Disclaimer: Review originally posted at www.audiobookreviewer.com
17 years old Jada often travels with her grandfather in his business trips. The action takes place around 30 years in the future and the society is quite different from ours due to the fact that there is a unique and important company called ONE, responsible for rescuing the world from an economic collapse. Jada’s grandfather is working in a secret project to manufacture a new material with very special characteristics.
The first half of the book tells about Jada’s travels with her grandfather, and also presents Jada’s life within her family. It may seem a very long introduction, but I in fact enjoyed the character depiction and description of the society and technological advances. Most of them are related to new materials, especially new kinds of fabric that are used within technology. I enjoyed this first part so much that I expected a bit more from the second, which is where the real action takes place. I expected the action to be focused more on the technology and even Jada herself, but this story was more about espionage and world conspiracies.
I had small issues with the action scenes. Somehow they felt a bit confusing and disjointed, and I had problems to picture the scene at the Hare Narum.
Towards the end of the book, the dialogs felt forced, and I notice an abuse of tags such us “he says, she says, she asks”. I felt that somehow it should have been done more fluid. It seems Guthrie can handle well dialogs and descriptions but has some issues with dialogs and action together.
I especially enjoyed the part placed in Brussels, since I lived there for three years, and I can say that Michael Guthrie knows well this city and its surroundings, as well as historic aspects of Belgium.
Just a curiosity: I didn’t count the amount of times the word “cantilever” appears in the book, but they were many. It is clear that the author is really interested in architecture.
Em Eldridge’s narration was superb, and it fell more into the category of character interpretation, rather than narration. I think the first part was so enjoyable due to her narration skills, voice range, character interpretation and accents. This is one of those cases where the narration enhances the audiobook experience. Eldridge has become one of my favorite narrators, and I would compare her voice and skills to the ones of Elizabeth Klett.
There were a couple of very low beeps during the narration, but they were barely audible.
I enjoyed the futuristic world that Michael Guthrie has presented in this book, even though the story was not what I expected. I am looking forward to other books placed in a similar environment.
My name is Elena. Since I was a little child I loved science fiction and fantasy, and I can’t resist a good novel. In 2015, while wait I started to listen to audiobooks and I discovered the pleasure in being able to read while doing my daily tasks, so there’s always an audiobook playing on my phone. If you see me with my Bluetooth headphones on, please be gentle, I get easily startled.
I live with my boyfriend, which I met during my six-year stay in Belgium, four cockatiels, eight lovebirds, and a hamster in Madrid, Spain; and I like to spend my free time knitting and sewing while listening to audiobooks.
