Michael Crouch

✨AUDIOBOOK REVIEW✨ 🗣️Michael Crouch (5⭐️, slide 3) Full review on GR/Website BLURB: Simon is a 16-year-old starting senior year at a new school while coming out & starting a new relationship. Every night at 11:22 PM, he experiences terrifying episodes he thinks are alien attacks, while changing family tensions force him to confront the truth behind them. REVIEW: This is such an original queer YA coming-of-age novel with sci-fi elements, romance, & emotional family drama. It’s Steven Gellman’s debut & shows a lot of ambition—the synopsis makes it seem like a typical queer YA romance, but you’ll soon realize there’s a lot more going on. Woven into are compelling themesa— self-discovery, mental health issues, parent-child relationships, LGBTQ+ family representation, first love, & more! Told in Simon’s 1st-person, you get pulled into his anxious, often fearful mindset right from the start when he veers off the road after an “alien attack.” You’ll root for him as he tries to cope with so many things thrown his way. His family life is interesting—he has 2 lesbian mothers, whose relationship is wonderfully normalized. His biological mother is overworked & his absent father reappears during a difficult time, all causing him more inner turmoil. The romance in this book is sweet, but secondary to the coming-of-age & emotional family drama! And a real highlight is Simon’s friendships—from lifelong friends to new friendships, there’s a diversity of characters of different sexualities & genders, from shy introverts to eccentric extroverts! There are a few emotional & disturbing reveals you may not expect, but you may predict the source of the “alien attacks.” What I liked most is that it didn’t end with a cheesy, typical HEA where everything feels so unrealistic. That wouldn’t have matched this story, & the author did a great job of emphasizing Simon’s emotional arc! The audio has an original song by the author at the end (ALSO THE SONG ON THIS POST!!) that will leave you smiling.🥹 QOTD: Heard of this debut? Would you read it?‼️⁉️Enjoy genre blending books? Coming of age books? Any recs?‼️⁉️Let’s congratulate the author on his debut & accompanying song on this post!

@spotify has chosen HAZELTHORN by @paperfury as one of their Editors' Picks for February! 🎧Listen to @michael.l.crouch bring this hauntingly beautiful story to life. #spotifyeditorspicks #hazelthorn #cgdrews #michaelcrouch #horror

I tend to keep my words brief on social media, but as the year wraps up, I’d like to say a little more. There’s an intimacy to audiobooks that has always fascinated me—something sensitive, spontaneous, and human. The way I see it, my job is to: step into the quiet of the booth, tap into the energy flowing under the words, and have an authentic experience with them. My hope is that if I am present and connected, the listener will be too. I’m a tough critic of my own work and know I don’t always succeed at this. Some projects never come together the way I hoped they would. 
So, I have to remind myself to savor the times when things fall into place—when work that is meaningful to me becomes meaningful to other people too. What a wonderful feeling. I loved recording Buckeye. Patrick Ryan’s writing is clever, poignant, and pulsing with life. The characters are colorful and nuanced. The sessions were smooth yet challenging, with just enough adrenaline to keep me on my toes. I’m excited to share that—in addition to Barnes & Noble—Buckeye has been named one of the Best Audiobooks of 2025 by Apple Books, Audible, and AudioFile. All my gratitude to Dan Zitt and Patrick Ryan for trusting me with this project. And to our wonderful director, Meghan Scibona, for keeping me anchored from beginning to end. And a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has listened to this 16-hour smalltown epic.

@barnesandnoble has named BUCKEYE one of the Best Audiobooks of 2025! B&N selected only 15 productions out of the many thousands published this year. I love this book and it’s wonderful to see the audio get recognition. Many thanks and congratulations to @patrickryannyc , our director @meghanscibona , executive producer @dan_zitt , engineer Aidan Doyle, JSR Post, and @prhaudio . Full write-up here: Love and war, births and deaths, coming together and falling apart — this intimate portrait of small-town, midcentury America and the power of a single moment is a sweeping multigenerational American saga. The writing is both straightforward and poetic and expertly handled by Golden Voice Narrator Michael Crouch, whose performance earned him an Earphones Award from AudioFile Magazine. Crouch’s solo work impressed us with his ease at embodying this sprawling novel’s many characters and many decades in ways that made us feel a lifetime (or two or three) of emotions.

Today is my Momma’s 80th birthday. Hard to believe. She’s one of the most youthful people I know. Her sense of wonder—and curiosity, and adventure!—is endless. She never gets bored and she’s great at being goofy. And, of course, she looks fantastic. I love her more than words can say. Happy Birthday, Momma XOXOXOXOXO

This year’s Audie Awards will be hosted by @amysedaris !!!! PIZZA PIZZA PIZZA! (Strangers with Candy, anyone??) [edit - she had to back out but we still love her] The gala will take place March 4th here in NYC. Excited to drink and laugh with my audiobook people. Happy to have two nominations this year— I WAS A TEENAGE SLASHER by Stephen Graham Jones My first solo narration recorded at Simon & Schuster’s in-house studio Produced and directed by Mike Noble THE REAL EDUCATION OF TJ CROWLEY by Grant Overstake and May Wuthrich Full cast production featuring: Dani Martineck, Dion Graham, Tavia Gilbert, Johnny Heller, Kevin R. Free, Shayna Small, Ari Fliakos, Kirby Heyborne, Graham Halstead, Peter Berkrot, Therese Plummer, Brittany Pressley, John Wright, Sheila Brown Kinnard #audies2025 #loveaudiobooks

AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of 2024 — THE WARM HANDS OF GHOSTS and WHEN THE WORLD TIPS OVER co-narrated with some of the best talents in the business: 👻 January LaVoy 🌎 Caitlin Kinnunen, Briggon Snow, Alex McKenna, and Julia Whelan both were produced by Orli Moscowitz—who hired me for my very first audiobook over ten years ago—for Penguin Random House Audio. Thank you, AudioFile, for celebrating the work we do.

Audible’s Best of 2024 — I WAS A TEENAGE SLASHER Thank you, Audible.

🗣️ Audio production highlights from the past few months . . . THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS by Ursula K. Le Guin New audio edition from Recorded Books I WAS A TEENAGE SLASHER by Stephen Graham Jones Simon & Schuster Audio ⭐️ Starred audio review from Booklist ⭐️ Audible Editors’ Selection THE WARM HANDS OF GHOSTS by Katherine Arden co-narrated with January LaVoy Penguin Random House Audio ⭐️ Starred audio review from Library Journal ⭐️ Earphones Award Winner AND THEN, BOOM! by Lisa Fipps Listening Library WHEN THE WORLD TIPS OVER by Jandy Nelson co-narrated with Caitlin Kinnunen, Briggon Snow, Alex McKenna, and Julia Whelan Listening Library ⭐️ Earphones Award Winner THE CURSE OF THE CRUMMY MUMMY by Thomas Tosi Dooney Press MEMORIALS by Richard Chizmar co-narrated with Jonathan Todd Ross Simon & Schuster Audio SHOWMANCE by Chad Beguelin Penguin Random House Audio FRIENDLY FIRE by Paul Rousseau HarperAudio AND THEN? AND THEN? WHAT ELSE? by Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket Recorded Books THE HITCHCOCK HOTEL by Stephanie Wrobel co-narrated with Gail Shalan and Helen Lloyd Penguin Random House Audio DIET SODA CLUB by Chaz Hayden Listening Library MEDUSA OF THE ROSES by Navid Sinaki Recorded Books SHIPWRECKED by Mary Alice Monroe with Angela May Simon & Schuster Audio WITCHWOOD by Kalyn Josephson co-narrated with Keylor Leigh Listening Library A STRANGE THING HAPPENED IN CHERRY HALL by Jasmine Warga HarperAudio

5/17-7/15 🌞

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A few stragglers for the grid. #happynewyear