I’ve only read “Dark Matter” and it was very ‘meh’. The premise was interesting, but the execution was closer to terrible than it was good. I don’t know if his other works are similar.

The only audiobooks I can listen to are ones read by the author. That usually means celebrity memoirs. I've tried fiction, but my mind just wanders.

Not a Greek goddess, but there's a statue of a girl in a long gown on the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt.

So has the coming of age story been relegated to young adult? Some of the most powerful literature I know has coming of age as a theme.

King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak - a heartbreaking and beautiful book, I reread it several times when I was a kid, but can't imagine reading it again now

You could also maybe take this to r/askliterarystudies.

The problem is not that it is a sex scene. The problem is that it came out of the blue and was unnecessary. I would have said the same if charlie at the end of the book told us something like "and now let's go to the next mcdonals".

Go to his earlier stuff Carrie, Salems Lot, Christine etc they're great.

I heard a tip once that listening to the audiobook at a higher speed actually tricks your brain into paying more attention.

I do a lot of driving so I listen to a lot of audiobooks, usually at least at 1.5x speed. I feel like it’s helped me.

Lots of people are stephen king fans because the era it came out in had a lot of nonces and toxic masculine assholes.

I was like what the heck is this book, I've never heard it and I've read a lot. Then I realized they renamed Magic Hour to that...

I only listen to audiobooks of books that I already read and want to reconnect with. Otherwise I tend to phase out

I also struggled to get through Fairy Tale. Before you give up on Stephen King, I'd highly recommend Misery & 11/22/63!

OMG a Stephen King book in which no women gets forced to have intercourse even by the circumstances, and the only sex scene is between consenting adults, even though one is a young adult! I... I just don't know what to do with this. /s

Of course, the Queen is going to have to have intercourse with whomever she has to marry for political reasons, because the damage to her face will always mar her beauty blah blah blah but there are other worlds than this. (Sorry, little in-joke.)

I have no idea if there's a majority. I've seen a lot of complaints about the book, largely based on the second half. However, for me since your apparently easiest complaint is consensual sex that happens "offscreen", I'm kind of exasperated.

Honestly, it just sounds like you prefer edgy fantasy adventures over coming of age romances, which is just a genre preference.

I mean, you don't have to read whatever is the trendiest on the front shelf at the bookstore, you can still sort by genre and seek out what you love.

But Mr Rochester only lives to be happy because he accepts God and the last page of the book is basically a eulogy to the St. John being a Christian hero ending with a ‘amen […] lord jesus’

Of course audiobooks are not for everyone but both narrator and content make a huge difference.

Best audiobook I've ever read was probably Born A Crime written and narrated by Trevor Noah. I'd really suggest you give it a try. If it can't hold your attention then I don't think there's hope left for you lol

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People are suggesting Dark Matter, but I hated that book. Imo you should not expect his stuff to come anywhere close to Adrian Tchaikovsky's stuff.

Yeah I.. did that a lot. Usually put on an audiobook while I'd doing something else and all of a sudden I realize I've been zoning out for the past couple of hours while doing some routine task like cleaning the house.

Being marginalized and dealing with abuse aren't new... Like, I assume you've heard of X-Men lol they're especially not new in young adult stuff, but I was also reading weird stuff as a kid, so perhaps you've read the random stuff from 10 years ago, and not just the hits that stood the test of time.

Crime and Punishment, the first half abridged would be fine.

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I use goodreads and StoryGraph. Goodreads mainly for tracking and recommendations and StoryGraph for the charts it gives you as you’re reading

I will need subtitles 😂