Julie > Recent Status Updates

First impressions:
*I know this narrator's voice, but not under that name. A quick bit of research solved that.
*That's lots of backstory in the prologue. The what not to do about starting a book according to conventional wisdom. Still, I'm here anyway.

I think there's a competency kink between the two leads, but at the same time, Drew can be a big dummy. She's supposed to be a successful and competent AUSA, but she's in deep denial about the threat against her from the organized crime family she's going against. I get that it's supposed to create tension with Ryan, but it only serves to make the strong character look like a numbskull.

Such an excellent palate cleanser after my previous dud of an audiobook. The present tense narration really works here even though the book is set in the past.

Not a fan of the running present tense. It's rather distracting.

So... a lesbian You Got Mail? Will keep reading to find out.

I already like this better than the first 2 books. I just wasn't very keen on Elma York as a lead. I like Nicole much better.

Bought it in a recent sale because I like both narrators. I was surprised to realize once I started listening that this was for high school age MCs. Uh... I thought they were at least in college. Oops.

Don't know why the Princess Bride reference was so important, as if it was a cultural secret. It's totally not. I've never seen the movie and still got it just fine. I certainly don't feel like a member of a secret club because of it.

Not really feeling it.

Very confusing start. It's been a long time since I'd read Wolfsong, and I didn't remember a lot of it, even if I had given it 5 stars. One of the confusing things in the beginning was the way Gordo kept jumping back and forth across his personal timeline, remembering his teenage years and falling in love with Mark. Once Gordo and gang made it back to Green Creek, my listening experience improved.

While interesting, it doesn't fit my writing mentality right now. I'd rather write than take this seriously.

Good, but I'm distracted by the narrator. She's very good, but because this is a Jones book, I am listening to the characters and thinking about who they sound like in Jones' Charlie Davidson series. Auri, for example, is Amber, and Sunshine is Cookie. with the humor being so similar (because this is Jones), it's a little distracting. I'm having many out of story experiences!

In chapter 6, we discover Megan gets HANGRY.

Continuity error: The car the girls are in changes. It's first said to be one model, but that changes a few chapters later.
Song title: It's KISS Me Deadly, not Kill!
I know I'm reading an ARC, but the editors better catch this stuff before the real release.

Content is good. The ARC I have is annoying with oddly placed page numbers and meta tags.

Mostly enjoyable book except for this age difference romance that's not at all scandalous. There are 7 years difference between the two adult characters and they are both in their 30s. If the older lady character was in her 50s, maybe then it would be scandalous, but not a romance between a 31-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman.

Enjoying it, but it's also really exhausting. The author has no concept of scene breaks, and small grammar things are thrown out the window. If the story wasn't as good as it actually is, those could have been a deal breaker for me.

I was excited to try this because Carina says it's offering more FF romance. They've long been all about MF and MM, so slow my inner cynic comes out to play. *Sure* you publish FF. Sure...

As to the story, I'm loving it! It's helping me overcome my short attention span for ebooks. But some of the line editing baffles me. Yes, you DO need a comma before the a coordinating conjunction joining two independent clauses.

Slow reader me finally got to chapter 2. Not a reflection on the quality of this book, just my squirreliness about sitting down with stuff that isn't audio.

Two units of twenty in and... the narrator's hypercorrection in English is very jarring. He is so good with his English otherwise that when he makes one of his weird mistakes it's all the more confounding because of it.

Almost done, and it might be influenced by the audio performance, but I wonder in some of Abi's sections if she's mentally ill. Of course she's grieving, but there seems more to it than only grief.

Really good world building. I like the UF voice. Dustin isn't as sarcastic as a lot of male leads, but that's actually rather refreshing. Moves at a good clip, too, so great pacing.

Sometimes I find Ainsley an annoyingly shallow character. She's just 21, so I know it's age appropriate. But her super cute "oh, I'm so adorkably clumsy" and "I'm horny all the time" could go.