Listening Pathways: Kevin R. Free Audiobooks

Kevin R. Free is an American actor and audiobook narrator. He’s narrated over 100 audiobooks for kids, teenagers, and adults. His work spans many genres in each fiction and nonfiction. He collectively narrated Rick Riordan’s well-liked Kane Chronicles with Katherine Kellgren, and he’s additionally narrated The Cruisers collection by Walter Dean Myers. He’s received a number of Earphones awards from Audiofile Journal, together with one for his narration of The Identified World by Edward P. Jones.

I fell in love with Kevin R. Free’s expertise as a narrator after listening to The Solar Does Shine (I’ll inform you about it in a minute) and since then, he’s vaulted onto my listing of go-to A+ narrators. He’s bought a expertise for sinking into one voice and giving a sustained emotional efficiency that’s virtually not possible to cease listening to. However he additionally excels at doing character voices when known as for. I’ve made the choice to take heed to a number of books on my TBR moderately than studying them in print simply because I noticed he was the narrator.

Should you’re unsure the place to start out with Kevin R. Free audiobooks, I’ve highlighted three of my favorites right here. These books offer you a terrific introduction to his work, and spotlight his many and diverse skills. Additionally they occur to be as completely different from one another as three books can get, so even when all three aren’t for you, hopefully you’ll discover at the very least one new favourite audiobook among the many combine. I assure that, after listening to those books, you’ll need to monitor down heaps extra Kevin R. Free audiobooks.

Begin With An Unforgettable Memoir

The Solar Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton

This isn’t a straightforward guide to listen to learn aloud, however Kevin R. Free’s exceptional narration makes it worthwhile. After being falsely accused of the homicide two males, Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to dying and spent the following 30 years on dying row. That is the memoir of the years he spent combating for his rights whereas in jail (Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative finally bought him exonerated), the connections he made with different inmates, and the methods he handled horrific therapy. It’s a shifting story of 1 man’s willpower, in addition to a bleak however essential critique of the systemic racism so embedded within the felony justice system, racism that results in the dying of harmless folks, principally black and poor.

Class ID: 1529

Class ID: 845

Audiobooks Publication

Join Audiobooks to obtain the newest from the audiobooks world.

Thanks for signing up! Regulate your inbox.

By signing up you conform to our phrases of use

Kevin R. Free’s narration is emotional, alive, and totally compelling. I usually assume that listening to a narrator learn another person’s memoir is an effective technique to get a way of their model, and that’s true right here. Free imbues each phrase with emotion—all of Hinton’s rage, despair, hope, religion, remorse, pleasure, heartbreak, and even occasional humor come by means of loud and clear. It’s laborious to do not forget that it’s not Hinton himself talking, which is the mark of a really nice narrator.

Then Pay attention To One thing Fully Totally different

All Programs Purple by Martha Wells

Kevin R. Free’s narration of this hilarious science fiction novella is so completely different from his work on The Solar Does Shine that it’s virtually laborious to consider they’re narrated by the identical individual. That’s how good he’s. Set in a future world dominated by large house firms, this considerate, sensible and delightfully comic story is a couple of safety AI who’s hacked its personal working system and calls itself Murderbot. It actually isn’t into human firm and simply desires to look at cleaning soap operas, however when out on mission to a distant planet with a bunch of scientists, one thing goes improper, and Murderbot finally ends up getting concerned.

Murderbot’s voice is completely distinctive and Kevin R. Free captures it completely. Its dry observations about human nature, witty asides, and basic unease with feelings are what makes this guide so good. Free brings all of that to life. His voice is even, measured, and generally virtually impassive in a method that’s laborious to explain however makes good sense. He inhabits Murderbot so fully that now I can’t think about it talking with some other voice. On high of that, he offers distinct, distinctive voices to the varied crew of scientists on the mission. It’s an all-around gem.

End With An Inner, Emotional Novel

Actual Life by Brandon Taylor

This can be a heartbreaking and superbly written novel about Wallace, a homosexual black biochemistry PhD scholar in a small Midwestern metropolis. It takes place over the course of 1 summer season weekend. Wallace’s father has died a couple of weeks earlier than, and he spends the weekend working within the lab, hanging out his group of principally white mates, and turning into entangled with a classmate. It’s a deeply inside novel, and Free’s narration displays that. He slips into Wallace’s lengthy inside monologues with ease, heightening each the loneliness and the psychological spiraling already current. He additionally excels throughout the intercourse scenes, and the passages in regards to the messiness of dwelling in a physique; his voice is completely matched to the intimacy of the prose. The entire guide is steeped in ache, want, confusion, and loneliness, and you may hear all of it catching in Free’s voice. Should you’re a literary fiction reader, you’ll love this guide, however even in the event you’re not normally a fan of prose that loops and twirls round itself, constructing slowly, you may end up loving the audiobook anyway. Free’s voice is regular and grounding. He brings Wallace to life, however he additionally makes the prose itself sing.

Should you get pleasure from taking a deep dive into the work of 1 specific narrator, we’ve bought listening pathways for Ramon de Ocampo, Dion Graham, and Bahni Turpin.