2020 was a good year....FOR BOOKS. There were so many wonderful releases and revisits that really helped us make it through. To be frank, there are a lot more books than 10 that really helped us, but we had to put boundaries up with ourselves! Let us know if any of the books on our list, also made it onto yours. Oh, and if it's not still clear....this is a book review channel for MAINLY audiobooks. Yes, we do also review physical books, but audiobooks are our first loves. We didn't think it...

Wow.....WOWWWWWWW. We are pretty sure that there is a new record for the amount of tears cried while reading a book, and we are pretty sure WE are the record holders :P. There's no two ways about it, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver is an emotional ride that you will probably cry during. "But Brad and Britney...I don't want to cry over a book, 2020 has been emotional enough" we get it, okay, and we say TOUGH. By closing yourself off to this book (and any book that makes you...

Thank you NetGalley for supplying us with a copy of the audiobook for The Night Swim! The Night Swim by Megan Goldin is a very, very heavy book. We feel like we would be doing a disservice if we didn't say that there are many trigger warnings for both the main story arc as well as the secondary arc. The novel does focus on a rape trial and also the rape and murder of another girl from the past. It's not a book to be entered into lightly, but it is a book that is very interesting given how...

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard is a book that gave a mixed bag of feelings. We differ on our opinions of the characters as well as the pacing, but agree the narrators did an AMAZING job with this one. John Keating made us hate him so much thanks to his portray of antagonist Jim, and Alana Kerr Collins kept us interested in Eve's journey for justice. While we are unsure how this book will fair on our overall 2020 ranking, we can confidently say that this is our #1 book on the list...

This is a wedding that no one will ever forget! In Lucy Foley's novel, The Guest List, there are dark secrets behind every smiling and congratulatory face, and on the night of Jules wedding to Will, someone winds up MURDEREDDDDD! We listened to the audiobook of this thriller and boy was it a treat! There is a full cast of narrators for every POV we are given and all of them are excellent. You'll for sure find the one you love, find the one you hate, and find the one that you hopes face...

Lifetime may think that it's cool, but their book to movie adaptations are out of control. We recently listened to the novel Ten by Gretchen McNeil, narrated by Tavia Gilbert. Ten is a YA thriller/horror about a group of teens that go out to a secluded island for a weekend of partying. However things quickly go off the rails when one by one the teens are savagely murdered. Lifetime has entered the chat. In 2017 Lifetime released the movie adaptation of this novel, called Ten: Murder Island....

One of us really loved this one. One of us got to the final 2% and just kept screaming "COME ONNNNNNN". Hannah Mary McKinnon's latest thriller, Sister Dear, is a polarizing novel that will make you side eye your parents and ask them if there's any chance that you have a half sibling that is super rich, beautiful, amazing, smart, everything you're not. I'm sure they'll say no, but don't blame us if a deep family secret is exposed.... One thing we both had in common while listening to...

When life gives you a bunch of tyrannical patriarchy lemons.....SMASH THEM IN THE FACE AND TELL THEM YOU PREFER ICED TEA. We all know the fairy tale of Cinderella: abused and treated as a servant by her step-mother and step-sisters, Cinderella was visited by a fairy godmother the night of a big soiree and gifted a beautiful gown, glass slippers, and sick ride to the castle. She met the prince, fell in love immediately, but had to rush home or risk having her identity exposed as the magical...

We love a thriller with liars...which is basically all thrillers ever. Heather Gundenkauf's This is How I Lied is a suspense that will have you asking the big question of: What the heck is up with this town?! 25 years ago, 16 year old Eve Knox's body was found by her best friend, Maggie, and little sister, Nola. It was a tragic scene and a horrific murder that shook the tiny town to it's core. Maggie's father was the lead investigator at the time, but soon the case ran cold and was closed. In...

In Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke's latest collaboration, How to Save a Life, they tackle the magical realism that is groundhog day. No, not the day that we where a rodent pops out of the ground and tells us if we'll have more winter or get spring soon, but the phenomenon of repeating a day over and over again until some sort of change is made by our sufferer. This was a fast and fantastic read. It doesn't waste ANY time at all and you really grow attached to every single character (even if you...

Well, sometimes you love the fantasy and some times you wish for more contemporary. That is exactly what happened to us with the audiobook version of A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow. The blend of realism with mythos, and half the narration just did not mesh with us at all. Now, that doesn't mean this book is one to avoid. What didn't work for us, WILL work for many others. The contemporary base of the novel is beautifully written and we think that a younger generation would 1000%...

This is a book that really knows how to kick some GLASS, hahahahaha! Sorry....dad joke from people who aren't dads. In all honesty, Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas takes some time to gain momentum, but when it finally does it's a book you cannot stop listening to. We did the audiobook version of this fantasy thriller, and we absolutely fell in love with the narrator, Elizabeth Evans. She gives each character a bigger and bolder personality than what we would have created in our heads. She...

Welp, if 2020 wasn't weird enough, we have a resurrection of the vampire happening. It seems like every day there is a new book announced that focuses on the charming, blood suckers. Whether it's the 3rd time Stephenie Meyer is going to tell the same story with Midnight Sun, a fresh take on vamps in Amish country with Those Who Hunger by Owen Banner, or a retelling from a fan-favorite universe with Slayer by Kiersten White, the start of this decade is thirsty....for BLOOD! --This is the...

A thriller that is actually thrilling?! Say it isn't so! Minka Kent delivers a dream come true in When I Was You with early, middle, and late game twists, intelligence, and an unapologetic villain. We listened to the audiobook version of this novel and HOLY HELL were the narrators fantastic. Not only do you have the powerhouse that is Erin deWard, but you also have Will Damron giving us sociopathic realness. Those two together create an audioscape that sets Minka's written atmosphere ablaze....

We're doing something light and fun this week and making up our own tag called the Bookish Drag Tag! The rules are simple, so if you want to play - please do! 1. Pick out your favorite RuPaul's Drag Race Queen 2. Think of a trait that they displayed on the show (creepy, emotional, full of heart, EVIL) 3. Find a book that expertly matches with that queen! 4. Share your match-ups with us on social media or in the comments! (IG - @audioshelfme, Twitter - @audioshelfme, or Facebook -...

We are starting to think that maybe the YA thriller genre isn't for us. Between all the inaccurate whiny teens, and the frustrating wrap-ups we just aren't thrilled with these thrillers. This week we tackled the audiobook for All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban, narrated by Kate Rudd. While the narration was superior, we had major issues with the story and the way the characters...just...were. We break it all down for you and we want to know: Have you had a similar experience with some...

If we asked you to name a YA book, what's the first one that pops in your head? Is it The Outsiders? Is it Little Women (Brad hopes not)? Is it anything that was assigned reading in your school that you'd have been completely bored with? Those questions are what inspired us to dive into the history of the Young Adult genre, what YA means, and how the changes the genre has seen parallel the changes we see in our society. --This is the audio from our latest BookTube episode. To see us in...

Well, we're still here in quarantine and we aren't sure about everyone else, but we've been watching A LOT of TV. From the upbeat music of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, to the family in This is Us who just REALLY can't catch a break, we are sharing with you what we've been enjoying and books that WE think are the perfect digestifs. Hopefully our show, movie, and book recommendations can help you get through this difficult and scary time! And we're curious, WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING/READING?!...

With Maryland under a stay-at-home order, we turned to a virtual medium to bring you our bookish opinions :P. Thanks, Zoom (not sponsored). Over the weekend we saw an article about a book called Lockdown by Peter May, a crime thriller about a pandemic that puts London in quarantine. Not so crazy of a plot, right? Well back when the book was originally written in 2005 it was dubbed unrealistic by Peter May's publisher and squashed. It wasn't until now that the book was officially released...

A Goodreads librarian has got something against the monthly free audible originals and it's making people REAL mad. When Brad first noticed that his 2019 book challenge number dropped by 8 books, he started hunting for the cause. It didn't take him long to realize that Goodreads was deleting books that he had listened to and were made available to him and loads of others through the monthly Audible originals program. According to the Goodreads librarian manual a piece of material can be...

Here's the game. We each went through our Audible Original books, picked different ones to listen to, came together to have them fight it out on which one was better. Britney chose The Messengers, which was a March freebie for audible users, and Brad chose Tinaca Jones, which was a February freebie. We fight to the DEATH....just kidding...Tune in to find out which book gets the K.O and which one will survive on the shelf! Let us know what Audible Originals you've listened to lately and if we...

We read an article from Yahoo called "10 celebrity narrated audiobooks to listen to while quarantined" and we started thinking "huh, you know who sometimes SUCKS at narrating books and the only reason their audiobooks do well is because they have a pre-existing fan base and have the publicity to push their crap harder than anyone else? CELEBRITIES". So we decided to pick out some audiobooks narrated by career narrators that are awesome reads to get you through these social distancing times....

This club is DEADLY. The Kill Club by Wendy Heard is a fast paced action thriller that centers around...yup you guessed it....a club that kills people. When our main character, Jazz, is contacted by the nefarious club and promised a means to gain custody of her little brother, she agrees to commit murder. But a series of misfortunes leads to HER becoming a target of the club where even the most prim and proper are capable of taking lives. Check out our review and let us know in the comments...

We have a questions for young adult fantasy authors...what pulls some of you to the adult fantasy world? In today's latest discussion we are talking about authors who started out in the YA world and then ventured into the adult scene, why they may do this, and what authors we could see dabbling in adult fantasy next. Let us know in the comments below what YA fantasy authors YOU could see releasing the next great adult fantasy! Also, the ice cream we are eating is Nightfood. We were given a...