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Disappointing

Revisado: 04-30-25

I expected so much more from Kerry Anne King, but I'm realizing now that I started with her more recent work, and she's apparently improved a lot since she wrote this one. It simply doesn't have the magic of "Other People's Things" and "Improbably Yours."

I was originally going to give this 3 stars until I got to the end. I get that people want a "happily ever after," but the love interest actually goes from seeming like a really good guy to an entitled, whiny asshole by the end. In fact, none of the adult characters become more likeable by the end. I don't mind flawed characters, as we expect them to grow and redeem themselves, but all the adults seem dead set on blaming everyone else for their decisions, instead of taking any accountability for the choices they have made.

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So Much Longer Than It Needs To Be

Revisado: 04-27-25

I enjoyed this modern-day retelling of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but the search party investigation sections were completely unnecessary. I kept zoning out during those sections and eventually just skipped them altogether because they add nothing to the story.

And yes, the narrator is as bad as everyone says. First of all, she reads So. Freaking. SLOWLY. I listened to this on 1.4x speed to make her tolerable.

Additionally, I found her accent really grating. I'm assuming it's some sort of regional Canadian accent? I'm American, but my partner is from Toronto and my ex is from Ottawa. I have friends from Vancouver, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, and Montreal, and not a single one of them talk like this. I'm not going to accuse the narrator of "mispronouncing" words as some reviewers have, because I assume this is an accent and her pronunciation would therefore be "correct" or normal for others with this type of accent, but it is distracting to the point that it seems to be the chief complaint people have about the audiobook.

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This Wants to be Highsmith

Revisado: 04-22-25

I don't know what the rest of Lisa Unger's work is like, but this definitely felt like she was trying to channel Patricia Highsmith, particularly This Sweet Sickness. Of course, this lacks this finesse of Highsmith's work, although Unger does a solid job of creating a tense, foreboding tone.

Narrator is solid. Writing is solid. Story is... honestly maybe a retelling of This Sweet Sickness? Not only are the plot and narrative voice similar, the characters are named Anisa/Annabelle and Emily/Effie. Coincidence?

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Read, Donʻt Listen!

Revisado: 04-20-25

I nearly DNF just a few chapters in because of how bad the narration was, but decided to switch to reading in case thatʻs why I was struggling with this one, and Iʻm so glad I did.

Others have called the narrator monotone; I didn't have a problem with that so much as the weird, random, long pauses. On more than one occasion I thought my audio had frozen. I've seen some reviewers complain about the writing, and I will admit that the sentence structure is sometimes clunky, but not so much that I couldn't enjoy the story.

As far as the story goes, this definitely isn't a campy beach read thriller. There are some weird, gothic elements, and this absolutely is a commentary on how white-dominated "wellness" culture appropriates Eastern spirituality and repackages it to sell at exorbitant prices, often back at the people the practices were stolen from (we have an early scene of the desi protagonist attempting to learn yoga from a white instructor with a BRITISH accent).

*potential spoilers below*

A lot of the negative reviewers seem to be upset about "anti-white racism." This book isnʻt anti-white. Itʻs anti-abuse. The protagonist is subjected to two forms of abuse: one familial, i.e. someone who is also Pakistani; the other cultural, i.e. wealthy whites exploiting Eastern cultural practices. The protagonist disavows her blood family (brown), to lay roots in her chosen community (white). The author shows us problematic elements of both cultures and how they have harmed the protagonist, but also shows us how the protagonist chooses to embrace aspects of both.

If you are triggered by scenes of interpersonal violence, you may want to proceed with caution. If youʻre someone who thinks calling out the white-dominated wellness industry translates as "all white people are bad," this is probably not for you. If you can handle both those things, and some weird supernatural elements, I highly recommend this. There was one major twist at the end that I did not see coming, and that almost never happens. Yes, thereʻs a LOT going on in this book, but I really do think the author pulls it off.

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We're All Damaged... By This Book

Revisado: 04-19-25

I made it to chapter 15 before I just had to stop. Yes, the protagonist is an immature hot mess, but I figured that was ok because he's supposed to grow. And the people around him know he's an immature hot mess, so that means the author intended it that way. But the main character is also one of those white guys who THINKS he's so progressive and an ally, but then is just casually racist, xenophobic, sexist, and homophobic, but of course doesn't think he is. It doesn't feel like the author intended for Andy to go around describing every non-white, non-male, non-American, non-straight person in the most stereotypical terms possible, so every time he does it, it just feels icky.

Two stars because some of the "quirky" stuff was genuinely funny to me. Dad and the squirrels was the best part of the book I managed to make it through.

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Trigger Warning/Spoilers

Revisado: 04-13-25

Audible was right to classify this under "literature and fiction", rather than "thriller," as it's listed on Amazon. While yes, there is a mystery at the center of the novel, it's not twisty and suspenseful.

Drowning With Others is actually an exploration of abuse, and takes us on the journey of being groomed from the student's perspective. I am not a survivor of grooming myself, but found the passages where the student describes her "romance" to be extremely uncomfortable to listen to; if you are triggered by scenes of grooming, you may want proceed with caution.

The book also examines themes of justice, privilege, and power through an interesting conceit: a class of high school students investigating a decades-old death. This allows the author to tell the story from the perspective of a teenager as she is guided and/or obstructed by the adults around her. Some of those adults, in turn, provide us with both their adult perspectives, and their past teenaged perspectives as they too were influenced by the adults around them.

The narration is mostly good, except for teenaged Ian. Adult Ian is fine, but the teen version is, as another reviewer said, monotone.

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Hilariously terrible

Revisado: 04-04-25

I’m one of those people who unironically enjoys really, really terrible movies. But this is the first audiobook that was so bad it actually made me laugh out loud.

Originally, I thought this would just be run-of-the-mill terrible. Stevie is one of those protagonists that is so idiotic you wish they’d get murdered already so the book could end, but you know she’ll survive by sheer virtue of being the final girl. She was already grating on my nerves pre-chapter 1 (not a prologue, it’s “Episode 1”), but I kept listening because I was interested in the premise. But by chapter 5, the book leans hard into full-blown, over-the-top ludicrousness.

And speaking of “episodes,” the book is interspersed with episodes from the characters’ podcast. This format could have been a clever way of storytelling, but the episodes, had they been a real podcast, would have been lambasted as “cringe.” If you were to strip away the rest of the novel and listen to just the podcast episodes, the “hosts” come across as inauthentic, callous, and completely self-absorbed. And yes, the main characters are in fact all those things, but the idea that enough people would listen to their vapid musings for them to have a 4-year run with sponsorships is, again, hilarious.

I’m giving this 3 stars because the voice acting is good, and the book inadvertently made me laugh at how bad it is. Please don’t mistake my rating as a reflection of quality; it’s really that bad. But if you enjoy a campy hot mess, you may have some fun with this.

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It’s Missing… Something

Revisado: 04-03-25

I can’t pinpoint anything specifically to fault about this book; the writing is good, the premise is interesting, and the narrator does a great job. But there’s just something missing here, perhaps something lost in translation. I found that I just couldn’t stay engaged with the book. It lacks the sort of emotion I would expect from a story about grief. I suspect that had there been more dialogue, and less space detailing with the logistics of the characters’ survival, more people would have connected with the work.

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See Jane Do Nothing for the First 4 Chapters

Revisado: 04-02-25

It takes 2 hours for Jane to snap. A full 2 hours of listening before she loses it, and no, it's not worth the wait. I only kept listening because the blurb made it sound like she had a very public meltdown, but when Jane finally snaps, it's not very dramatic or even very public. It's not even entertaining or funny, which I only mention because the next chapter is absolutely HILARIOUS, and the only really good part of the book.

Bethany Crandell can clearly write humor, and it's brilliantly, hysterically performed by Xe Sands. I'm not into rom-coms, but I absolutely could have listened to an entire book of Jane's absolute hot mess of a meet-cute. I think this book would have been better served if the author had focused exclusively on the romance, or on the issue of the husband's secret. Instead, she spends the 1st two hours building a protagonist that is not particularly interesting or likable, and setting up multiple plot lines that all end up dragging the others out.

This book couldn't keep my focus because of its own lack of focus, and the protagonist was so "meh" that even the talents of Xe Sands couldn't make her compelling.

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Don't Say You Weren't Warned

Revisado: 03-30-25

Yes, the narration is as bad as everyone says. The author sounds like an answering machine that’s struggling to stay awake… and losing the battle. I tried listening to this on 1.4x speed which helped with the weird long pauses and pacing, but it didn’t do anything for the monotonous lack of inflection and choppiness.

Also, the story doesn’t start until Chapter 5 and still hadn’t gone anywhere by Chapter 14, when I finally gave up. I think I kept trying to give it a chance because, while wellness industry feminist satire novels are having a moment, I thought it would be interesting to see how the protagonist’s cultural lens would come into play as part of the commentary.

If you’re reading this, I assume you have Audible. Check out the Audible Original “Self Center”; it came out the same year and is exponentially better.

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