The audiobook narrator changed the whole book for me, in a bad way

I read The Name of the Wind in print last year and loved it. Last month I tried the audiobook on a road trip to Columbus and I could not finish it. The narrator made Kvothe sound like a spoiled kid the whole time, not the clever hero I pictured. I looked up the narrator online and saw he's done like 200 books, so clearly people like him. But it made me wonder, how much of a book's quality is actually the reader's own voice in their head? Has anyone else had a book ruined or saved just by who read it aloud?

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sagew5016d ago

Oh man, I feel this so hard! I once had a fantasy book completely ruined because the narrator gave every female character this breathy, whispering voice like they were constantly telling secrets, and I just couldn't stop laughing at how silly it sounded (my car rides got real weird, real fast). It really made me realize how much the voice in your head does the heavy lifting, you know? Like, my internal version of Kvothe was probably way cooler than any one person could ever voice anyway.