The Infinite Noise

The Bright Sessions, Book 1

By: Lauren Shippen

Narrated by: Briggon Snow, James Fouhey

Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

"Narrators James Fouhey and Briggon Snow give stellar performances in this quiet YA romance.... Both narrators authentically capture the ups and downs of teen romance and keep listeners engaged." (AudioFile Magazine)

Lauren Shippen's The Infinite Noise is a stunning, original debut based on her wildly popular and award-winning podcast The Bright Sessions.

Caleb Michaels is a 16-year-old champion running back. Other than that his life is pretty normal. But when Caleb starts experiencing mood swings that are out of the ordinary for even a teenager, his life moves beyond "typical".

Caleb is an Atypical, an individual with enhanced abilities. Which sounds pretty cool except Caleb's ability is extreme empathy - he feels the emotions of everyone around him. Being an empath in high school would be hard enough, but Caleb's life becomes even more complicated when he keeps getting pulled into the emotional orbit of one of his classmates, Adam. Adam's feelings are big and all-consuming, but they fit together with Caleb's feelings in a way that he can't quite understand.

Caleb's therapist, Dr. Bright, encourages Caleb to explore this connection by befriending Adam. As he and Adam grow closer, Caleb learns more about his ability, himself, his therapist - who seems to know a lot more than she lets on - and just how dangerous being an Atypical can be.

"What if the X-Men, instead of becoming superheroes, decided to spend some time in therapy?" (Vox on The Bright Sessions)

©2019 Lauren Shippen (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

I love Caleb and Adam even more now!

Ever since I first started listening to The Bright Sessions podcast, I have felt moved by the characters of Caleb and Adam, being a member of the LGBT community myself. Lauren Shippen just has a writing style by which she can masterfully articulate the complexity of thoughts and feelings in a way that makes them easier to understand. Also, James Fouhey and Briggon Snow added to the unforgettable experience of listening to this audiobook with their brilliant narration.

I never realized how much I relate to Adam until listening to this audiobook because his character and background wasn't able to be explained in detail throughout the podcast. Hearing his thoughts and emotions described, including his struggle with depression, made me feel validated and seen for the first time, which is such a beautiful feeling.

I have waited for this book ever since Lauren announced that there would be a book series based on the podcast. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank her, Briggon, James, and all the other people responsible for bringing this novel to life. I love these boys, and this is another story that I will carry in my heart always.

Great writing

It definitely helps if you listened to the podcast series in compliment to this book but the writing is great. The story telling is great. I love that they use the original voice actors from the podcast for the audiobook. 10/10 production

yass

at some points the voice acting was awkward, but once you know the characters.... it makes so much sense and yass

A lot of Emotions.... In a Good Way

Enjoyed this, the only draw back is how short it was. Look forward to more Bright session novels and to learn more about this universe that Shippen has created. I fell in love with the characters and kept wanting to know more. This is worth the read/listen.

Very romantic and unique

It is a very nice listen. I really enjoyed it. I like the fact that two of the voice actors of the Bright Sessions podcast reads the book. Weather you listened to the podcasts or not you will love this book! I especially like the way the composition of the chapters are used to create an atmosphere at some point in the book. It is an easy listen, great quality audio and very well presented by the readers.

Obsessed

I loved this book! I've listened to it 3 times in 48 hours. Preformance great.

Amazing, as supplemental material

I adore this book, but I don't know if I can really recommend it to someone who is looking for a stand-alone book to read. This book is basically a retelling of the story of the Bright Sessions podcast/audio drama, but from the point of view of the Caleb and Adam. If you've listened to that, you'll likely love this. If you haven't, then my recommendation comes with caveats.

Firstly, The Bright Sessions are a great (and free) podcast I'd recommend listening to. I listened to the first season (nine ~20 min episodes) before starting in on this book, and kinda alternated between the podcast's second season and the book as it went. Caleb's therapy sessions in the podcast are often reiterated in this book, but mostly in summaries while adding a bunch of detail about what's going through Caleb's head. The various concepts and plot points introduced late in the book were already familiar from the podcast, but I imagine they would have been pretty out of left field if you were only reading the book. The ending of the book is quite frankly insulting with how much it just kind of gives up in the last half-hour without really wrapping up the plot it seemingly introduced, but I wasn't angry because I know I still have two more seasons of the podcast to listen to (wherein Caleb is set to make more appearances, given the titles of the episodes), so I know there's still time to bring the story some closure. That's the thing, though, this book feels like it was written for fans of the podcast. It feels like perhaps the author wanted to do a stand-alone treatment of the story, and was succeeding in doing so early on, but once the characters started cross-interacting in the audio drama, it was kind of impossible to continue doing that.

As for the performance, it was alright. I love that Briggon Snow reprises the role of Caleb, as it connects the two mediums together well. Both narrators are amazing at portraying the emotions running rampant through this book. They're amazing performers. But the audio quality is a bit lacking, like you're hearing them through a good Skype connection. And it was often difficult to tell whether the point of view character was saying some things out loud or simply thinking those things, and you had to wait until another character's response to try and figure it out via context. Caleb's chapters in particular have some amazing flowery descriptions of what Caleb is feeling, which tend to drag out dialogs between characters (made particularly obvious during the reiterated therapy sessions, especially seeing how natural those sounded in the podcast).

So yeah, if you haven't already listened through the complete audio drama, my recommendation comes with the caveat that you listen to the podcast before or while you listen/read this. If it helps, chapter 15 of this book happens at the same time as episode 102 of the podcast, ch 21 at the same time as ep 105, ch 27 before ep 107, ch 33 just before ep 202, ch 38 & 39 at the same time as ep 207, ch 41 at the same time as ep 215, and ch 49 at the same time as ep 218. And, like I said, the book just kinda stops, so the remaining two seasons of the podcast should hopefully resolve the story properly (I haven't listened to them yet at time of writing).

Great for empaths!

I really appreciated how this book walked through the experience of being an empath. I am in no way a super hero, but do feel other people’s emotions a lot. If I would have read this book in high school, it may have helped me understand my experience and perhaps I could have found my own Dr. Bright. I think this would be great to help kids who have this experience to understand it better, as it can be hard to feel not only our own emotions, but those of other people

Loved

This book was a very nice change from what I’m used to. I was a nice build if not just a tad slow at times but it was wonderful going on this journey with Caleb and Adam. Can’t wait to see how the story unfolds. Also big shout out to both voice actors, really sold the book for me.

L O V E

LOVE the podcast and these characters! the voice acting of Briggon Snow and James Fouhey is amazing, it made me really excited to know Briggon was voicing caleb!!!