REVIEW OF AUDIOBOOK
STORY: 4 stars
PERFORMANCE: 1 star
OVERALL: 3 stars
STORY
THE TOKEN is a story of a woman who while down on her luck will go to great lengths to earn some much needed money. With strip clubs as well as other clubs where women will do more than strip for the right price, this story had a lot of potential. Initially, I was frustrated at the inconsistencies I popped out among the pages. First, the female main character Faren is extremely close to her BFF Kiki yet she, "...can't tell Kiki everything. She knows enough already"??? Worse was when Faren refused to speak to the male mc after he zooms that she has more sexual experience than she actually has. Faren had just been making out with him and she works in his strip club so I thought it was unrealistic for her to become as incensed as she did thinking, "I can't bear any more of his assumptions.” Despite this, I couldn't help but become engrossed in the story. I unexpectedly found myself sucked into the romance; I could FEEL the sexual tension between the mc's and was eager to find out how their story would play out. When I reached the major curveball at the end, I was sold! With such a twisted, cliffhanger ending, I immediately began reading the next book!
PERFORMANCE
Before I even heard the first sentence, I became concerned that I would have an issue with narrator Lacy Laurel's performance. While Ms. Laurel read the title and the author's name, she sounded waaaaaaay too excited, speaking with much more emotion than is necessary to state the title of a book. Unfortunately, Ms Laurel's overeagerness never waned even while she read parts of the book that should have been read with a morose or solemn tone of voice. In fact, the only time I noticed Ms. Laura adjust her tone of voice was when she read sex scenes, suddenly narrating in a whisper. Most abhorrent though was her attempts to read dialogue for the male characters in the book. Not every female narrator can pull off a good male voice yet the voice Ms. Laurel used wasn't just a poor attempt but IMO was absolutely ridiculous! Most of the time, the dialogue of the male characters didn't even sound human! Ms. Laurel is either very new to narrating or she has no acting skills, obviously reading instead of providing us with a performance. I am sad to say that eventually I couldn't bear to listen to her recording anymore. Even though I was given books #1-3 for free in exchange for my unbiased review (provided via Audiobook Boom), I couldn't stand listening to the entire first book. Due to Ms. Laurel's poor performance, at 75% into book #1 I stopped listening and switched to the e-book instead.