Narrated by Andi Arndt and Sebastian York
Bad Judgment was a bit of an adventure for me. I requested it mainly on the strength of the narrating team of Sebastian York and Andi Arndt, both of whom are really good, solid narrators, and the blurb, which promised a forced proximity romance – a trope I love. What it turned out to be however was a “Big Secret” which, while not my most disliked trope, certainly makes my top 5.
Justine Porter is about to start the final year of her law degree. She is on a scholarship but on the first day of class, receives the bad news that all merit scholarships have been withdrawn because the college is going broke. She is offered a deal by the father of the guy who’s been pursuing her for the previous two years: tutor his son, Ryker Grant, and make sure he keeps his GPA up and Judge Grant will pay her tuition. It’s a bit unbelievable for a couple of reasons but the main one – that anyone would pay $60,000 for tutoring did make me boggle a bit.
Ryker has had the hots for Justine since he first laid eyes on her. He blew his chance with her the summer before when he was late for their “date” for reasons which are kept a secret for most of the book. Justine thinks Ryker is a player and she is too focused on her studies to waste her time with him – even though he is gorgeous and charming and sexy as all get out.
Forced together when Justine and Ryker start having “study dates” – Justine’s way of keeping her confidential deal with Judge Grant, Justine starts to fall for the sexy bad boy. Exactly why the tutoring has to be kept secret wasn’t explained. For those worried about the conflict between Justine accepting money from Judge Grant for tutoring once Ryker’s and her relationships turns sexual – don’t. Justine changes the deal with Judge Grant once that is imminent so she can keep her self-respect. It actually makes the arrangement much more believable. However, for reasons which are still unclear, it is still a secret.
Once Ryker and Justine start getting it on, the steam level goes way way up. This was my favourite part of the book: where they are happy and getting along well and developing their relationship (even though there are a couple of pretty big secrets between them). This forms a fair portion of the story and it probably explains why I ended up enjoying the book as much as I did.
On the one hand, the whole big secret thing didn’t go exactly where I thought it would – a fact I was grateful for but then, right near the end, something else was revealed which I thought was just too cute (not in a good way) and I didn’t believe it. It didn’t fit with the earlier information in the story.
There’s a joke at the expense of trans woman near the start of the book. I wish it hadn’t been there. It added nothing to the story (of course) and it was inappropriate and in poor taste.
There were a few continuity errors in the narrative which should have been picked up in edits and some dangling loose ends which I found frustrating, not the least of which was what happened to Chad. That said, the narration was good enough that I still breezed through the listen.
Sebastian York is a narrator I associate with late 20s/early 30s characters and it was a little discombobulating hearing him voice a 24 or 25-year-old man. This was particularly so because, in many ways, Ryker seemed fairly immature to me. He felt pitched at around 21 or 22 but given they had already completed their undergrad degrees and were heading into their final year of law school, both Justine and Ryker must have been in their mid-twenties. There were times when the text and the narration didn’t really match but I would count that more a problem with the book’s content rather than Mr. York’s performance.
I also anticipated that there would be about a 50/50 split between the narrators but actually Andi Arndt had far more work to do. Ryker’s POV takes up much less space in the book than Justine’s. Fortunately, Ms. Arndt is a very good narrator and did a great job of all the various character voices as well as the pacing, emotion and tension of the story.
In less capable narrator hands, I think the listening experience could have been a disaster but as it was, I still enjoyed the listen. Just, don’t think too much about the plot because holes: we haz them.
Kaetrin
Narration: B+
Book Content: C+
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence Rating: Minimal
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Meghan March
Bad Judgement was provided to AudioGals for a review.
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