First ~ I love Rachel Van Dyken’s books and I adore this series in particular. When I first read this as an ebook, it definitely ranked as one of my favorites. Then, I bought the audiobook and I am incredibly disappointed.
One of my favorite things about the recordings for this series is that each character has his/her own narrator. Pretty much throughout the books. Until now. These narrators were in the last book (Enrage) but playing different characters. Which kills the cohesion achieved up to this point. Most of the chapters are told from Chase (David Brenin) or Luciana’s (Scarlett Chase) POV. But there are chapters by Nixon, Phoenix, Tex, Andrei & Trace. Nixon, Phoenix, & Andrei are still narrated by David Brenin but Tex is narrated by Rob Shapiro and Trace is narrated by Kit Swann.
I’m especially disappointed that Scarlet Chase was cast again. I love her as a narrator (Blacktop Cowboys series is phenomenal), but she definitely has a “mature” voice which doesn’t fit with the 19-24yo characters she keeps narrating.
At the beginning of each chapter is a little “blurb” that’s a quote from “Agent P”. I really wish they’d chosen a narrator just for these quotes. Even having read & listened to the book several times, it’s kind of confusing to know who is talking because it changes depending on who is narrating that particular chapter. (See above about narrator roulette).
Probably the most distracting thing about the recording is that Scarlet Chase pronounces Luciana as “loo-chee-ah-na” and her nickname “Luc” as “Luke”. The book specifically describes “Luc” to be pronounced “Luke”. While David Brenin pronounces Luciana as “loo-cee-ah-na” and the nickname as “loose”. Considering Luciana/Luc appears in the book over 150 times ~ this is a HUGE oversight and incredibly annoying.
Definitely buy the book, but I’d encourage you to pass on adding the audiobook to your library.