Rue S

Beautiful prose, unique story, excited for more!

Revisado: 02-12-22

This is a short story prequel to The City We Became. It was a wonderful, twisty-turny adventure with heart.

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A thrilling sci-fi adventure…

Revisado: 07-14-21

What a fun read! There’s a severe lack of LGBTQ+ space travel fiction, especially in the thriller and short story sub genres.
The technical aspects are well represented without being inundating, and the main character is someone who doesn’t make silly mistakes to push the plot forward. The narrator was easy to listen to without being over bearing.
I hope there are more in this series!

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Intense and Unexpected

Revisado: 06-29-21 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I wasn't quite sure what I was getting into when I read on Bang to Begin. That's probably for the best, because nothing I would have imagined would have prepared me for the reality.

The opening story started innocuous enough, though with an eerie atmosphere that left me supposing all was not well. Sure enough, everything soon became disjointed and frail at its seams, taking an intense and catastrophic turn in the story "After the End" that deftly clinched this title into its 'horror' genre. Each subsequent story a new terror, until about halfway through, the tells started to take shape. Like a slow revealed blueprint, a picture takes form that ties all the disparate tales together.

I'll be blunt: if you're squeamish, this is not the book for you. There's gore, disturbing images, kidnapping, murder, assassinations ... but an ending that oddly sets a tone that almost erases that which comes before. That said, in order to get to the end, you do have to get through a lot of darkness, so be prepared.

As far as the writing itself, it's quite a strange combination of sparse and detailed. It takes some getting used to in a few of the stories that are more disjointed. Because of that, as well as the plot, this isn't a set of stories that you can skim and be able to follow along. I'd dedicate some time to read this in small spurts rather than binging it.

Overall, if you're a fan of horror, dark fantasy, or science fiction with a twilight zone twist, I'd take a chance on this book.

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The Modern (Gay) Retelling That We Need!

Revisado: 11-29-20

The first thing that charmed me about this book (and charming is definitely the adjective of the hour for this story) was Joel Leslie's performance. He created a voice for each character that was unique, with clear accents and idiosyncrasies, so I never needed the dialogue tags to navigate who was speaking. His David was geeky and upbeat, his Alun broody but refined. The juxtaposition was perfect for the reference to the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.
As for the story, if this had been any other retelling by any other MM author, there was a point about 30% through that would have been the end. In fact, I expected that to the be resolution to the entire book. Instead, it kept going—and I am so incredibly glad it did. It can get to a point where the trope of 'ridiculous misunderstanding followed by reconciliation, end' gets tiring. This had a misunderstanding involved, sure, but it went further. I was glad to get extra time with the characters, and explore the world that E.J. Russel built.
Overall I really enjoyed this read, and I'll be keeping an eye out for future books from this author AND this narrator.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Promising setup, missing conflict...

Revisado: 11-15-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I really, really wanted to like this book. The setup was interesting, and the author developed characters that had autonomy and personalities. It started off promising, and I kept waiting for it to pick up.

Out of a six hour book, I waited four and a half hours before there was any real action, and it was wrapped up quickly without any major set backs. I think the downfall of this book is that there just wasn't a real conflict, either in the characters relationships or plot-wise. The characters were well suited for each other, so the hot and cold arguments they had felt forced and unnatural.

The saving grace was the audio. Gabriel Amari is a talent to watch out for in narration. I honestly thought there were two separate narrators for Tennyson and Khyler at first. He did a fantastic job of creating characters with different voice quality. I would absolutely listen to other books narrated by him in a heartbeat.

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Somewhat Predictable, But With Gems Throughout

Revisado: 12-19-19

This was one of those books that I was able to anticipate the ending within the first few chapters. Nevertheless, there are some really beautiful areas of prose and insights that kept me moving through it. Despite somewhat predictability, it was still a pleasant read and I would recommend it to those with a love for literature.

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