Narrated by Shayna Thibodeaux
Although The Beautiful Bastard series is still on my TBR list, I had heard so many good things about the best friend writing team of Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings (who go by Christina Lauren) that when I found out that they were releasing Sweet Filthy Boy, I just knew I had to listen to it. The first in the Wild Seasons series, I really enjoyed the story, and I now understand the hype surrounding this writing duo. However, the narration had a number of detractors, so you may want to sound sample this one, before determining whether to read or listen to it.
Sweet Filthy Boy is a delightful tale about discovering yourself and true love by letting go and pretending to be someone else. The story begins in Las Vegas where the heroine, Mia Holland, is celebrating her college graduation along with several of her best friends. In a wild, impulsive, and completely uncharacteristic move, Mia has a one-night stand with Ansel Guillaume, a handsome, charming French man who recently graduated from law school.
Given that her wild night was mostly fueled by liquid courage, she is astonished to find a gold wedding band on her finger when she wakes up the next morning along with a note from Ansel. Her two best friends, who had also hooked up with Ansel’s two best friends, also got married. In the cool light of day, the friends quickly commence annulment proceedings. But when Mia seeks Ansel for the same, he refuses, insisting that Mia had made him promise that no matter how hard she begged he was not to let her immediately seek an annulment. Instead, Ansel proposes a journey that could potentially change Mia’s life forever. He asks her to spend the summer with him in Paris.
Once an up-and-coming ballet dancer, Mia gave up her dream of dancing professionally after a traumatic car accident shattered her leg. She’s finally come to terms with her father’s wishes that she attend business school and, although she is dreading it, she has committed to spending the summer in Boston where she will begin business school in the fall. Impulsively deviating from this course, however, Mia decides to join her “husband” for a once-in-a-lifetime summer.
Once she arrives in Paris, Mia and Ansel find it difficult to settle into married life. Then Mia comes up with the idea of roleplaying as a way to loosen up their inhibitions. Interestingly, what starts out as some definite hot spice in the bedroom, ends up being the catalyst that allows this couple to open up to one other.
While the story was most certainly a hit in my book, the narration, unfortunately, had some very significant issues. The most distracting one was the repetitive cadence that Shayna Thibodeaux used almost throughout the entire book. Irrespective of the particular action or emotion being conveyed, Ms. Thibodeaux seems to deliver nearly every paragraph with a cadence that begins slowly, then accelerates to almost a fevered pitch, and then slowly decelerates ending in a huge gulp of air. While I have noted breathing issues in other reviews, the unusual unvarying rhythm of her speech that preceded the audible gasps, was perhaps even more disturbing. I kept finding myself daydreaming or listening to confirm that I was actually hearing the same exact changes in the tempo yet again rather than listening to the story. This forced me to rewind and listen to it again for the substance. Additionally, Ms. Thibodeaux doesn’t vary her intonation much for characters of the same gender. This caused me to have difficulty distinguishing between a number of the characters, particularly Mia’s friends who all sounded the same to me.
I did enjoy of Ms. Thibodeaux’s portrayal of Ansel – he sounded so yummy! She voiced his character with just the right amount of a French accent and, to my ear, sounded authentic in her delivery of his French dialogue. Additionally, his “sweet filthy” parts were perhaps the best parts of her narration (and, interestingly, the only ones that were completely devoid of the problems I noted in the previous paragraph!). Mia also seemed generally character appropriate and was easily distinguishable from Ansel, so that was also a plus.
All in all, I found Sweet Filthy Boy to be a refreshing, believable, and memorable love story. It really highlighted the anguish that so many couples feel when confronted with the prospect of a long-distance relationship. In today’s world of power couples, I believe this tension will resonate with many who have to find a way to either partly compromise when it comes to their careers or potentially lose their soul mates.
BJ
Narration: C-
Book Content: B+
Steam Factor: For your burning ears only
Violence: None
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Sweet Filthy Boy was provided to AudioGals for review by Simon and Schuster Audio.
I came across this narrator in another book and had the same issue BJ.