Interesting chronology-hopping alternate-reality switching bizarro crime-drama ghost-story romance. The convoluted structure made things a little hard to follow along with at times, though the prose was lyrical and melodic throughout. ( )

My original Haunt audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

First off, Haunt was totally different from anything I've ever read or listened to before. I am not really confident I can write an appropriate review for this. To start with, I am actually not sure I "got" it, if in fact there is anything to "get". It totally messed with my head. At 15% through, I was considering giving up because I was so baffled, but the writing style and the narration were so good, I had to keep going. However, I had to stop doing the usual activities one does when listening to audio books to focus simply on listening. I am really glad I did because by the half way mark, I was totally hooked.

Haunt is the story of three people, two male and one female. It's a story about a spirit (or a ghost?) and the mystery surrounding its death. It's written partly in third person perspective and partly in the second person, so You are involved. And You are given some choices (kind of). It's not chronological, so there are shifts in time and there are also shifts in perspectives. Sounds like chaos? Amazingly, the author, Laura Lee Bahr, really pulled it off, and the less I tried to figure it all out and the more I just went along with it, the more I enjoyed it. There were some laugh-out-loud moments, there was some sadness, there was some romance (kind of), there was mystery. It was mind bending.

Haunt is categorized as Bizzaro Fiction and won the 2011 Wonderland Book Award for Novel of the Year. It's Laura Lee Bahr's debut novel, and she narrates part of the audio book herself. She's a great writer, and she was also a brilliant narrator. The male narrators sounded very similar to me. They were excellent, no complaints at all, but I kept wondering whether voices that were a bit more distinguishable would have eased my confusion at times. There were no issues with the quality of the production. In fact, this was one of a few productions where I thought the sound effects and music were a useful addition rather than an annoyance. I've never listened to an audio book twice before, but I intend to with this one after I've got hold of a copy of the Kindle edition first (this would have been great as a Whyspersync).

I don't think Haunt is a book for everyone. There's strong language and some sex scenes. But if you are willing to try something that is completely different, totally surreal, dark but also really humorous, then you are in for a unique ride with this one.

Audiobook was provided for review the publisher. ( )