My Audiobook Adventures #8: thoughts on the books that I read from January to April 2025

I have read twenty books so far this year but I have selected eleven of them on which to give reviews and thoughts below. I’d love to know your opinions on these books if you’ve read them before, and I’d love to know any book recommendations that you might have yourself. What have you been reading recently? Let me know in the comments.

NB: I’m only able to listen to audiobooks; I’m unable to read physical books or ebooks because of my neck (to find out more about what’s wrong with my neck and also the neurosurgery I’m fundraising for, go to GoFundMe.com/savejenny)

‘The Penguin Lessons’ by Tom Michell (non-fiction)

A delightful memoir of the author’s time working in South America after he rescues a penguin that washes up from an oil slick on the beach. It’s fascinating to see what a penguin coming to live with him (at a boarding school where he works in Argentina) unlocks and changes in all the people around him. The penguin reveals what was around him all along. It’s a lovely account of his time with the penguin and the friendship that they develop. I thoroughly recommend this book; I think that most people would enjoy it.

‘The Accidental Soldier’ by Owain Mulligan (non-fiction)

Marina Hyde from ‘The Rest is Entertainment’ podcast recommended this book. Although not something that I might have usually listened to, she made it sound compelling. It was!

It’s an honest account of the author’s time in the army in 2006 in Iraq. He has a talent for seeing the comedic in the everyday. Although faced with both the brutal and the mundane, the author has a dry wit and a talent for writing (he casually uses words like ‘Stygian’!). It is interesting to find out what it was really like at that time for British soldiers in Iraq. There are both humorous and touching moments, and it’s a snapshot of that time and the futility of it all.

I enjoyed the book. The only thing that I’m left wanting to know is what his motivations were. Although he hated his job as a teacher before joining the army for a while, it’s not as if the only two jobs in the world are either teacher or soldier. He could have done anything else. Why on earth would he put himself in that much danger? He could easily have been killed. He never says why he specifically chose to do it.

‘Super Powereds’ by Drew Hayes

I had never heard of this series before and had never heard it talked about, which is relatively unusual because I listen to quite a few booktubers with similar taste in books to me. Thank you to Paul Hennell for recommending it!

The books are set in our world except that, as well as ordinary humans, there are two other types of people: ‘Supers’ who have a superhuman ability or two and are in control of it, and ‘Powereds’ who also have a superhuman ability but are not able to control their power so their lives are a nightmare. Both humans and Supers regard Powereds as lower than them.

The series starts off with five eighteen-year-old ‘Powereds’ being given a secretive pioneering procedure by a mysterious company to turn them into ‘Supers’. They then get enrolled into a university where they attend normal classes but also the ‘HCP’ — Hero Certification Programme — where aspiring Heroes (only Supers can become official Heroes) go to train to try to become Heroes.

This series follows these five characters as they learn to control their powers. I really enjoyed their training progress, growth and increasing control of their powers throughout the four book series (though it isn’t so evident in book one); this part is very satisfying.

These books are fun and just pure entertainment. They’re not deep but they’re enjoyable. If you haven’t got much cognitive energy, these are an easy read (or ‘listen’ in my case!). In the first book and maybe the second too, the author makes the mistake that many male authors make when describing women’s looks, which is unfortunate, but by book three, that disappears and it feels like the author progresses and improves as a writer as the series goes on.

The first book is enjoyable but basic. It doesn’t really start to touch on the mystery surrounding the procedure, the differences between the groups of people or the mystery about the Class of Legends. By the time you get to books three and four though, you’ll be hooked. The mystery deepens and the world expands. Book three is the highlight for me. Very exciting.

At the end of book four I was left bereft because I felt like the characters had become my friends! My only complaint would be that after everything that the characters go through and all their training and competition with each other, after the Big Battle at the end, we don’t get to see their graduation or how they end up ranked; the text just jumps ahead in time to give us the epilogue. I would have really loved to see the culmination of all we had been building to in the university course HCP: the final exam, the graduation on stage and if Roy ever got to the top spot that he was hoping to finally reach. Still, this series is great fun.

‘Oathbound’ by Tracy Deonn

This is the third book in the Legendborn cycle, which puts a imaginative, contemporary twist on Arthurian legend. The first book is incredibly enjoyable, and it feels like a full and satisfying story in itself, even knowing that there’s space left for more to come in the sequels. The second book’s plot isn’t as strong and cohesive as the first but still has exciting, memorable moments and character interactions that sizzle. The first two books both have powerful and profound things to say about grief, injustice and racism that had me bookmarking quotes.

This third book ‘Oathbound’ is the weakest of the three books so far but is still worth the read (or ‘listen’ in my case) and is enjoyable. It puts new combinations of characters together (which is disappointing in contrast to the second book, which throws together the four most interesting characters; their dynamics are electric and fun). I am glad that Nick is gone for most of book two because the most boring part of the book is always Nick and Bree’s relationship. It seems obvious that Bree and Sel should be together. Nick is dull and annoying.

In ‘Oathbound’, the author seems to be on a mission to get us to like Nick again and trying to re-inject some charisma into him. It feels forced but it’s moderately successful; he’s more interesting than in book two. The auction is fun and Bree losing her “memories” of people works well as we see her interact with Nick again as if for the first time. But Nick just doesn’t compare to Sel and how compelling Sel is as a character, and the chemistry that he has with Bree. The author does a great disservice to Sel in this book.

Also, my favourite character (Alice) is in a coma for the whole book, so that didn’t help with my increasing grumpiness with the book. Given Bree’s decision at the end, I don’t know if we’re ever going to get Alice back. I hope we will. Bree is the least annoying in this book out of the three books so far; up until now she has seemed petulant and immature at times. [SPOILER WARNING] Ironically this change in character turns out to be because she has lost part of her soul, not because of any character growth, so I don’t know whether she’ll go back to how she was before, now that she’s got the missing part of her soul back.

The ending is a bit confusing regarding how we’re left about which deals/bargains have been fulfilled with the Shadow King and which debts still have to be paid. All the plans went out of the window in the showdown with the Shadow King and it all gets muddled. And don’t get me started with the revelation about Sel. Is he being set up to be Bree’s enemy? Is that why the author has been trying to rehabilitate Nick’s image with the readers/listeners in this book? Nick and Bree together in a relationship feels like the author is trying to force it too much; Sel and Bree are more natural together. I really thought that Sel’s mother would find a way to help him and I still hope that they’ll be able to crack how to get Sel back to being himself.

I’ll still be looking forward to the next book. Although this book is the weakest of the series, it’s still better than most books out there. However, there are no lines that stand out to me this time as profound and no quotes to bookmark, which is a let down in overall quality.

‘I who have never known men’ by Jacqueline Harper

This book has a similar feel in the first part of it to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ (the book, not the thriller-like TV series). It has a quiet intensity and also an accuracy of what it’s like when your world is shrunk and what happens to the human mind when the body is trapped and a person is isolated. It makes me wonder if the author has any experience of either being seriously ill and confined or if she just did a lot of research or if she just imagined herself into that mindset. The way that she depicts, in the main character, the worlds that your mind creates when it has nowhere else to go, is uncannily true to life.

The book starts with a group of women in an underground bunker, caged together in a small space, with guards constantly patrolling around the cage. Unable to escape, the women have been there for a very long time, without discovering anything.

Ultimately though, the ending is frustrating and unsatisfying. I want to find out the mystery, what really happened and how the women came to be there. We are never told. I know that’s the whole point. Personally, I did enjoy the book but some might find it rough-going, slow and claustrophobic.

‘The Ragpicker King’ by Cassandra Clare

This is the second book in the ‘Chronicles of Castellane’ series. It is set in a world where magic has been destroyed (or so we are led to believe at the beginning of the first book) and only a “lesser” sort of magic is left, but only the Ashkar people are able to practice it, but they are outcasts wherever they go and have no home anymore.

The first book ‘Sword Catcher’ (which I re-listened to, in preparation for the sequel) follows two main characters: Lin, an Ashkar girl, and Kel, an orphan boy who is plucked out of his orphanage to be the prince’s ‘Sword Catcher’ . A sword catcher stands in for the prince for occasions that are considered too dangerous for the prince himself, and the sword catcher is also expected to protect the prince, putting his body on the line for him (taking arrows for the prince etc.)

The first book focusses on Kel and Lin’s stories and is from their two points of view. In ‘The Ragpicker King’ however, the two main points of view (written in the past tense) are interspersed with other characters’ points of view that are written in the present tense, which I found jarring and unnecessary.

It’s an enjoyable and well-written fantasy series. This second book isn’t as good as the first one; it is filled with frustrating miscommunications and misunderstandings between characters, which only seems to serve as a lazy device for the author for certain events or relationships either to happen or not happen. Despite this, the characters and plot are still compelling and I’ll be looking forward to the next instalment.

‘Assassin’s Apprentice’ by Robin Hobb

This is the first book in a well-known and beloved fantasy series. Up until now, I was put off from starting the series by the narrator of the audiobook, who isn’t to my taste. Everyone always raves about Robin Hobb’s books though so in the end I resigned myself that there wasn’t going to be a re-recording of the audiobooks with a new narrator any time soon so I finally decided to put up with him!

The book isn’t what I was expecting. It is a lot slower paced than the books that I have been listening to recently. It’s an epic fantasy though so sometimes it takes a while to adjust to being introduced to a world slowly. I struggled at first to get into the book at all; the writing style feels a bit dry (though is of good quality). There are points in describing the history and politics of the world where it almost feels like an encyclopedia entry. I’m not a fan of when a story is being written down by a character looking back on their life (I loved ‘The Kingkiller Chronicles’ *despite* this also being done in those books, not because of it).

This book gradually builds and builds, slowly but surely, to a satisfying climax at the end. The book didn’t blow me away but I’m going onto the second book in the series immediately, since I have a suspicion that this series is just going to get better and better. It must do surely, since everyone loves it so much. Do I just have to be patient?

Here are the video reviews that I did on YouTube of four of the books that I’ve read this year:

‘Wind and Truth’ by Brandon Sanderson:

 
‘Fourth Wing’ by Rebecca Yarros:

‘Iron Flame’ by Rebecca Yarros:

 
‘Onyx Storm’ by Rebecca Yarros:

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Links to my previous Audiobook Adventures:

My Audiobook Adventures #1
My Audiobook Adventures #2
My favourite books (this is essentially My Audiobook Adventures #2.5!)
My Audiobook Adventures #3
My Audiobook Adventures #4
My Audiobook Adventures #5
My Audiobook Adventures #6
My Audiobook Adventures #7