Tag Archives: audiobook

Book Review: The First Starfighter, by Grace Goodwin

I borrowed an audio copy of Grace Goodwin‘s The First Starfighter though Hoopla. It was narrated by Tor Thom and Avery Reid.

Starfighter Training Academy. It was just a game. The newest, hottest video game release of the year. Choose a role. Build the perfect hero who joins you on missions to save the Vega star system from the evil Queen Raya and her merciless Dark Fleet.

Play for hours? Check.
Obsess over the in-game romance between your avatar and the sexiest alien you’ve ever seen? Check.
Win? Beat the heck out of the game? Check and check.

Open your door at 3:00 in the morning to find that smoking hot alien you thought you made up in your head standing there? Um… okay.

Wake up on the other side of the galaxy with that same alien insisting you’re his… and that you haven’t been playing a video game, but completed the training program to become the first Starfighter from Earth?

Holy sh*t.

I needed to do some tedious and fairly mindless tasks over on my Sadie’s Spotlight blog—cut/paste and checking links are live sort of stuff that I could easily do while listening to an audiobook. So, I decided to listen to a book that had been featured on the blog. That’s how I ended up listening to The First Starfighter.

Now, you have to understand that I sometime really like to lean into cheesy sci-fi romances (or romantic sci-fi, since the romance is more the point than the sci-fi). I enjoy the cheese. That’s part of why I read books like The First Starfighter. I’d never pretend to be surprised that sci-fi romances are sometimes cheesy. But there is a fairly thin line between laugh-with-the author cheese and cringe cheese and this book crosses that line about half the time. Which makes it about a half success for me.

The mechanical writing seemed fine, as far as I could tell in an audio version, and I liked the characters well enough. But Goodwin just rushed things a bit too much—the plot is very, very thin, even by romantic sci-fi standards—and tried to take the ridiculous plot too seriously, which took it from laugh-with-the-author to cringe-worthy.

But a half-success is better than no success at all and I think I’d be willing to give another of her books a try (which is good because I own several of them).

Other Reviews:

Review: The First Starfighter – Grace Goodwin

Book Review: The Lost Apothecary, by Sarah Penner

Leave a reply

I borrowed an audio copy of Sarah Penner‘s The Lost Apothecary through Hoopla. It was narrated by Lorna Bennett, Lauren Anthony, Lauren Irwin. Soooo, Lorna, Lauren and Lauren. The alliteration makes me happy.

A forgotten history.

A secret network of women.

A legacy of poison and revenge.

Welcome to The Lost Apothecary.

Hidden in the depths of 18th-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious 12-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries.

Meanwhile in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her 10th wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London 200 years ago, her life collides with the apothecary’s in a stunning twist of fate – and not everyone will survive.

I’m going to be honest; this book probably deserves more praise than I can heap on it. I thought it was well written and, as a middle-aged, married woman, who (like the character) gave up several educational dreams in exchange for stability, has faced the difference between happiness and contentment, and has consequently also just applied for to return to graduate school, I can honestly relate to A LOT of what Caroline is dealing with in the book. So, I can speak to realism.

But…BUT…I’m normally a binger. I start a book and want to finish it all in one go. Doesn’t matter if it is a physical book, ebook, or audio, I like to read things all together. Despite that, I checked this book out from the library, had to renew it, and then almost had to renew it a 2nd time before I managed to actually finish it. It just wasn’t nabbing my usually very easily grabbed attention. I struggled to force myself to pick it and sit with it long enough to reach the end. Maybe it was just too close for comfort in some aspects, but maybe also I was just bored. Regardless, I think the problem was 100% me not the book.

I do think it has a beautify cover (that’s why I picked it up) and I’m endlessly amused that the narrators are named Lauren, Lauren, and Lorna. (Yeah, I’m easily amused sometimes.)