Hi everyone. Harmony here with another book review for you. This one is a little bit different in that it’s an audiobook. Fellow author and friend, Verwayne Greenhoe, offered me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review. Here are my thoughts >>>

I Remember Judy

Book Description:

A husband writes about his romance, marriage, honeymoon, and life with the woman of his dreams. Tender moments of love and intimacy build a strong relationship that can not be torn apart by her history of sexual abuse as a child, her slow decline into dementia and Alzheimer’s. Written by the author of the February 2018 Rave Review Book Club ‘Book of the Month’ selection, “The Totally Unnecessary Death of Amanda Dawn,” the reader gets to feel some of the joy, the love, the intimacy, the happiness, the pain, regret, and the sadness of this relationship over the course of forty plus years. From the shyness to the sadness, the author reveals it all. When his wife could no longer remember it, Verwayne Greenhoe remembers for her in “I Remember Judy – A Love Story. ”

My Review:

This is my first review for an audiobook. It’s a bit different because a lot of issues are hidden to the listener, not having a text to read. Anyway, here goes …

First up, many thanks to the author, Verwayne Greenhoe, for a free Review copy of this audiobook from Audible.

As the book description says, this is first and foremost a true life love story. I felt that the author wrote cleary and honestly. Sometimes, for me personally, a little too honestly at times. I found myself wondering if I would want my husband to share some of that same deeply personal stuff at some unknown point in the future … I’m not so sure I would. But that’s a personal thing, not necessarily an editorial one.

Many times, the writer apologised for writing about how many times they told one another ‘I love you’ and other such beautiful things that he says may come across as ‘goofy’. I can assure him that they don’t. If they are, then that makes my husband and I just as goofy, because we’re that way with one another all day every day, lol.

The narrator did a good job of rendering the author’s voice. On a very few occasions, while trying to narrate an adult female voice, I felt it sounded patronising and too much of a little girl voice, which made me cringe at times. The rest of it was well done and pleasing to the ear.

A few issues of word repetition and unecessary fillers (she nodded her head, instead of she nodded, or he shrugged his shoulders, instead of simply he shrugged, or overusing the same word in close succession, and that kind of thing) interrupted the flow, but all in all, I enjoyed this audiobook immensely. It’s a new way of ‘reading’ for me, but one that I enjoyed.

The audio production sounded professional, and the story itself is a lovely poignant listen. I give this audiobook a solid 4 stars.

***

NOTE ON RATINGS: I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me.

5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! — Highly Recommended.
4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book.
3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it.
2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines.
1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.