Audio books: an unique kind of hell

Mom and the niece under a banyan tree.

Last week I took a road trip with my mom and niece to visit cousins in Florida. Yes, all that warmth and sunshine was a hardship.

But the trip wasn't without its trials.

En route, we stopped at Cracker Barrel and borrowed an audio book. I don't normally listen to books, but it's a nice way to pass the time during a 14-hour drive. Plus, it was by a well-known, best-selling author. It was--we thought--what business types call a win-win.

Nope.

It was a lose-lose. What didn't we like? For starters, the story. The writing. And one half of the narrative team.

So not only did I learn that even well-known, best-selling authors can put their name to a really bad book, but I also learned that the need to finish a book once started is inherited like hair texture or eye color.

None of us liked it, but we couldn't bring ourselves to stop listening, even though we were rooting for the antagonist by the end.

When reading a bad book, you can skip ahead, skimming chapters for the highlights until you reach the end. You can't do that with an audio book. You either listen to each word or skip entire sections.

But there's always an upside.

Our upside to this audio book debacle is we now have a short-hand for people who are too stupid to live. We just call them by the characters' names.

So I guess it was a lose-win.