The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

Amy  

fiction

Adunni, The Girl with the Louding Voice, is a 14yo Nigerian girl who is suffering from limited resources, poor circumstances, and no control over her destiny. Despite multiple hardships, her spirit cannot be beaten.

Adunni jumps off the page and feels so genuine. Additionally, the setting is so well drawn by Abi Daré that I learned a lot about this area of the world. Her story is heartbreaking and heartwarming. She is at the mercy of fate--plagued with misfortune but also saved when opportunities with potential present themselves. Adunni has dreams and a kind heart. Through determination and hope, she aims to improve her life. She’s had a difficult life but always tries to make the best of it. The reader cannot help but root for her.

   

There Will Come a Darkness, As the Shadow Rises, Into the Dying Light (The Age of Darkness #1, #2, #3) by Katy Rose Pool

Lynnie     
Amy        

young adult, fantasy, series 

Told from five different characters’ points of view (!) this story is about a diverse group of people trying to either save the world or save themselves/their family. There are prophecies, magical abilities, kingdoms, cults, and many adventures. The threads of all of their lives interweave in fun and interesting ways.

Lynnie's Review

This was an unexpectedly fun book! I had heard about the Age of Darkness series, but hadn’t gotten around to reading it. Going on a trip, There Will Come a Darkness seemed like a good choice for the plane and it truly was. It’s been a while since I’ve read such a well-crafted YA fantasy novel. 

 

The beginning is a little confusing as multiple characters and places are introduced, but very quickly the connections between the characters begin to be revealed and while some of those connections were easy to guess, others were much less so which kept me eager to read to find out what would happen next.
 

I know this was a trilogy and figured that the book would end in a cliffhanger, but I’m glad the second book is already released and the third will be on bookshelves in a few months. I can’t wait to see what Katy Rose Pool has in store for these characters next!

Amy's Review

I was not in the mood to become familiarized with the fantasy world being laid out at the beginning of the novel. I might have set it aside if my sister hadn’t recently enjoyed this novel. Since I like when we can post joint reviews, I persisted.

Thankfully, the characters and their backstories became interesting after learning a little about their situations. The characters were fun to get to know and I liked that many of them weren’t necessarily good or bad but somewhere inbetween. While this was another novel about a magical race being attacked, the particular world described in this novel had its own charm, limitations, and characteristics. The way the relationships wove together worked really well. I liked it and look forward to reading the sequel to check in with these wonderful characters again.

Amy   

Lynnie

 

young adult, fantasy

Picking up 1-1/2 weeks after There Will Come a Darkness ends, Pool does a fantastic job catching the reader up about the major plot points from the first novel in the series. HOORAY!!!  I wish more authors would do this! Well done, Pool!

Amy's Review

As the Shadow Rises is another amazing adventure story with all the characters moving around the world, doing what they think they should be doing or reacting to the circumstances that were forced upon them. Again, all five points of view are equally intriguing. The mysteries and the discoveries are fun. While the characters stick to their current “teams” during most of the novel, some overlapping does occur.

My complaint comes near the end when things are simply not so believable (in a novel which already requires huge gobs of acceptance with wild fantasy elements). We discover some crazy identities/motivations and then the “novices” are able to simply control and/or persuade significantly experienced and powerful villains. The story had many conveniences that felt too easy. But, overall, I am still enjoying the adventure and the clear writing by Pool. So, I plan to finish the series after the final novel is released.

I listened to the audiobook for this novel which was narrated by Todd Boyce.  Let me say that he has an incredible voice repertoire which was very impressive. There are a lot of characters in this series and he gives them each their own sound and uses many different accents.  However, I could not stand the voices he gave to Anton and Illya. They sound very similar but that’s okay since they’re brothers. But why did he make them sound like a creepy Christopher Walken?  UGH!  I like Anton’s character and he just sounds SO WRONG. Boyce would sometimes narrate with slow-speak, taking too many breaths within sentences, which can be very useful for certain narration projects but not novels. That is my biggest complaint with his work on this novel. It was like he was Casey Kasem (I bet he could do a spot-on impression) emceeing the Top 40. Whenever he spoke in what I imagine to be his own voice (which he gave to Jude) particularly, he reverted to the emcee/movie trailer method of speech. Weighing the pros and cons, I’ll give him an A- for this one, mostly as a reward for his huge vocal cast of characters. I just wish he’d made a few different choices.

Lynnie's Review 

I decided to try to put my commuting time to good use and listen to an audio book- this was a great choice. I enjoyed the narrator's voice repertoire immensely and he did a great job of bring the story to life for me. My only complaint about him is that I did not like his vocal choice for one of my favorite characters, Anton.

That said, this was another action-filled journey into the world of Pool's Age of Darkness series. Like any good middle book, characters were moved around the chess board, met and left one another, as their stories were further interwoven to set up the final book. I admit that if I had not been listening to the book I likely would have skimmed many of the chapters. I found that I didn't care very much about several of the characters (Hassan and Beru in particular) as their stories moved slowly and just didn't interest me. I was thrilled whenever there was a chapter from Anton or Jude's point of view as I found both their character development and journey to be the most interesting overall.

Still, I'm looking forward to reading the third book when it's released. I definitely think that reading this series so close to one another has helped me remember what is going on- with so many characters and locations, I think I would have lost track if I'd had to wait a year between novels.

Amy     

Lynnie

young adult, fantasy

Amy's Review

Sadly, about a quarter of the way through this final novel in the trilogy, I almost put it down and did not finish. And then ¾ of the way through, I almost put it down again! The story in this one just became too far-fetched, rambling, and cheesy. I love fantasy but only when it feels plausible or reasonable on some level. The examples I state here are not spoilers if you’ve read the previous novels in the series. The fact that Beru was able to harness an all-powerful god within her body was just too extreme in my mind. Also, the various levels of power were exhausting to keep up with and sometimes nonsensical—the main characters would defeat seemingly impossible situations and then later fall to a group of people with no more power than they themselves had.  

Another thing that bugs me in general are overly religious storylines in fantasy novels. Even though it is a religion created by the author, if it’s not done just perfectly, I really don’t care enough about some fake belief system whose only purpose is for non-human super-forces to rule over and cause harm to humans. Such is the case here. It just grew tedious. And then there is an all-powerful prophet who regrets that they’ve created this entire difficult situation for the characters. Oh paleeze. The romantic relationships felt sappy instead of genuine. I’m really having a hard time coming up with anything I loved about this one.

It’s tough to do trilogies that can maintain their momentum in all three novels. Usually, the middle book is the disappointing one because the author’s manipulation from forcibly inflating the story arc shows. But it’s downright depressing when you’d been enjoying the first two novels and then the final installment sags so much. Plus, this novel was WAY TOO LONG!

On top of my downwardly spiraling opinion of this trilogy the further I got, the audiobook narrator, Todd Boyce, was so annoying in this one. I had docked him some points in the last novel because of some of his vocal choices with the characters. But his new problem with this novel was that, when he was not voicing a specific character, his “narrator” voice was whispery—almost as if he was trying not to wake a sleeping person in the next room. This tone did not match the tone for a fantasy action novel and would have been better for a bedtime story.  His reading alone almost made me stop listening to the audiobook. But I did not have access to a Kindle or hardcopy edition of this novel so I persevered. I give him a B- because he definitely contributed to my poor opinion of this novel. I would have scored him even lower except he did still display a great variety of voices for the characters.

Lynnie's Review

The last book in the Age of Darkness series, and my sister & I had such different opinions of it! I honestly think it's because she listened to the audiobook and I read Katy Rose Pool's latest. Having listened to the second in the series, I did not enjoy the narration as much as I enjoyed reading the books. While I thought the narrator had a nice array of voices, his choices really made me dislike characters that I had previously enjoyed & generally made me not like the story so I made the conscious decision to read this last book & I definitely think it helped me focus on the story more than the voice selections.

I enjoyed the conclusion of this series- even though yes, parts of it were cheesy and melodramatic and absolutely unrealistic & convenient. One of the joys of fantasy novels is that sometimes things just magically work out the way you want them to & this book is no exception. I was glad to see that everyone didn't have a happy ending, but I did think that everyone got the ending that seemed appropriate. More than anything though, I enjoyed the journey. It's hard to say too much without spoiling the ending, so I'll just say that if you enjoyed the first two, you will likely enjoy the finale as well. I'm looking forward to seeing what Katy Rose Pool writes next.  

The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain

Amy   

fantasy, historical fiction

Carly finds out that her unborn daughter has a serious heart defect that is inoperable in 1970. When the opportunity presents itself, she makes a crazy decision to make a leap of faith and travel into the future for a chance to save her.

There is so much more to The Dream Daughter than this brief summary but I can’t say more without ruining it for future readers! The plot is actually much more complex than I anticipated and I loved it! It is told from two points of view—Carly’s and her brother-in-law, Hunter’s.

The story pulled me right in from the first page which is always awesome. And the characters were as well drawn as Diane Chamberlain's other novel I loved—Big Lies in a Small Town. I truly cared about the people in this book and was happily swept into their lives. I was surprised more than once by turns in the plot! It also pulled on my heartstrings a couple of times. Bravo, Diane Chamberlain, Bravo! I’ll definitely be reading more of your novels!

The audiobook narrator was Susan Bennett, the same person who narrated the other Chamberlain novel I’ve read.  Again, she was a really great voice actor. My main complaint was that she did not have very male-sounding voices.  When I picked up the novel after a break, in the middle of a chapter from Hunter’s point of view, it took me a while to remember she was reading as Hunter rather than Carly. My secondary complaint was that she sometimes sounded a little robotic. Thankfully, not frequently. I’ll give her an A- for this one.

   

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

Amy   

young adult, fantasy

Linus is a case worker, investigating homes for magical children, when he is given a top secret assignment unexpectedly. His tedious, predictable, lonely life is suddenly thrown into chaos.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with The House in the Cerulean Sea but I saw a few friends had read and enjoyed it. Because of the cover, I was expecting a young adult novel. But most of the time, I felt like I was listening to a novel geared for middle-schoolers.

The characters were caricature-ish and, certainly, quirky and extreme in their mannerisms. But, at the same time, they seemed to fit the atmosphere perfectly and were lovable in their own ways. The morals in the story are clear—be your best self, be inclusive, be kind—not only to others but to yourself, surround yourself with people you love. The ending was no surprise but it was still a charming story. At its core, it’s a story about acceptance.

The audiobook narrator was Daniel Henning. What a treasure trove of different voices! However, I do feel the way he read it made it feel more juvenile than it might have felt had I read it myself. He’d be a perfect children’s book narrator. However, he’s American while T.J. Klune seemingly intended for the setting to be British, based on the terminology and phrasing (e.g., something was “nicked”, someone was “sacked”, the kids studied “maths”, someone had “elderberry mints”). So, it was an odd choice to cast this narrator, in my opinion. I feel it would have felt more appropriate if Henning spoke with a British accent. He did voice one of the key characters with a British accent, but only one. Despite this irritation, Henning’s vocal repertoire was so amazing that I have to give him an A+. Bravo!

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Amy  


fiction

Sportcoat is a 71-year old drunk widower who is trying to figure out where his deceased wife hid the church’s Christmas money. Meanwhile, some of the other characters are on searches of their own.

Deacon King Kong was a character study of people living in the projects. The beginning of the novel involved too many different characters, especially when listening to the audiobook. Thankfully, it didn’t take very long before the story took a step back and started focusing on a few characters at a time.

It’s cleverly written to show the links between the characters and the central plot while diving into the many individuals who are brought to life by James McBride. These characters jump to life, revealing a heartwarming story underneath. Several sections were charming and fun but a lot of the novel was slow-paced. It didn’t gel for me until about halfway. A few of the characters were fabulous and I loved spending time with them. Some of their names cracked me up! There are a few surprises and I ended up enjoying the novel.

The narrator, Dominic Hoffman, did a good job overall. It was unfortunate that his Irish accent was so weak. But he did try. He had a variety of voices and I’ll give him a B+ for this one.

   

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

Amy  

women's fiction

In The Good Sister, Rose and Fern are twin sisters, raised by a single mother, and are now living their lives as 27 year old adults. Their stories are told from both of their points of view—Rose’s side is told via journal entries.  At the beginning of the novel, it appears that the 12 year old girls are forced to cover up a serious incident. This serves as the first “hook” in the story but it quickly becomes even more interesting.

I really enjoyed this novel, which felt very different from Sally Hepworth’s other novels I’ve read, and the characters who were very lovable within. Of course, I appreciated all the librarian stuff! However, I despise reading about bad parenting. It makes me so furious. Thankfully, the girls were intriguing—each with their own sets of issues, big and small. And the ending was a very pleasant surprise. I could barely put it down once I reached the last 20% of the novel.