2023: The Best and Worst Audiobook Narrations I Heard
I’m an audio-first reader that prides himself on not letting a narration detract from the story.
However, this year tested my patience with several instances of narrations clouding my perception of a book's merit. The inverse was also true. Some narrators gave life to an otherwise subpar narrative that kept me pushing through to the end.
In a year where 67 percent of my reading was listening, I experienced the good, the bad and the downright ugly of audiobook performances and production. With that said, here are the 10 best and 12 worst audiobook narrations I heard in 2023.
Overall Best Narration
Rossmery Almonte and Kimberly M. Wetherell in How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz
Almonte’s phenomenal performance paired with top-notch production values made this listen an absorbing and immersive experience. While Wetherell only had a small role, she made it count. Read the full review.
The Best of the Rest
January LaVoy in Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk
LaVoy was a revelation, keeping me engaged even when I had lost interest in the story. Read the full review.
Kevin R. Free in The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor
Free — who holds the honor of placing on my best and worst narration list this year — matched the detached and self-important style of the characters perfectly while also giving a unique performance to each person. Read the full review.
Tara Flynn in The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
With few credits to her name, Flynn was a surprise and delight. Her Irish brogue had me hanging on every word, and her performance humanized the characters through more unpleasant circumstances. Read the full review.
Justine Lupe in Holly by Stephen King
Lupe had an almost unnatural embodiment of Holly Gibney’s quirks, but it was how she brought the supporting cast to life that really sealed the deal here. Read the full review.
Michelle Williams in The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
In a year when celebrity performances fell short (here’s looking at you Meryl and Maura), Williams made a sometimes chaotic narrative feel grounded. She didn’t try to mirror Spears’s voice, rather she inhabited it. Read the full review.
Tom Parker in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
I would’ve given up on this one had it not been for Parker’s unhinged performance of the assorted patients and staff at the Oregon mental institution. Read the full review.
Shayna Small, Aaron Goodson, Michael Crouch, Lee Osorio in Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
While each of the performers did exceptional work here, Small shined with variety and gravitas, but it was Goodson and Crouch that delivered one emotional gut punch after another. Read the full review.
Mark Bramhall, Michael Crouch, Jayne Entswistle, Billie Fulford-Brown, Arthur Morey, George Newbern, Simon Vance and Kirsten Potter in North Woods by Daniel Mason
Bramhall takes on the largest share of the story as the narrator, and he offers the listener a smooth and folksy tenor that works in both the seventeenth and twenty first centuries, but Culp and Deakins stole the show. Read the full review.
Rebecca Lowman, Carlotta Brentan, Stephen Graybill, Joy Osmanski and Matt Pittenger in Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Each narrator breathed life into complex characters, balancing emotional trauma with witty performances. I particularly enjoyed the production that allowed two different narrators to play off one another. Read the full review.
The Worst Narrations
Cassandra Campbell in Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Campbell — no stranger to my worst narrators list — did nothing to change my mind here. While she did a passable job, her performance of Marilyn grated my nerves. Still, her shortcomings didn’t hinder Ng’s words. Read the full review.
Christian Coulson in In Memoriam by Alice Winn
I’m one of the few people that didn’t enjoy Winn’s inauthentic queer love story, and Coulson’s narration didn’t help matters. It was exactly what you’d expect for the characters’ upper class British upbringing — in other words: boring. Read the full review.
Alyssa Bresnahan in Last Night Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
Bresnahan’s narration was so unremarkable that I could barely recall anything about it two weeks after finishing the novel; it was as bland as mayonnaise. Read the full review.
Kevin R. Free in Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage
I know Free can do nuance well, so it was disappointing he turned in such an over-the-top performance here. Read the full review.
Daniel Henning in Elegy for the Undead by Matthew Vesely
Henning always provides a nasally and sarcastic delivery that makes every queer character appear as a stereotype. He was up to his same tricks here, but it was even more noticeable since fellow narrator Charlie Thurston was more understated and realistic. Read the full review.
Joel Leslie in We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian
Leslie, who is somewhat prolific in the romance genre, gave a campy performance that didn’t match the text. Each character had a pompous flair, and his attempt at a Brooklyn accent was unstable. Read the full review.
Maura Tierney in Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
An example of the text and narration both being equally terrible, I had higher expectations for the acclaimed actress. Her stilted and flat performance came across like she was reading sections for the first time. Read the full review.
Dan Stevens in And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The riddle I’m still trying to solve is whether Stevens’ audiobook narration was great or terrible. In some ways his summer stock with a Shakespeare company delivery perfectly suited the over-the-top elements of the plot, but more often than not I found myself giggling. Read the full review.
BONUS: Authors Narrating Their Books
While many readers love to hear a writer read their own words, I’m not one of them. With only one exception this year — Bret Easton Ellis with “The Shards” — these narrations came up short. Here were the biggest offenders this year:
Steven Rowley with “The Celebrants”
Samantha Irby with “Wow, No Thank You”
Edgar Gomez with “High-Risk Homosexual”
Timothy Egan with “A Fever in the Heartland”
