Picked this one up on audio during a 2 for 1 sale, which was about the right way to do it.
Felix starts off as a somewhat “ho-hum” level character, but is immediately visible as having aspirations and intelligence. An early mistake causes him to stumble across opportunity, and Felix capitalizes.
Listening to this one made me laugh with regularity, and it’s very hard not to recommend a title that can do that. Indeed, I found the book to be great fun, as it regularly uses situational humor and simple one-liners to generate giggles. Overall, it’s something I would recommend – particularly if it’s on sale. If you’re looking for something simpleminded and lighthearted – it’s definitely a “no stress” read. There are to annoyances I would mention though:
– If you’re someone that needs a well developed story, this is probably not your book, As suggested in other reviews, there is a clear beginning, but the middle is a series of events that leads to a less than convincing end. Wrap up for this individual title seems like it is about 75% deferred to the sequel. The end is not satisfying.
– The “character sheet”, where the narrator reads off the superhero stats drones on and on. There are many characters, and thus many such, and they are read often. This is a situation where I’m sure it makes it much easier to understand the situation when physically reading the title, but something that your eye would just skip to the immediately relevant item. The narrator, however, is forced to read in its entirety. My recommendation here is to pay enough attention to understand where he’s going by reading it, and then make liberal use of the “skip 30 seconds ahead” button in the Audible app.
One other note regarding the performance: Hays does a great job working with what he’s got. The primary character is male, and that is read naturally. There are several other frequent and very relevant characters that are mostly female, and while Hays does a good job of differentiating them, they are central enough that this performance would have been helped a LOT by having a female co-narrator or even an ensemble. I give Hays an A+ for his work, but the producers a C- at best for casting it this way.
Finally: Several other readers have dwelled on the “dreams of a harem” element of this book. There definitely is an element of that, but it’s overplayed in many of the reviews. I would put it more in the category of polygamy (real relationships with more than one mate) than “harem” (have a stable of women, and then ride who you feel like). Even the polygamous aspect has an element of recognition that it’s a questionable path with emotional and ethical pitfalls.