Mr. Fitz and I have a bit of a road trip problem.
We’re both big readers, but we haven’t been able to agree on an audiobook since The Great Hunger Games Road Trip of 2012. We’ve tried and tried over the years, but with no success – it’s a whole thing at this point 🙄
But on a trip this week, we somehow found two audiobooks that had us both totally hooked. They had us laughing, gasping, pausing to chat, and handing a bag of chips back and forth in tense silence. For. The. Entire. Drive. It was magical! Whether you’re listening or reading, if these titles can please our opposite book tastes, they’ll please just about anyone.
Facing similar audiobook blues? Here are two titles that might save your road trip:
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (AD)
‘Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer.’ Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead.
Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.
Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she’s exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she’s willing to go to protect her. (Summary via Amazon.)
I was a little hesitant about this adult novel at first, because the words “serial killer” and in the title and I’m pretty much afraid of my own shadow. But My Sister the Serial Killer was just the right amount of funny, shocking, and mysterious. We both loved the fast pace and twists and turns, and the dark plot lead to some pretty interesting conversations. We paused often to chat about the awesome narrator, make predictions, or laugh/yell/groan at one of the wild twists. The ending left us both saying “wait, what?!”, which made the discussion after we finished even more fun.
Scythe (Book 1), by Neal Shusterman
A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.
Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.
Scythe is the first novel of a thrilling new series by National Book Award–winning author Neal Shusterman in which Citra and Rowan learn that a perfect world comes only with a heavy price. (Summary via Amazon.)
I love young adult novels, but Mr. Fitz has a notoriously low threshold for the delicious drama of the genre. So I didn’t have high hopes for Scythe, which has been getting amazing reviews but was written for the 12+ set. But Neal Shusterman’s dark, twisty, genius brain somehow manages to speak to nerdy creatives of all ages (and the FitzHenrys are squarely in that camp). Scythe takes such an unexpected view on death, technology, society, and the world we know and love, that we were both hooked from the very first sentence. We arrived home before we finished this one, and I’m so excited to continue listening to the novel together at home.
fitzbetweentheshelves.com 