rose- 4⭐️
Audiobook 2.75⭐️
I received an audio ARC on NetGalley as the audiobook was released in June 2025 despite the print book being released back in 2017.

The book itself was a solid book which is why I rated it 4 stars. There are plenty of reviews that mimics my thoughts on the book itself and since this isn’t a new book I’m just going to focus on the audiobook.

I give the audio 2.75 ⭐️

It was narrated by Casey Montgomery and on the surface she had nice natural vocals for the female characters and spoke at a great pace. Unfortunately, the book have 5 different POVs and some are males. This apparently isn’t a strong suit of the narrator as she didn’t even try to change her vocals for the male chapters. Now should she have to as she shouldn’t have had to narrated them. This book should have been dual narrated by a male and female. The fact that it’s not is a huge failing. While Ms Montgomery does do males voices, albeit subtly, during male lines in the female led chapters having nothing for the male chapters leaves the reader very disconnected from the prose. I’ll
Mention here that I always had trouble as there were certain words that the narrator simply mispronounced and it was glaring making me disconnect and struggle to reconnect. One example was the mispronunciation of “arthritic”. It’s not even an uncommon or unusual word so it took me by surprise. Now back to the lack of proper casting…

Had it been written in 3rd person it would have been fine to
Utilize the single narrator but that wasn’t the case. It completely takes the reader out of the story listening to an obvious female recite the lines and thoughts of the male character. I hate to be so harsh but this is a the case where the audiobook shouldn’t have been done if it couldn’t be done properly. Either with 2 actors or 1 that could do both types of vocals.

But again, I’m not going to have this fail affect the overall rating of the book which was well written and engaging if read in a different format.

I am thankful to have gotten a complimentary audio ALC from BooksGoSocial Audio through NetGalley to read which gave me the opportunity to voluntarily leave a review.

My general rating system is below. Since I primarily read ARC books I rate according to how I think like minded readers will receive the book. I will round up or down depending on many factors and try not to let my personal wants affect a books ratings.

⭐️ Hated It but pushed through as so don’t DNF ARCs I have received.
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, content issues, poorly edited.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but it had something that stopped me from rounding up. Usually the book may have much more potential than what was given. I recommend it but with reservations.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I Really enjoyed it or think others will. These are solid reads that I definitely would recommend for a variety of reasons.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! These are books that remain rent free in my head for well after unfinished the book. It can be for a variety of reasons from being very well written or just the vibes that captured my mind. These books are also ones I would probably read again.