I got this audio production a few years ago when Audible started offering one free Audible Original with every month's subscription, and when I tried to listen to it back then (probably in 2020) I couldn't finish it. The subject matter is a heavy one, and I was not in the best mental space to go through even a short audiobook about it.

This year, however, while looking through all the books I have for a book to fit the prompt "A book outside of your comfort genre",  it popped out to me since it discusses a true crime.

If you are unfamiliar with it, it is a one-actor play based on interviews with women in Juárez, Mexico discussing the femicides that were happening there in the 1990s. Very powerful and heartbreaking. 

I have a gripe with this book! Looking at my The StoryGraph 2023 wrap-up, it was the book with the "Most time spent" with a whopping 232 days! That's 7.6 months! 

It wasn't because the book was bad - because it wasn't by any means. I just watched the TV show right before I started, and the book is almost a word-for-word script of it. So, it was extremely boring to me.

I picked it for the prompt "A book based on a TV series or a movie adaptation", even though I suspect that the intent behind this prompt is a book on which a TV series or a movie is based, but I chose to take it literally, encouraged by the fact that this book was coming out. I have read the Bridgerton series last year, and I enjoyed it a lot! But by watching the show first I killed every hope I had in enjoying this book, which is a shame.

I had to read George Orwell's Animal Farm for my English class in my senior year of high school. I also vaguely remember my teacher trying to illustrate the symbolism behind it, but it wasn't given a lot of emphasis. 

However, since then - and mind you, I graduated high school in 2004 - I've been meaning to read 1984. As it satisfied the prompt "A book that is set in the decade you were born" I finally got around to picking it up. 

In the two days, it took me to finish it, all I kept saying was "I hate this", "I hate this", "I hate this"! I didn't hate the book itself, I just hated how closely it resembled our current reality, Mindless people being controlled by the government, having every move watched, and every thought policed is something we're suffering from more and more each day. It makes me wonder if dystopian books are being used as an inspiration instead of a cautionary tale. 

The 2+ years in the prompt "A book that has been on your TBR for 2+ years" were, in fact, almost 20. I remember being in my 2nd or 3rd year of university when my roommate started reading this book. Halfway through it, she locked herself in her bedroom, and at one point I remember her coming out of there, with a blank stare on her face, looking at me and saying "It won't stop raining!!!"  When she finished it, her verdict was that it was the best book she's ever read. Naturally, I went out and got my own copy.

Since then, every few years, I pick it up, start reading it, get utterly confused, and put it down. 

This year,  finally, a local book club that I have been following online but never joined announced that they will be reading it for September. That doubled my motivation to read it. I only had access to an audiobook of it since my physical copy is still at my parents' house, but I enjoy audiobooks, and I can follow them as easily as any other format. 

Not this one, though! I spent the whole month confused by what was happening, not knowing who the characters were, mixing them up, and just generally unimpressed. 

I do admit that it was my fault that I didn't enjoy this book. Luckily, another friend of mine said it was her favorite book, too, and she hadn't read it in a while. We might be planning a buddy read of it in 2024 - I'll keep you updated on how that changes my views.