Heavy Tales: The Metal. The Music. The Madness. As lived by Jon Zazula

Heavy Tales was OK. On one hand, it gives a historical account of Megaforce Records and the beginnings of Metallica, plus some other bands. However, I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more if I had grown up listening to heavy metal. I only discovered the music as an adult, and admittedly, I don’t always get why something is epic in this music genre. Some of the book was easily accessible for even this musically-crippled ear but some parts of the book referred to things or people or bands that I didn’t recognize. The book does some name dropping and if you don’t know the musician or music manager or band, then the sentence has little meaning. I definitely enjoy a memoir a lot more when the author makes a solid effort to speak to those who aren’t hardcore fans. What does come through loud and clear is Jon’s and Marsha’s dedication to these bands and the music genre. I also applaud Jon speaking of his own mental health, or the lack of it, through out his many years in the music industry. The book finishes up Jon’s career in the music industry. Yet the book doesn’t end there. The end of the book is padded with several things, like discographies, kind words from Zazula fans, and some other stuff that I lost track of. Over all, 3/5 stars. The Narration: Jon Zazula read his own book for this audiobook recording, and ironically, it was not a good fit. The recording quality itself is not polished. The volume goes up and down. There are clear sections that were recorded over. There’s also several spots where there are mouth sounds. The pacing is a little slow but that’s easily remedied by bumping up the playback speed just a touch. Jon himself is not a clear, consistent reader of his own words. I feel the audiobook would have greatly benefitted from some professional assistance on the tech side and also some coaching on how to narrate an audiobook. I’m giving it a generous 3/5 stars because of the effort put into the entire book. I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Crazed Management LLC. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.