Out of body experience

I've been listening to the first 25 chapters of the Phantom's Dance audio book. The narrator sent them to me so I could let her know what I think. Well, I haven't got a clue how to tell her what I think. It's awesome! Absolutely. Awesome. And, yes, awesome is an overused word, but so is surreal, which is the other word that keeps coming up. Su--rreal!

Honestly, the only way I know how to describe it is that it's like an out-of-body experience. I've written several books and as a member of a critique group I've heard my material read out loud many times over. But this is a whole different animal. In the beginning, I felt giddy and thought I wrote this. But as I've continued to listen, with the various characters appearing and the narrator's accents and voice inflections bringing them to life, it's become more like Holy cow!! I wrote this? A couple of weeks ago, I Tweeted something about an author never being able to hear their work for the first time, but I do believe this may be the closest thing to that. Even though I know what's going to happen, can even say the words before the narrator, it feels new to me. So it is awesome, surreal, amazing, cool, and any other overused description one can come up with, and I can't wait to hear the finished product.