Allen I.

DNF

Revisado: 12-29-23

The 5 minute sample was promising: crisp and clear narration, funny-ish dialogue, and some nice descriptive writing. I bought it. 30 minutes later I deleted it.

1 of 2 main characters, Ari, is abhorrent and gross. She actively harasses the other MC when first meeting him to donate money to a cause. She blocks his path and tries to take away his drink. He is a total stranger at this point mind you. Every interaction of hers just gets more and more annoying and cringe thereafter.

2 of 2 main characters, Josh, is extended pretentious, boring, and shows just how much of an entitled @$$hole he is every other page. He is terribly unlikeable and it tarnishes any romantic gestures or ideas he has.

Their banter was too aggravating and annoying for anything to be considered cute.

The only thing going for this audiobook is the narrator. She is fantastic,

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Tragic eye opener but left me feeling unfulfilled

Revisado: 10-09-23

Beautifully written and heartbreaking, this sheds some light into the world of young black women (and women in general) back in the 50s. The trauma these women endured was immense and palpable. Eleanor and Ruby were likeable and fleshed out very well. The only problem I guess I had was it felt a bit rushed at the end. I really wanted to follow these two a bit more, see how they worked through their trauma, see if Ruby was ever truly reunited with Grace/Wilhelmina in a way that mattered. Did Ruby ever contact Shimmy again? I suppose these questions weren't supposed to be answered, or likely the answers are "No" based on everything that happened. But still, I was left feeling a bit unfulfilled and unsatisfied. But given everything (beautiful writing, well written characters, wonderful narration) I still rate it 4 stars (really id rate it 4.5 if I could).

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Great narration, poor story

Revisado: 09-27-23

I was so excited for this book (audiobook) because the premise was absolutely fascinating. And at first, I did really enjoy it. But the more I listened, the more I grew so insanely bored. Too many characters being introduced, too many storylines to follow. I do appreciate everyone being fleshed out, but I feel like we were expected to follow EVERYONE'S storyline, where everyone had been and how they ended up here, then follow them into the current clusterf**k of a story.

The prose and writing style was wonderful but I couldn't enjoy it. After listening to literally 15 minutes of characters bickering and the plot not moving forward whatsoever (I was getting severely annoyed at everyone interrupting everyone ALL THE TIME), I decided to call it quits. It just wasn't enjoyable at all and I didn't particularly like any of the characters (I liked Viola more than Fox but unfortunately Fox suddenly becomes the MC... bah).

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Story wrapped up and ended very abruptly

Revisado: 09-15-23

Someone wrote a review that mentioned the main event of the book(the hunt) didn't happen until the story was already 90% done, and I thought that it was just hyperbole... But it really wasn't. There was about an hour of the book left when it happened, and it ended so quickly it left me scratching my head. There was this big lead up and then.... nothing. It really soured the experience of the whole book, because I liked it otherwise. The parallels to real life are slap-you-in-the-face obvious but I didn't mind it too much. The main characters were likeable enough, and pretty realistic.

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"Quirk" MC comes off as ANNOYING and IMMATURE

Revisado: 09-07-23

I usually LOVE LOVE LOVE Katherine Center. I love her stories and her characters.


When I first started on this book, the MC Sam was pretty endearing. She was super excitable and bright, and was so cute when she spoke about her admiration for her adoptive (but not really) parents. But my liking to her VERY quickly diminished after the first chapter, when something tragic happens to someone close to her. The odd thing is, she doesn't really grieve or even really acknowledge it too much. Which everyone grieves differently, that's totally fine, and maybe she does grieve more later on in the book. But I couldn't finish it to find out. In any case, the story moves along briskly to introduce her potential love interest, Duncan, with whom she had a... um, I don't even know if I could call it a relationship, in the past. She kept calling him "the guy" so I thought she had this long extensive background with him and he broke her heart. NOPE. She had a crush on him, hardly knew him, read his diary without permission while cat-sitting for him, then MOVED OUT OF THE STATE because she couldn't handle being around this guy because of her stupid crush, which I would expect from a teenager rather than a college graduated adult. Then when she found out he was coming back, she decides to QUIT and goes into a panic attack and rants and raves and basically has a mental breakdown. Um? Am I missing something? Then we get two whole chapters of explaining Duncan's goofy antics and personality. So the author REALLY REALLY wanted to drive home the point that he is a totally different person now, because when they meet again, he pulls out a (fake) weapon and starts scaring people and being a jerk. But like, in a completely unrealistic way. And it MIGHT have been a skewed perspective of him in the past, seeing as how Sam is the only (unfortunately) POV we get, but if it really was that drastic of a personality change, there had to have been some HUGE thing that happened to him right? I'm assuming a shooting occurred and he was traumatized. It's really obvious and somehow the MC is oblivious to this. And unfortunately, I didn't care. I didn't care about Sam, I didn't care about Duncan, I didn't care about her best friend (who seemed just as "quirky" as her). When he puled out that weapon near the end of chapter 5, all I could think of how ridiculous this whole thing was. And I didn't care enough to continue forward to see what it was.

I cannot stress enough about this whole thing with Duncan. It was just really awful, and honestly? Disturbing/creepy. I feel like the Katherine Center, whose characters I normally ADORE so so so very much, was trying to capture the essence of a manic pixie dream girl with the MC Sam, and trying to make her as quirky and eclectic as possible. Instead she comes off as super annoying, overly dramatic, and really creepy. Most of the characters are depicted as whimsical happy-go-lucky freedom loving hippies. But like, really bad caricatures of them. I was so disappointed. I couldn't bare to finish it.

The narrator was actually great. I REALLY don't mean this in a bad way when I say she really captured the whiny and immature nature of the MC. And that's nothing bad against the VA, in fact it's kind of a testament how well she understood the character and was able to tap into that. Fantastic narration, poor storyline, annoying characters.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Did not finish.

Revisado: 08-31-23

I really really wanted to like this book since my partner really likes it. however I cannot get past the fact Alex is an insufferable jerk and Henry is the most boring banal human I think I've ever read about. Their " flirting " is just them sniping insults at each other and that's supposed to be considered charming I guess. They are both 21ish and while yes that's still young, they act like teenagers. Nothing ever happens in this book. They go wild clubbing at a Hollywood nightclub and do ..stuff.. in the bathroom. There are no repercussions. There's never any repercussions for their "forbidden love". For something that's supposed to be an enormous plot point they sure don't spend literally any time on it and nothing challenges them. I mean you'd think at some point paparazzi would snap at least one picture of one of their many trysts. But nope! Their conversations are full of pop culture references and stupid jokes that I just felt like the author was trying so hard to pander to millennials and make "relatable" characters. It all just fell super flat for me. I couldn't finish it.

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Short, feels unfinished

Revisado: 08-29-23

I loved the story and I loved the characters, especially the MC. The narration was done perfectly. But the end was so very extremely unsatisfying, it honestly surprised me how rather abrupt it ended. all of the suspense and mystery led up to the action being about maybe 45 min long and then it was done. And even after it was done, it didn't feel like this was the end. It was such a letdown. It was as if the author suddenly ran up against her deadline and had to cut it short. Disappointing.

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Did not finish

Revisado: 08-01-23

I loved the Seafire series and therefore was looking forward to this book. But ultimately I didn't finish it. I took a break and kept dreading going back... I wanted to finish it just for the sake of finishing it. When I realized I wasn't enjoying it I just stopped and never came back.

The pros: Natalie C Parker is a brilliant writer and the book started off great. Most of the characters seemed well rounded, and there was plenty of great LGBTQ+ representation.

The cons: Biggest one was the main character, hands down. Maybe, ironically, that she was so realistic as a petulant child was personally my main turnoff. Riley is immature, annoying, whines and is generally unpleasant. I found myself way more interested in the other characters, but unfortunately we're stuck with Riley as the main character. I guess a minor critique other than the main character, is that the world didn't seem as fleshed out as I was hoping it would be. But I know that there is another book in this series so perhaps more things are explained in that book... But I won't be reading it because I don't want to get stuck with Riley again.

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Heartbreaking and beautiful

Revisado: 04-10-23

Beautifully written and literally the first audiobook ever to make me cry (I have about 50 titles). The main character is incredibly likeable and sweet. The supporting characters have a great depth to them. The only thing I didn't like was some supporting characters hinted at some side plots but were. never resolved or brought up again. But overall I loved it and the narrator did such a fantastic job.

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Not bad but... not great?

Revisado: 04-05-23

I got this book from a 2 for 1 sale so I essentially got it free. I don't know if I would've spent a credit on it. It was mildly entertaining, maybe if you have a credit that you REALLY don't know what to get. It's light, it's stupid, and it's short. I actually chuckled a few times here and there.

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