Carmilla

By: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu / Narrated By: Phoebe Fox, Rose Leslie, David Tennant, David Horovitch, James Wilby, Susan Wooldridge, Hannah Genesius

Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins

Holy cow! Like nobody’s ever heard of “boundaries” before?!?

Okay so, like, this was one of Audible’s freebies for the month of October ‘19. And I’m sooooo glad it was freeeee cuz it was terribly exasperating. Well, maybe it was fun in a terribly exasperating way…?

Let’s start with the production. Between each chapter, and I dunno—maybe there were a couple other times too?—there’s this horrible jangly music with production titles and whatnot interrupting the flow of the narration. And don’t get me wrong: The narrators are spectacular, as well they should be considering each are actors of sterling reputation! They were awesome. But then too, the volume of the voices varied, and the main narrator would be of a decent volume, or LOUD, but the people also talking with them are recorded at much lower volumes. This is irritating as I work the graveyard shift, listen to books whilst working, and I had to keep stopping what I was doing to lower the volume, raise the volume, lower the danged volume… yet again and again and again.

And the panting and gasping and heavy breathing! No, my toes didn’t curl cuz o’ the erotic nature of the story (And Carmilla, our Undead Seductress Extraordinaire, woos the bejesus outta Laura, our young innocent… who remains mortal, soul intact). Rather, my toes curled because I haaaate puffing and panting in my ear. The characters don’t get into it, doing the nasty or anything (Not that Carmilla doesn’t try like crazy), but there is some heavy-duty kissing along the cheek, collarbone, well, wherever Carmilla can plaster her lips.

That’s pretty much where I question whether people in the society waaaaaay back when this was written ever heard of boundaries. Okay, it’s one thing for a family to witness a carriage accident and to take in as their guest the stranded victim. But it’s another thing entirely to sit around, all DUH-like, as some chick keeps whispering things along the lines of: Love you! Die for you! Die for me! death Death DEATH!!! Especially when said vixen refuses to refrain from launching her tongue to your throat, lapping along your body, possibly nibbling at your breasts (I mean, really. Wouldn’t you notice something like that and think, Hmmm…. Maybe it’s time for you to head on home, girlfriend?).

So we have a relatively short audiobook, not quite 2 1/2 hours, of one of the Impure Undead trying to corrupt an innocent maiden, thus uniting them forEVER… or at least until innocent maiden dies cuz the foreplay got out of hand. That’s it. There. The whole story.

Carmilla is a brilliantly narrated story of wheezing and gasping and kissing and groping with a bit of death and mayhem thrown in.

Oh.

And did I mention the hunchback dude?