Lynnie
contemporary fiction, romance
I am torn about Alexa Martin's Better Than Fiction. I enjoyed the characters and I'm always a sucker for a novel set in a bookshop, but the writing was... not great. The characters, Drew (who inherited a Denver bookshop from her beloved Gran), her best friend, the bookshop regulars, and her half-sister were all great fun as, of course, was love interest Jasper. I kept reading because I wanted to see if it would go anywhere and, in good romantic fiction order, it did.
However, the writing did not do the characters any favor. I don't mind swearing, but in this book it just felt like Martin was trying SO hard to make these characters modern or relatable or something. The constant swearing was just so strange. Once again I both read the book and listened to the audiobook, and I often wondered how the narrator wasn't cracking up at how awkward the dialogue was. If you thought hearing it would sound more natural, you'd be wrong- it was just cringe-inducing.
However, the writing did not do the characters any favor. I don't mind swearing, but in this book it just felt like Martin was trying SO hard to make these characters modern or relatable or something. The constant swearing was just so strange. Once again I both read the book and listened to the audiobook, and I often wondered how the narrator wasn't cracking up at how awkward the dialogue was. If you thought hearing it would sound more natural, you'd be wrong- it was just cringe-inducing.
There is also an entire subplot about Drew's father that could have been cut out completely and not changed anything about the book. It was, again, weird and awkward but also unnecessary.
Nicole Lewis did a decent job with this awkward material. I didn't notice a range of voices for the characters, but fortunately most of the novel is from Drew's point of view so other characters only spoke sometimes. I did not like Lewis' male voices however - there wasn't enough difference between the men and women, which I find pretty common in female audiobook narrators. I give her a B.
I enjoyed the details about Denver in the book - I have family there and have been to many of the places that Martin writes about. This would be a good beach read - for those times when you want to read but don't really want to think.
Nicole Lewis did a decent job with this awkward material. I didn't notice a range of voices for the characters, but fortunately most of the novel is from Drew's point of view so other characters only spoke sometimes. I did not like Lewis' male voices however - there wasn't enough difference between the men and women, which I find pretty common in female audiobook narrators. I give her a B.
I enjoyed the details about Denver in the book - I have family there and have been to many of the places that Martin writes about. This would be a good beach read - for those times when you want to read but don't really want to think.
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