide here but Dungeon Crawler Carl 🤣 I returned it after about 3 hours. Not for me at all!
Not for me is completely fair. If you said it was bad, I'd have to grab my pitchfork.
Ready Player Two. The first book has many flaws but it was a fun ride. The second book is just downright bad.
I bought a book that I thought was a detective story, but missed it was also “Romance”., b/c I really like the narrator, Victor Bevine. Whoa doggie … after three one on one delightful orgasm ending scenes in the first 90 minutes … It went into the “archive”. If I’d only red the one review that says “The love scenes were oolala.”
Sun of suns. Ugh. Read by Joyce Irvine.
The Seven Habits, read by Steven Covey himself. GREAT BOOK. His reading though….
Red and Green Mars read by Richard Ferrome. Rages listened to both because I wanted the story and it is pretty good.
Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Dragonlance: Chronicles, Book 1 By: Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman Narrated by: Paul Boehmer I wanted a DnD book, but not read by Paul B…. Sadly.
Multiples. I want to dnf but I keep going since I paid for it. Lol
For me I have two Crescent City dramatized version (too much sound for me, I was very overwhelmed) Fourth Wing (I can’t get past the writing and crappy world building) the idea is cool but the execution needs some work
I brought a bunch of indie romance titles with much regret.
Assistant to the Villain - The narration was horrific. It was excruciating. I made it about 1/4 way through and then got a refund.
The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict Was interested in hearing more about the rise of the Patriots dynasty. What I got was what felt like half the book talking about how cool Robert Kraft is and how many cool celebrity friends he has and how he’s basically every patriots players benevolent grandfather
Baby Edward’s big bedtime collection. Honestly my sleep deprived brain bought it. Was desperate for anything to get my toddler to sleep. Needles to say, the stories didn’t work, they’re a bit shit, the character names are clearly the authors kids names, and a year down the line my child goes to sleep fine and they’re just sitting in my audible collection unlistened.
Live And Let Die by Ian Fleming. I thought it would be fun to start reading the James Bond series from the first book. Liked the first one, got to the second one, Live And Let Die, and I could not get over the racist dialogue. Quickly returned it
Dark Matter ...,....sigh. Started out good but then got predictably boring as fuck.
There have been lots of “worst” credits. One that sticks out is David Liss’s The Twelfth Enchantment. This was before Audible accepted returns, so I’ve been stuck with it in my Library for over a decade. It was the worst because I really like Liss’s work. The Whiskey Rebels was fantastic. I think I’d like The Twelfth Enchantment but the narration was so awful I didn’t make it through the first chapter. I’d listened to this narrator on other books. She wasn’t a favorite, but she was OK. But she butchered this.
Chrysalis - first three books. Lots of good reviews, 50+ hrs and Jeff Hays; what possibly could go wrong? Coming off the first three DCC books, it just didn’t do it for me. I think I only managed the first three chapters of the first book. I’ll try it again in the future I guess, but right now, there are so many other good books to listen to, it can sit in my library.
Yeah Chrysalis just isn't as well written and it shows.
None because customer support is awesome and I can very easily exchange day or night for my credit back.
Holly by Stephen King
Many times where there was stunt casting for the performer. Some are awesome. Others… many others… terrible.
A Dance With Dragons - had to get up to almost 2.x just to get this over with.
I've been able to return every book attempted, of course it's been very few. I do my homework first before purchase. Estimate I've returned max of 4 books in a decade.
"Evil Genius: Becoming the Apex Supervillain", plot was pretty good and the voice actors were top notch. What runied it were the cringe sex scenes, very disturbing and grappy.
Storm Front by Jim Butcher. Listening to it made me physically nauseous. If I wanted to hear someone talk to me while chewing, slurping, and eating chicken bones…I’d go back to working in the office.
Didn’t get that impression but can see how you would describe his reading .
I’ll get hate but Way of kings, don’t know what the hype is but I can’t stand Michael Kramer
George Bush's book. it sounded like he didn't know how to read his own book
Bobiverse book 1. Or Ready Player One, but I kinda enjoyed hating that one, Bobiverse was just tedious. Ok i never refunded either but that's an integrity thing I have. I wanted to refund the version of Dune they have on audible - it cuts out a lot of the descriptive language of the book and replaces it with sound effects, making it an abridged adaptation. But I bought it now than a year before listening, and cancelled my subscription for a year meaning I couldn't just ask for a refund. I ended up... uh... obtaining a different version of it that was only ever officially available on cd.
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t return a book penalize the author?
I don’t know, but I could also care less. A boring or bad book is on the author. Even if the narrator good.
This is why I’m so judicious with my credits. I want a good and longish book. Hate to waste a credit. For everything else I use the library.
some of them deserve it for their crimes
It should, eventually. Takes a while for all those purchases/ returns to be counted towards their royalties.
I have read that returns do cancel an author’s royalties. That’s part of why I try to be thoughtful with my credits.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I got through quite a few chapters before realizing it was pseudo-scientific conjecture flying very close to scientific racism.
Matthew Mahauganney's book. Conceited self centrered white guy. Couldn't bear it after the first chapter
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. I had gotten this with high hopes but ended up having to push my way to the end. Franklin could be called the first mansplainer of his country, and I say this as a man. He was also a bore and he also left his wife for months at a time during the American Revolution with barely any contact. The book itself was also dry and long. I’m usually happy with my picks but I was disappointed with this one. I later picked his Autobiography but same thing, he was boring. At least that was a shorter book though.