Audiobook pet peeves

[Prrambulate]

Just for fun, what small things grate on you in an audiobook, and sometimes even stop you from finishing it?

A while ago I listened to The Guest List by Lucy Foley and now, after experiencing “Jules”, I have a permanent aversion to posh, highly clipped female voices in an audiobook.

Male narrators reducing female characters to horrible high pitched voices is another!

I hate it when regional accents are not correct. I live in Bristol and so often Bristolian characters are read in the same way as farmers from Somerset or someone from Gloucester. The accents are very different.

I also hate it when, for example, the book is about a British woman but they chose an American man to read - why?!

It is also irritating when something happens with the editing and either the whole book or certain chapters are very quiet.

I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I would never choose a book read by the author EXCEPT Marian Keyes who has a lovely voice and neutral accent.

I like January LaVoy as a narrator and there is another narrator (whose name escapes me) who breathes all the emotion we are meant to feel; I cannot bear her. Or anyone with a strong regional accent.

Accents! Please just don’t bother. Especially Scottish or Irish. It’s painful to listen to.

In The Nightingale, one brief character was meant to be Welsh, but narrator put on a dreadful Irish accent instead. Also in the book The Running Grave, for example, not only is the Scottish accent awful, but the narrator pronounces ’Celtic’ as in football club as ‘’Celtic’ eg Celtic runes.

Peter Kay's new book TV has got audio clips from his tv shows in it! So entertaining