Jamie

Joel Leslie’s narration sounded like two startled old men

Revisado: 06-13-23

Joel Leslie was SO WRONG for this book! I know people use him because he can handle a variety of accents, but he can’t handle young men’s voices! I kept having to remind myself about the age of the characters. They also sounded startled and like they might be having heart attacks during sex. This was only exacerbated by the old men sounds of their voices. So not sexy! (The startled heart attack thing, I’m sure old men could be sexy under certain circumstances.) I feel like the book as well written, and many times I wished I was reading it instead of listening to the horrible audio version. Anyway, DNF. Made my feel hatred for Joel Leslie’s work and he’s always been a narrator I’ve been okay with. My advice is to skip it!

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Nick J. Russo is so wrong for it

Revisado: 12-11-22

I agree with many of the reviews, this is a sequel and doesn’t stand up to book 1, Muscle and Bone. Still though, I would have been into it if I had read it. Sadly, the audio book was a disaster, mainly because Nick J. Russo was sooooooo wrong for it.

1. There were serious and annoying continuity issues between Nick’s narration and that of the first book. I get that his voice is different from Greg Boudreaux’s but he made different choices for literally all of the character voices; included a strong accent that came out of nowhere and didn’t make regional sense, that had him saying ‘sawl’ in place of ‘saw’; and he pronounced character names differently (Gray-AM for Graham was particularly annoying). It was hard to feel like it was even the same world.

2. I know Nick J. Russo has done a lot of narration but his acting in this book is awful. Outside of a lot of yelling and whining, there was no emotion to be found. He read it like he didn’t understand what was meant to be happening between the characters. And the voices he chose were not distinct. I spent half the time confused about who was speaking.

3. There was a huge amount of word mispronunciation. What’s up with that? It happened with more challenging words like ‘inexorably,’ and ‘arborvitae,’ but with easy words as well like ‘continue.’ He mispronounced the authors name in the credits.

The mispronunciation combined with the accent and his wooden acting made it impossible to stay in the story. I spent most of the listen longing for Greg Boudreaux and imagining how he might have done it. If you really want Wade and Linden’s story, actually read it. This is a waste of a credit.

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Some problems with the audio

Revisado: 12-05-22

First, and foremost, there were some problems with the audio. It seemed to fade in and out, and at times, was barely audible. Unfortunately it happened too quickly for me to fumble around, find my phone, and turn it up. It was really annoying. You can hear a little of it during the sample. I just thought it was a glitch but it happened through much of the book. I mention it because I would have wanted to know in advance what I was signing up for.

Narration: Christian Fox was AWESOME! All the voices were distinct and his acting is great.

Story: Seriously cheesy. So cheesy. But the sex was hot. That’s all this book is. Full blown ménage a trois with both M/M as well as M/F sexual interactions.

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Good story

Revisado: 11-05-22

The reviews were positive so I trusted that it was gonna work out but there were a few twists and turns in there that kept it interesting. I liked the character development from both characters throughout. There was a happy ending without being Polly Anna and the whole story struck the right tone for a YA novel without being insulting. Delightful listen.

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The romance did not work

Revisado: 04-06-22

This one didn’t work. The book is meant to be stand alone but there’s technically a book one (titled, So, That Got Weird) which I really liked. This book had the same author and the same narrators but there was something seriously wrong. Teddy Hamilton did a wonderful job as always but Elizabeth Hart sounded wooden and I was annoyed with her voice by the time the book was done. Also, I couldn’t figure out how any romance blossomed between these two characters. They basically bullied each other with behavior that bordered on violent until they were suddenly in love. Even then they kind of seemed to hate each other. All of the scenes where they might get to know each other were missing (aside from a few parts where the “hero” was trying to be mean and scare the “heroine” off but she took it in stride which was a revelation to him). At one point he seemed like he was going to rape her. The heroine character was scared and knew it was messed up but was allegedly so hot for him that she decided to “take what she could get.” When he suddenly realized that she was sentimental about a doll her brothers bought for her, his violent behavior (couched as sex) softened enough to avoid the rape. Up until the Grand Gesture wedding proposal at the end these characters did not trust each other and could not have the simplest conversation. The formula didn’t work. Give it a pass.

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Yeah, the “Zing!” = *cringe

Revisado: 04-01-22

I wanted to like this. I love both the author and narrator but that “Zing!” shouted out MULTIPLE TIMES during every sexy bit… so not sexy. I tried turning the volume down so it wouldn’t jolt so much but that didn’t help. Had to abandon the listen. (Didn’t listen all the way but I liked the story idea so gave that full stars)

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Woah, Dake, No!

Revisado: 03-08-22

I listened to this book previously and didn’t have super fond memories of it but knew I had made it all the way through. Longing to sink in to some of those amazing Teddy Hamilton tones, I decided to give it a re-listen and couldn’t believe how bad Dake Bliss’ narration was. I made it through 1/2 the book basically just fantasizing about how Jacob Morgan/Zachary Webber or Christian Fox would deliver those lines better before I had to stop. Dake (reading for Cax) reads like someone narrating Diary of a Wimpy Kid except the sexy bits which just sound angry and impatient. So disappointed as I’m a big Sarina Bowen fan and love love love Teddy Hamilton’s voice acting. Ah well. I don’t suppose Cax’s chapters could be re-recorded???

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Soooooo Good!!!

Revisado: 01-11-22

Solid purchase. I've listened several times (credit well used) but liked this story and the audio production from the very start. The narration style is the kind where the POV shifts from one character to the other and each narrator does all the text if the chapter is from their POV. So Teddy Hamilton (Luke) ends up doing Luke's POV but also Keaton and other characters' voices within those chapters. Then Christian Fox (Keaton) does the same thing for the chapters from Keaton’s POV. That can be hard to pull off. If one voice actor portrays the one of the main characters or side characters differently than the other voice actor, it's confusing and unpleasant for the listener. But this duo executes it so well (and can always be counted on as a duo, BTW).

The sex is sexy as hell. The way that the relationship develops is believable and well written. The main characters are nice, which I appreciate. The things that go wrong are due to characters just working out their stuff and developing as people in relationship to each other, so refreshing.

Couple of personal notes: 1. Sarina and Elle make sure to use the word, "tousled," at least once which seems to be a romance novel requirement, whew! 2. The characters don't irrationally jump to having sex without a condom. Thank you. I think that is really unrealistic for 20-somethings who are in a committed relationship but not married or anything; and I see it a lot, even from these writers.

Thank you, Sarina and Elle, and please please please keep using Teddy and Christian (and Jacob Morgan/Zachary Webber is included in this as well)!!! They just get it!

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Narration nightmare

Revisado: 12-24-21

What? Michael Fell was truly awful as narrator. All his voices sounded the same. You could hear him trying to make a distinction when two characters shared a scene but he couldn’t perform with any consistency for two minutes, much less scene to scene. I found myself having to look at chapter names (specifying who’s perspective we were hearing) to know who was talking. I also noticed a large number of mispronounced words. It made me want to have a look at the print copy to see if he could really be making that many mistakes or if there was a problem with the writing or editing (“disconcerning,” anyone?) What a shame for the book. That said, the writing was pretty bad as well. Seriously, the characters didn’t seem to care about anything really, just thought they should pretend to do so. So boring. Give it a pass.

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Shut up already

Revisado: 12-03-21

What an annoying listen. The only reason I made it through was because I love Teddy Hamilton’s voice and I was desperately waiting him to speak. This is done with duet narration so most of it is narrated by Callie Dalton. Teddy only narrated the male lead (Ivan’s) speaking parts. I thought that would be cool to hear something with this style of narration. But I chose the wrong book for sure. The book is written with endless, repetitive, boring internal monologue by the female lead character, Jasmine, that involved her complaining about things, becoming outraged over nothing that is identifiable to the listener, making stupid and illogical assumptions, and the like; then repeating them to herself for minutes upon minutes of listening time. Repeating. Endlessly. Endlessly repeating. Repeating and repeating and repeating. Saying them over and over. Over and over until the reader hates her. Hates her, and hates Mariana Zapata, and hates Callie Dalton, and hates Callie Dalton’s affected, self satisfied, robotic voice. Seriously, that is how it’s written. Spare yourself the credit and waste of time. Teddy can be heard elsewhere.

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