Well this is a tough one. Usually a book rating is easy for me to place and I rarely need to quantify it with a .5 but for the first time in forever I’m being forced to do so.
Story -3.5
Performance- 5
I’ll go with performance first because it really can’t be any simpler. Joel Leslie is a book narrating God! The energy and emotions he puts into his performances is just perfect and his delivery of snarky or funny lines is, as always, spot on. Just… maybe don’t listen to a sex scene when there’s a possibility of others hearing because yeah, that enthusiasm. *cough* Don’t ask me why I bring it up. 😳😂
Unfortunately on the story side of things I gotta say I’m not quite as impressed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great story and it had me laughing in places until my stomach hurt. But I’ve got to be a little harsher than normal because of 2 particular points.
1) I agree with a couple others here who commented that the ending just feels rushed. It really just feels like the author maybe saw the length and said “Oh shoot I gotta stop writing!” or something. I’ve nothing against HFN’s but this one left me feeling completely unsatisfied. Even though we all know it will be an HEA ultimately.
2) My second point is that for the first half of the book Noah just drives me nuts with all his bitching and moaning about the community members around him. I get it, he’s been traumatized, barely escaped with his life, everything he knew about himself turned out to be a lie and there’s a ton of anger and hurt to work through. But the fact that he has to keep reminding himself not to lash out at people because they did actually save him and truly want him safe and happy just rubs me the wrong way. At least he gets himself under control after a bit.
So in the end, while I enjoyed the story i think it’s Joel’s performance that saved it for me in the long run. Not sure how I’d have responded if I’d just read the book.