Bethany > Recent Status Updates

Sara Shepard "Creative Differences" - A hopeful note to end on, and a cautionary tale about what you should and shouldn't put in writing.

Jennifer Dugan "Ali Gets a Clue" - The second LGBTQIA+ story, this time with a girl forcing herself to like someone she doesn't so she won't have to face liking the person she actually likes. I don't get it, but maybe I'm just old.

Laura Sebastian "Fool's Gold" - Everyone is named for rocks and the MC seems to have some sort of magical affinity for them. No romance, unless one counts the end of a relationship that the audience is never given time to care about.

Katharine McGee "We're Here Now" - It took all of college, but finally Carly and Nate's timing worked out and they can actually date.

Crystal Maldonado "Once Upon a Grad Night" - Two acquaintances flee Grad Night, run some errands, and end up dancing anyway.

Julie Murphy "The Cardigan in Question" - Ew. Forcing someone to date you in order to get their belongings back is gross. Also it ends with crashing a wedding, which is kind of shitty, tbh. August is a big old red flag and Betty's going to be #forevergrateful to her for "not minding" her birthmark. First LGBTQIA+ story in the anthology, too. Bummer.

Sloan Harlow "Five Summers" - FWB doesn't work out, but the confession at the end should please P&P lovers.

Jessica Goodman "Brake for It" - MC's BFF breaks up with the boy the MC liked first and things turn out differently than one might expect. UNFORTUNATELY. Someone's eyebrows curled up in a concerned way. Also, the MC "snakes around" to take photos. "I can see all the Cameron's I've ever known."

Krystal Marqis "Group Project" - I think it's set in 1989 (yes I see what you did there) and the on-again, off-again couple can't work things out because they want different things and it ends on kind of a nothing note.

Lynn Painter "It Happened One Wednesday" - I really like the dynamic between the two leads, and remember feeling exactly that way about exactly that kind of boy. Also, love the list of potential cat names.

J. Q. Sutanto "This One's Just for Us" - A very sweet love story between a girl who immigrated from Indonesia and the boy with autism who made her new home bearable.

J. Elle "Everything Unspoken" - Romeo and Juliet actually get to run away to Mantua. Unpolished writing that is much too dialogue-heavy.

E. Bryant "The Grand Gesture" - sweet story about the relationships that really matter

Okay, I'm actually getting bored with all the sex scenes here.

"Burn the land and boil the sea" huh? Ohh, Brodie. I see what you did there.

I knew it was Firefly!

I really do not enjoy all the atmospheric background noises this production has added in. I'm sure they're supposed to be immersive, but they're mostly distracting and when I'm driving they're positively alarming.

Track 20 and the second half of Track 19 get a bit in-the-weeds for me as an audio reader and I keep finding myself tuning the narration out. This probably wouldn't be quite as much of a problem reading it in print.

Please, audiobook publishers, name your nonfiction audiobooks' tracks after their chapters rather than Track 1, Track 2, etc. It's much harder to "just jump to the chapter relevant to your situation" when you can't tell which chapters are which. (I have to listen to the whole book, since I'm reviewing it, but this does not invalidate my request.)

I really love the voice the narrator uses for Martok. It is very soothing to listen to.

It's still a bit difficult to tell who is speaking, especially since the chapter titles give no clue.