New Moon (Audio)

by Stephenie Meyer

read by Ilyana Kadushin

-Twilight Series, Book 2-

(New York: Listening Library, 2006)

MP3 Audiobook, 777.8 MB, 14.8 Hours, Young Adult Fiction

ISBN: 9780739337202, US$54.00

ABCD Rating: DITCH

From the Cover: I felt like I was trapped in one of those terrifying nightmares, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can’t make your body move fast enough. … But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn’t running for my life; I was racing to save something infinitely more precious. My own life meant little to me today. For Bella Swan, there is one thing more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is even more dangerous than Bella ever could have imagined. Edward has already rescued Bella from the clutches of one evil vampire, but now, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may be just the beginning. …

My Review: To paraphrase The Sound of Music: What do you do with a problem like Stephenie Meyer? Some may ask (and I know one acquaintance in particular that would ask and disagree vehemently with me) Is she a problem? My answer back would be yes, with a but…

As has been pointed out by Stephen King recently, there is not much substance to Meyer’s writing … I think his words were—in essence—She’s just not that good. (Though some could level the same claims (as I have) against King, who (again as I have argued in some papers) is not the literary god that he seems to think he is.) However, when I make the following statement, I don’t believe that I believe I can state with certainty that King’s words had no influence on it: Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series is not what I thought it was a year or so ago.

I don’t know if it is condition of my just not noticing (or caring) when I first read through the books, or it is something to do with having it read to me this time around (rather than reading it myself) that Meyer’s prose, while adequate to get the story across, is—to use the vernacular—no great shakes. (I’ve probably alienated some of my Readers at this point, and I apologize, but the proverbial shine is off the apple for me.) This time around, I’ve also found Bella’s fawning, complete and unthinking devotion to and adoration of Edward getting on my nerves for whatever reason. If I read (or, rather heard) one more sentence describing Edward’s “perfect, angelic face,” or the “marble perfection” of his body I think I would have lost it.

As I stated in my review of the audio version of Twilight, a lot of my recent revulsion at the series has to do with Ilyana Kadushin’s abysmal reading. Actually, since that review, the acquaintance I mentioned above, the one who is about as die-hard a Twilight fan as any I know, tried the audio version (in order to get her husband in on the “conversation”) and couldn’t finish it. She, too, found Kadushin’s reading to be so absolutely atrocious that she turned it off and just read to him herself. Kadushin’s appalling reading is compounded one hundred percent in New Moon by the fact that she cannot pronounce the words wolf and wolves correctly. She mangles the two, saying woof instead of wolf and wooves (rhyming it with hooves) instead of wolves. This has been a pet peeve of mine for well over two decades and I cringed every time Kadushin said it.

So, in closing, I’m going to repeat my caveat from the end of my review of Twilight: “I don’t know that I would even say that this is an audiobook for diehard fans only, because I believe (knowing a few diehard fans as I do) that even the most ardent Twilighter (did I just coin a new phrase?) would be dismayed and disheartened by Kadushin’s performance. So, unless you absolutely have to hear New Moon read aloud, give this audiobook a wide berth and go back to the print edition. Your fanhood will thank you for it.”