I downloaded two audiobooks: Melissa dela Cruz's The Ring and the Crown and Bram Stoker's Dracula. The latter I was looking forward to because my paperback of it has been sitting for ages in my shelf but couldn't get to reading it because I didn't like epistolary novels.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish both audiobooks and here were some of the reasons why:

Ain't nobody got time for that.

I balked at the length of the audiobook. The duration of Dracula was approximately seventeen hours while The Ring and The Crown was almost ten and a half hours. I could finish two books within seventeen hours. Since I wanted to read as much books as I could before classes would start, listening to these were impractical.

My attention span is limited.

Most people who listened to audiobooks said that they were convenient because you could do things while listening to them. I never related to that. When I was playing an audiobook, I had to pay attention solely on the narrator. I tried doing something else, like cleaning, but I ended up sitting on a chair and concentrated hard on what was being said. Sometimes, I had to rewind sometimes because I couldn't catch what the narrator was saying because of his/her accent.

I wanted to talk to the narrator.

I only lasted in the first eighteen minutes of both audiobooks. I didn't relish of just listening to someone talking for minutes without interrupting him/her at all. When someone talks in my presence, I listen then engage them in a conversation because I'm that kind of person.

Speaking of narrator, his/her voice should be pleasant to my ears.

Now this is very important since I'm very picky when it comes to a person's voice. If I'm going to listen to a person talk for more than an hour, his/her voice better be pleasant to my ears. But not so pleasant that it would make me fall asleep.

Japan set the standards way too high.

I know I shouldn't compare audiobooks to Japanese drama CDs since they're almost two different things but I can't help it. They were the reason why I had high expectations on audiobooks.

In a nutshell, a Japanese drama CD is like a movie but without the visual and follows even the most intricate details in the novel/manga it is based on. So basically, it's all sound but with the complete package: sound effects,  different voices and, yes, even sex noises. You'll hear moans and grunts (from both voice actors even if they're both guys), the thrusting, the squeaking. EVERYTHING. If the drama CD is based on a novel and is narrated in third person POV, a different voice actor will portray that role.

So color me surprised when I first heard an audiobook and there was only one person who narrated throughout the whole thing. It felt monotonous, you know, lifeless unlike the drama CDs that I was used to listening. Sure, I wasn't expecting the production for audiobooks to be as superb as drama CDs since they're called audiobooks for a reason. I only wanted for it to have some flavor, you know. Some...life.

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Based on my experience, I think listening to audiobooks depends on a person's preference. Some of us could learn or concentrate more when a material is relayed to us aurally, some of could not.Unfortunately, I've always been a visual learner so an audiobook is a no-no to me.

How about you? Do you listen to audiobooks? What is it that you like most about them?