This summer, SYNC will be providing two free teen audiobooks each week from May 5th to August 11th. Each week will focus on a specific theme, pairing a classic YA title with a more modern YA title. This week starts Thursday, July 14th with Fat Angie by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo and On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.
Narrator Angela Dawe adds a snappy tone to this fast-paced story, providing a spicy backdrop for the painful experiences of Fat Angie. Angie, mocked and bullied by peers, has recently learned that her soldier sister, the only one who seems to understand her, has been captured in Afghanistan. Now, Angie is facing the fallout from her response to that development–a failed, very public, very bloody suicide attempt. Dawe builds the listener’s compassion by rounding out the the cast with portraits of Angie’s sarcastic younger brother; her belittling mother; and a new student, sassy KC Romance. KC, who is drawn to Angie and defends her when needed, is a catalyst for the heroine’s changes. Angie considers being “gay-girl gay,” discovers she shares her sister’s gift for basketball, and loses weight, ultimately finding herself. The library owns this title in book format.
Taylor Markham, an Australian high school student, spends her senior year trying to make sense of her personal history in this well-crafted coming-of-age story. The plot builds smartly as connections are made and seemingly unrelated pieces slot into place. Rebecca Macauley guides and compels the listener as the narrative jumps back and forth in time and switches point of view. She’s equally believable as kid and adult, as teen boy and teen girl, and she’s especially adept at communicating the full, riotous range of teen emotion. The mood swings, from sarcastic to despairing to intimate to playful and back again, could have been overdone, but instead they feel authentic every step of the way. The library also owns this title in book format.
These two titles will be available for free during this week only (7/14 to 7/21) at the SYNC website. The theme for this week is “Odd girls out discover the power of words to reach new horizons.”