Short Story Sunday: Audiobook Review: The Pram by Joe Hill
The Pram
Series: Creature Feature short stories 1 of 6
Author: Joe Hill
Narrator: Robert Petkoff
Published: September 26, 2023
Audiobook: 1 hour 34 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Date Listened To: December 24, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 3 stars
Short Story Description:
A husband’s obsessive desire for a child leads to an unexpected manifestation of his yearning in a nightmarish short story about fatherhood dreams by New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill.
Willy and Marianne’s farmhouse in Maine has acres of meadow and fresh air, and a lonesome bridle path in the forest along which Willy daydreams and ambles. When he’s loaned a decrepit old baby stroller to cart his groceries home, the rickety squeak of the wheels comforts him. So do the sweet coos of a baby Willy knows can’t be real. Can it? In this twisted thicket, wishes come true—with a price.
Joe Hill’s The Pram is part of Creature Feature, a collection of devilishly creepy stories that tingle the spine and twist the mind. They can be read or listened to in one petrifying sitting.
Jessica’s Review:
It seems strange to call part of this story refreshing but in a way it is: We have a couple who lost a bay due to miscarriage. Instead of the grief of the mother, the reader/listener experiences the grief of the father-to-be. This is hardly ever done in stories. In addition to the grief, we have a very creepy story with some gore to it.
This is a short story written by Joe Hill who is Stephen King’s son and mini-me! It was about a 90-minute listen and part of the Creature Feature short story collection from Amazon. This short story was narrated by Robert Petkoff who did a good job with his narration once I adjusted to his voice. I did have to start the story over as I had no idea what was going on, but that might have just been me.
We have a couple, Willy and Marianne, who have suffered a miscarriage and they move into a new town. There is a small country store that is about a mile from their home through a path where Willy buys their groceries from. One day he is loaned a pram to bring his groceries home in. Later on the pram takes on a life of its own.
The story just moves along well despite its short length. As the story continues it just gets creepier until it gets to the conclusion. Again it is gory! The creepiness goes long the lines of Rosemary’s baby: Just what is in the pram and what is going to happen next! The journey is far creepier than the ending, but that is creepy as well.
Overall this one was just average for me. I don’t know why I am really indifferent to it. It just wasn’t a story for me. Or it may be that Joe Hill isn’t for me. I tried to read a novel of his once and DNF’d it. I have loved his father’s work: I read Stephen King as a teenager and that must be where my love of thrillers/horror comes from. Those of us Gen X’ers who read him as teens are all messed up adults now! But we realize it and are fine with it!
Audiobook Review: None of This is True by Lisa Jewell
None of This is True
Author: Lisa Jewell
Narrators: Full cast narration with music and sound design
Published: July 20, 2023
Audiobook: 10 hours 20 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 25-31, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 3 stars
Audiobook Description:
Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.
Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.
But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.
Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?
Jessica’s Review:
Dang, I’m in a rut for my reviews! The next few are not positive reviews, this one included.
I had heard others mentioned that the audiobook was the way to go for this novel, and I waited a few months for it. But it was not worth the wait for me.
The only reason I gave it three stars is because of the full cast narration/ music/ sound design. I don’t think I would have finished it otherwise. This is one if I had known what should have been a trigger warning I would not have picked up: Pedophilia, and there was a lot of it!
There are mentions of podcast and a Netflix show and this is where the music and sound design definitely added to the story!
The premise sounded like one I would be interested in, especially dealing with the ‘birthday twins’ but it just wasn’t for me.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
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Memoir Review: That Bird Has My Wings by Jarvis Jay Masters
That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row
Author: Jarvis Jay Masters
Narrator: Korey Jackson
Published: September 22, 2009
Audiobook: 9 hours 48 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 18-23, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 3 stars
Audiobook Description:
That Bird Has My Wings is the astounding memoir of death row inmate Jarvis Masters and a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit and the talent of a fine writer. Offering scenes from his life that are at times poignant, revelatory, frightening, soul-stirring, painful, funny, and uplifting, That Bird Has My Wings tells the story of the author’s childhood with parents addicted to heroin, an abusive foster family, a life of crime and imprisonment, and the eventual embracing of Buddhism.
Jessica’s Review:
This was our book club read for March and I think I went in expecting another The Sun Does Shine, which it wasn’t. This was just a depressing book for me. It wasn’t uplifting at all. So many examples of Masters life which was always negative and only a few chapters focused on when he went to prison. He is still on death row for the murder of a prison guard. Is he an innocent man? No, he actually did commit assault and theft. But he is also a casualty of his family upbringing and a broken foster care system.I can’t say much more than this, because this is someone’s actual life, but it was just too much for me. Masters can write well for someone with limited schooling and can tell his story in his own way. His memoir just was not for me.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK