Publisher: Empty House Books
I won a ton of this author’s audiobooks from a contest on her blog. I had read this before a long time ago, so I thought I would give the audio a try during my commute.
The narrator, Angela Rysk, has a great voice. I really enjoyed it for the most part. I had a little trouble with the main character Alexis. She sounded more butch than I was envisioning and like she was battling a cold the entire time.
This book was definitely fan fiction for ‘The 100’ in a previous life. Alexis = Lexa, Graham = Clarke, Olivia = Octavia, and so on. And that was a little distracting for me, too, because I immediately started to picture the characters from the show but the narrator’s voices were conflicting to that. A little strange. I wish the names of the characters would have been more significantly changed so that I wouldn’t have known.
The story is about two college aged girls, Alexis and Graham, who have experienced a loss of their girlfriend and boyfriend respectively in the recent past. Alexis is a star scholarship basketball player that is struggling. She shows up to a game drunk one too many times and has to suffer the consequences. She ends up having to go to a group where she meets Graham, who is also struggling and self sabotaging. They surprisingly form a friendship and decide to be accountable to one another.
I like a good amount of angst in books. While this had plenty of it, I found myself being a little put off by how whiny and ‘oh woe is me’ Alexis came across as. I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why Graham was so in to her. All of their interactions were argumentative and full of conflict. Which is also a trope, I normally like (Enemies to Lovers). But there was never a moment or series of events that led me to understand how or why Graham developed feelings. I mean, obviously Alexis would fall for Graham who was pretty much persistent and overbearingly attentive. That would flatter Alexis’s ego for sure.
The story was entertaining overall. I wouldn’t turn anyone away from this by any means. I do remember liking it more when I read it way back when. That is no surprise, as I’m usually not a huge fan of audiobooks.
I recommend this to people who like to read about romance, college, basketball, self destruction, overcoming tragedy, family issues, putting up walls, tearing down walls, and ‘The 100.’