Audio book voices

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

Hi, remember this community exists, okay? :) That's my little reminder for you.

Just a book-related rant that I've talked about before in my regular journal:

I hate it when the audio book reader is poorly chosen. I don't understand it! They have one shot at recording the book in a way that will be enjoyable, and I'm sure there are tons of voice actors waiting for the chance, yet they choose someone so wrong for the part! As an avid audio book listener, I've heard my share of bad choices/voices.

Fortunately, I'm often able to eventually tune it out and still enjoy the book. I'm afraid that might not happen for my current book, though. The reader not only sounds all wrong, but she has this strange way of varying her volume between super quiet and normal-to-loud. So when I turn it up to hear the quiet parts, she's too loud at the other parts. It's not a faulty recording - it's on CD and I know it's working properly. Seriously, though, she'll say certain lines barely above a whisper, and it makes no sense! AAAHHHH!! I'm only on the first CD and I don't know if I can go on.

But to end this post on a more positive note, I have found the following audio book readers to be very good for the books they read:

Lisette Lecat from The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. She is excellent and handles many accents and characters smoothly. She even has to say words in many languages, at times, as well as crazy last names over and over and over.

Ilyana Kadushin from the Twilight series. There's nothing necessarily unique about her voice, and that's probably why I like it. It doesn't bother me and it sounds like Bella should sound. I also heard Kadushin read a Meg Cabot book and I was able to slip easily into this other character's story. It wasn't thinking "It's Bella!" the whole time.

Jan Maxwell from many Mary Higgins Clark books of the past several years. I'm always relieved when Maxwell is used again for a MHC book because she has a nondescript and yet pleasant voice like Kadushin. She's great.

I need an audio book icon.