Audio Reviews : The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West & Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver
An audiobook narrator can easily make or break a story, and in the case of these two audiobooks this is exactly what I experienced, though in different ways. One narrator made an okay story pure pleasure, while the other almost had me quitting the book.
* * *
The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West
Narrated by : Shannon McManus
Pages/Time : 352/6h37
Genre : YA, Romance
Stand alone
My Rating : 3.5/5
About the Book :
The problem is that days after prom, it’s not the real Bradley she’s thinking about..
My Thoughts :
The Fill-In Boyfriend features one of the most shallow, self-centered characters I’ve read about in the past year, and I say this with a lot of love.
This was my third time reading Kasie West, and again, it was a pleasure. This is also one of these times where I am really glad I chose to listen to it rather then read it: the story is shallow and very predictable, and despite (or because of, maybe?) its fluffiness I think I would have skimmed through parts of it. Fortunately, Shannon McManus did a fantastic job of brining Gia to life. She was lively and heartfelt without being too theatrical, and she made Gia feel real and even, somewhat likable! Because of her, The Fill-In Boyfriend turned out to be quite an entertaining listen! A perfect summer story, especially on audio!
* * *
Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver
Narrated by : Saskia Maarleveld, Elizabeth Evans,Dan Bittner, Justis Bolding, Tavia Gilbert, Joel Richards
Pages/Time : 357/9h40
Genre : YA, Mystery
Stand alone
My Rating : 2.5/5
About the Book :
But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it’s too late.
My Thoughts :
I have such a weird relationship with Lauren Oliver’s writing. I always want to read her books and whenever I do, I really enjoy her writing; and yet, as it happened in Panic, I failed to fully connect to this story. The characters were well-rounded and the dynamics between them interesting, but I was disappointed with the predictable twist, and how forced it was into the story. I felt like the author was trying to cheaply trick me, which irritated me. I almost wished the twist was revealed in the beginning, so that we could freely observe how it affected the characters’ lives, which is where Lauren Oliver really shined in her writing.
On top of that, I found the story to be extremely slow; but that was, I believe, mostly due to the narrators, who spoke very slowly as if bored by their own story. It’s hard to stick with it when the narrators give you no reason to, and I ended up doing what I almost never do: upping the speed of the audiobook to get through it faster. It’s surprising to me, because I find myself much more patient on audio than on paper.
Because I’m an optimist reader who likes giving second (and third and fourth) chances, I still have that tiny hope in my heart that I’ll one day get to read another Lauren Oliver book that will capture my heart like Before I Fall did, but I was disappointed I couldn’t like this one more.
I agree with you on the narrator and sometimes it seems like there was very little thought given to the choice of narrator.
I have the same weird relationship with Lauren Oliver’s writing, and hadn’t really fallen in love with any since Before I Fall. I *did* fall in love with Vanishing Girls, though. Of course, I didn’t do it on audio – full cast narration doesn’t usually work for me, and I rarely listen to YA on audio because too many narrators try to make the teen voice into valley-girl. In print, I didn’t feel this one was very predictable – I actually had an entirely different ending I expected, similar but not the same. I appreciated going back and seeing how things lined up. 🙂