Audiobook Review: I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere but the Pool
I need a Lifeguard Everywhere but the Pool
Series: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman #8
Authors:
Lisa Scottoline
Francesca Serritella
Narrators:
Lisa Scottoline
Francesca Serritella
Published: July 11, 2017
Audiobook: 5 hours 30 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 12-16, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
The bestselling and “perennially hilarious” mother-daughter team is back with a new collection of stories from their real lives, guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. Join Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella as they regret drunk-shopping online, try smell-dating, and explore the freedom of a hiatus from men – a Guyatus. They offer a fresh and funny take on the triumphs and facepalm moments of modern life, showing that when it comes to navigating the crazy world we live in, you’re always your own best lifeguard.
Jessica’s Review:
This mother/daughter combo just know how to bring on the laughs! And I listened to it at a time when I really needed some giggles. These ladies cover just about everything in these short essays (yes, there are some politics too).
You get to know both women through the essays they write- whether you are already a reader of theirs or this collection of essays is new to you. And they also narrate the audiobook, which makes it even better!
I thought from the cover that this was going to be a book to gear you up for the summer, but holidays and elections are mentioned, so it can really be listened to at any time!
If you are a woman, you need to listen (or read) these books! The titles of the books in this series just shows the humor and honesty these ladies possess.
Bring on more books to the series ladies!
Audiobook Review: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Author: John Berendt
Narrator: Jeff Woodman
Published: January 13, 1994
Audiobook: 15 Hours 4 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: October 5-13, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Audiobook Description:
Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt interweaves a first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
The story is peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproarious black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.
Jessica’s Review:
This book is a case of where truth is stranger than fiction and it happens in the Southern town of Savannah, Georgia! We have an intriguing and colorful cast of characters in 1981 Savannah. It has also become a movie that I saw at least 15 years ago, but when I saw it I don’t think I realized it was a true story!
This is a true crime book that reads like fiction! In actuality the author’s ‘character’ in the book is the only fictional character because in reality he arrived in Savannah during Jim William’s first trial. Yes, I said first trial because he was tried more than once. Berendt really pulls you into this true story with some intimate details that might be TMI for some readers.
Almost any kind of ‘character’ you can think of is in this book: We have a drag queen, a con artist, black debutants, and a voodoo priestess among many more! The narrator Jeff Woodman did a fantastic job portraying some of these real people’s voices. My favorite among this colorful cast was The Lady Chablis. She even wrote a short biography around 200 pages that I plan on borrowing from my library! Kevin Spacey portrayed Jim Williams and they did a fantastic job of making him look like Jim Williams from a picture I found online, even though his acting was apparently not up to Berendt’s standards . I loved that The Lady Chablis played herself!
This one was a book club pick, and I enjoyed the book, it’s such an intriguing real-life tale! I even rewatched the movie after finishing it. It’s a longer one at 2.5 hours and does a good job condensing the story but still getting the whole story. After finishing the book, it has me wanting to go back to Savannah and even tour Mercer house which you can still do today.
I enjoyed this true crime book!
Here is the trailer to the movie:
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
The Film: Amazon US
Audiobook Review: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
Greenlights
Author: Matthew McConaughey
Narrator: Matthew McConaughey
Published: October 20, 2020
Audiobook: 6 hours 42 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: June 21-23, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Audiobook Description:
From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.
I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.
Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges – how to get relative with the inevitable – you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”
So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.
Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.
It’s a love letter. To life.
It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights – and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
Good luck.
Jessica’s Review:
This is a memoir to enjoy! Greenlight!
I have always been a Matthew McConaughey fan and have been meaning to read this one forever! And I went with the audiobook and it gets a perfect 5 stars from me! Greenlight!
McConaughey tells us his life story up to his first 50 years of life, and for the audiobook he tells it himself. And it wasn’t just him reading the book he wrote, listening to it was an experience! He tells his story with such expression and puts everything into his narration, I don’t think I could have possibly enjoyed this memoir any more than I did! Greenlight!
McConaughey seems totally down to earth and tells his story where you feel that you get to know him as a person. Everything before, during, and after Hollywood! And things you think you know (aka the bongo drum incident) we actually learn even more about.
Did you know that McConaughey was an exchange student to Australia? I didn’t and he definitely had an interesting experience! He tells us about his childhood and he also traveled through Europe on a motorcycle with a few other actors, and he even floated down the Amazon.
McConaughey seems like a down to earth man and did you know all he ever wanted in life was to be a father? We even get a part of the man’s spirituality.
We get his career in Hollywood, and I forgot he was in Angels in the Outfield! We get his start with Dazed and Confused I was most interested in his time working on A Time to Kill, and why he doesn’t do rom coms anymore. I learned about a few of his films I did not know about but now want to see: Mud and Dallas Buyers Club. We see him meet his future wife and mother of his three children. Greenlight!
If you are a Matthew McConaughey fan you must read this book! I would say listen to it to hear the literal words come out of his mouth himself. This is the kind of memoir I love, one where you feel that you really get to know the person. The last memoir I listened to and felt that way was Jessica Simpson’s memoir Open Book. If you are looking for any dirt and gossip you will be disappointed. He didn’t kiss and tell on relationships other than his wife. Listening to this memoir I really feel like I got to know the man, yet he also kept some things private. Greenlight!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK