Audio: Between Shades of Grey - Ruta Sepetys

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously - and at great risk - documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. 

Audio CD, Unabridged , 6 CDs, 7 hours, 47 minutes
Published March 22nd 2011 by Penguin Audio
Historical fiction / YA
Sync!

My thoughts:

I read some reviews, and the author talked about it at the end too, what you ask? That people do not realise how many millions and millions of people that Stalin murdered. What school did you go to?!

Lithuania is occupied by Soviet. Her father is a professor and in the night they are taken away. Fascists bourgeoisie pigs as they are. They are sent to Siberia to work. To die.

Lina is 15 and loves to draw. Her brother Jonas is 10. Her mother has a coat filled with things to sell. I thought they had it bad first, but it actually gets worse. We only follow them for a year but it is a horrible year filled with death, tears, but also so much love. Love for each other and the will to go on. To survive and to get back to Lithuania (of course I googled, damn, either they were denied entry when the Soviet started to release prisoners in the 50s, or they were discriminated against.)

I cried, how could I not. There was this one part with a baby that just broke me.

I am so grateful for those that fought so we could keep our independence. We could easily have been the Baltics. No one should have to live under that Communist regime of terror.

It is a good book, it is a sad book. There is so much hope in the face of despair and I do not know how anyone could have survived what they did. But people survived, against all odds.

Narrator Emily Klein 

I liked her voice for Lena, but to be honest she did not really do all the other voices that differently. But in the end it worked anyway cos the story was good.

One thing, in print it was surely obvious but here it was tricky with the flashbacks. Suddenly i was all wtf is Lena doing?? Oh, flashback. 

Cover

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Audio Review: In his hands - Adriana Anders

Abby Merkley has been a member of the Church of the Apocalyptic Faith since she was a child, and there's no way out-except death. She will fight the odds to survive, but there's no one in the world she can trust, nowhere she can run that the cult can't find her . . . until her handsome, brooding neighbor takes her into the safety of his arms. Luc Stanek craves a quiet life. But he doesn't hesitate when a desperate woman lands, bloodied and branded on his doorstep. Soon he finds himself drawn into her chaotic world, caught in the center of an apocalyptic war . . . and determined to save the fierce beauty no matter the cost. 

My thoughts

I was reading a cult book at the same time as I listened to this one. I did wonder at times who was it who had eaten dirt in a cellar, oh the other cult book. Cults are scary, I will tell you that.

Abby grew up in a cult. She was married too young to an old man. Her mother blindly follows the faith and honors her husband, the leader. But Abby wants to leave, she wants more. She does not want this miserable existence. She is naive, but that makes sense since she lives in this sheltered backwards place. 

Luke lives on the same mountain. He does not like people, he just wants to farm. To be left alone.

They did come together rather fast. They had not known each other for long. But I guess he was lonely, she wanted something new. And they did fancy each other.

The story is about them falling for each other, and her trying to break away from that horrible cult. The journey from that is long. Cult people are creepy weirdos. Scary bastards.

Conclusion:
It did have a slow start but it got better as it got scary

Narration Wendy Tremont King

I have gotten hooked on a fast speed and with this one I listened really fast. Some voices do really well in faster speed.

I liked how she did her voices. A great difference between them. Luke's accent though, eh, see it is so easy to make those caricature accents. I have met French people, not had those tv accents. I am sure some have, but in this day of age at least I got my accent from watching tv. But I guess it was needed to make us get he was French

She did a good job

Audio Sample 

By the way, every audiobook lover out there. Where do you find good samples that you can put directly on your blog?

Audio CD, 13 h
Expected publication: August 1st 2017 by Tantor Audio
Blank Canvas #3
Contemporary romance / Romantic suspense
For review