Narrator Is Horrendous. Truly Egregious.

I cannot believe this was released with this narrator. She is literally yelling the entire time. Every single word of every single sentence is the loudest and most melodramatic reading it could possibly be, complete with unnecessary pauses where the next word is Even LOUDER. It boggles the mind that anyone can even speak this way for all these hours, let alone the fact that they were hired to narrate an audiobook. She speaks in the way that people like to make fun of William Shatner and the way he portrayed Captain Kirk, only without his subtlety, nuance, good acting, and understanding of human speech patterns. Yes, I am saying William Shatner is a brilliantly excellent and professional, tour de force actor compared to this narrator. Please let that sink in before deciding if you want to get this audiobook. It’s such a shame because I couldn’t wait to give this book a try. It’s a story and genre I should have enjoyed. And the worst part, besides the brain shattering performance, is that I did of course listen to the sample. I am convinced that the author chose that snippet on purpose because it is like the most dramatic part of the story, so of course the main character is freaking out. I thought it sounded melodramatic because of the circumstances. I was wrong. If You Want A Woman …YELLING AT YOU …Continuously …For Many …MANY …HOURS …While “Performing” …THE BOOK In A Speech Pattern Like I’m TRYING To PORTRAY With My Use Of PUNCTUATION Here Then …GO AHEAD And …Give It …A TRY. If not, then for the love of everything you hold dear in your life, please skip this.

Also, the female main character, who unfortunately takes up 90% of the narration, starts the book with all the “I hate people”, “People are the worst”, “Nothing is as good as never seeing, being around, or speaking to other people, because I hate people” and it’s excessive and kind of strange. She also very soon after claims she is so unproblematic but really, how unproblematic can you be if you truly hate everything and everyone? And like other reviewers have mentioned, almost the whole of the main character’s thoughts and dialogue are based on YA Paranormal book tropes. I mean that literally. She will say she doesn’t want this trope, she doesn’t want to live that trope, she doesn’t want to be this main character identity, she doesn’t want that foreshadowing, or whatever. Almost all of her internal dialogue, which there is too much of, is fiction and paranormal trope driven. It could have been cute and self aware if it wasn’t the woman’s entire thought process. I’m not sure this book would be good even if I didn’t have to listen to it. I was hoping for a new series to love. This was a huge disappointment.