Narrated by Elizabeth Hart and Eric London
Publisher’s Blurb for Roommates: “Life is full of expectations. For Brady Coldwell it’s always been about the game. Hockey is and always will be, his life. His family sacrificed everything to get him here and he won’t let them down. He knows what’s expected of him. Natalie Banks is no different. She too knows what it means to have everyone sacrifice for you. She knows about the debt that’s left owing in the end and the price you pay for making up your own mind. But when an innocent mistake lands them as roommates, neither of them is prepared for the feelings they have or the consequences of their actions. How do you negotiate matters of the heart? How do you say no when it simply feels so right?”
My take on the story: I was fully expecting a typical contemporary sports romance, and based on the cover art, I was even expecting it to possibly be light and maybe even some humor. In fact, the cover is almost Chick Lit. I was mostly wrong about all of this – I don’t want to be too judgy about other people’s lifestyles and preferences, but for me, this was a big, eye-rolling, shoulda-DNFed fail. The opening chapter is from Natalie’s point of view. She is moving out of her childhood home for the first time, at age almost-23. Her family was the least wealthy family in a fabulously wealthy area, and she was a later-in-life only child, so much cosseted and protected. She even lived at home during college, and is dating one of the area’s wealthy bachelors, something that pleases her mother way too much. (He’s a “douche” – just ask the book’s hero.) She’s gotten a job about 1 1/2 hours away from them, and an apartment with a roommate she hasn’t met, recommended by her BFF (a highly famous society gal – think celebrity-level fame here).
When we meet Brady, he’s just been signed to the local hockey team, straight out of the minors. He is thinking about how he’s got this new apartment, with a roommate he hasn’t met (some computer geek), recommended by his BFF who is dating a highly famous society gal – think celebrity-level fame here too, because *surprise* Brady and Natalie got punked by the same couple. He’s at his new job, where he’s being propositioned by the cougar team nurse, and we the readers get to know all about how Brady is a total man-whore, and exactly what he and Nurse Cougar get up to, in exceedingly explicit detail. I actually thought he was just fantasizing and the scene would end with him waking up or something. Nope. Man. Whore. And not just once – we get to see him in action with rink bunnies (well, he calls them PFs) more than once, again, in extremely explicit detail so you don’t mistake what is happening.
As I said, not trying to be judgy and prudish, but I actually don’t want to know exactly how the hero gets down and dirty with other women who are not the heroine, multiple times. And actually, knowing how he prefers to have a lot of man-whore sex with total strangers makes his transition to lovesick hero incredibly unrealistic. On the one hand, Natalie was extremely naive and immature, pretty much the whole story, plus she had a serious drinking problem, getting black-out drunk twice in the first two weeks of her new apartment and job; on the other hand, there’s Brady screwing his way across Connecticut and letting us all in on the action. Mind you, this was not told in angsty tones – no backstories of drug or sexual abuse, no mental illness, nothing dystopian – it was told as a regular contemporary with what might have been lighter moments (I can’t say “humor” was ever present). Even Natalie’s drinking was glossed over, and not treated as a problem, although I was horrified at her coming in to a new job with a hangover. Twice. (I would have fired her.)
My take on the narration: Maybe if the narrators hadn’t both sounded like they were 17, this wouldn’t have been as distasteful. I honestly felt like I was eavesdropping on a preteen sleepover at times, except with exceedingly graphic sex talk. Elizabeth Hart’s Natalie was young and immature, which I guess is also how she was written. Hart had one really great talent – she created a large difference in pitch between Natalie and Brady, with a pretty believable sound for him. However, her pacing was unnaturally stilted and sounded very much like reading aloud in high school. She did something I consider a cardinal sin when speaking – unless one is affecting an accent where this is common – she pronounced “get” as “git”. We’re talking about rich people in Connecticut, not Appalachian country folk or bayou country Louisiana (where I grew up). I cringed every time she said it. I could not distinguish between Natalie and the BFF Sami when they had dialogue together. Eric London also had a young sound, which contrasted in my mind with other similar 2-POV contemporary romances with cocky heroes, like Lauren Blakely’s Mister O and Big Rock; those heroes also think highly of their sexual prowess, but somehow the narration makes them sound more humorous and more like poking fun at themselves (and they all sound older and more mature). I didn’t have anything against London’s delivery – he didn’t make the mistake of using falsetto for women’s – I mean, girls’ voices (that’s what the author called them). His pacing was more natural than Hart’s, and I could usually tell who was talking. He didn’t say “git”. These are all pluses for him, but didn’t redeem the listen for me.
Look – I get it – I’m getting up there in years. Maybe my expectations were too, I dunno, unrealistic. One Amazon reviewer mentioned that it seemed very graphic for a teen book – so maybe I just misunderstood who the target audience was. I’m not a fan of Young Adult or of New Age, which in my mind has a lot darker plot, with more angst than this book had. This was Sweet Valley High with graphic sex (with random strangers). And mean girls and boys. And the boy got the girl in the end. It was so, so painful for me. It’s always the case, but especially with this book: YMMV, but I won’t be revisiting this author.
Melinda
Narration: Hart C- and London B
Book Content: D-
Steam Factor: For your burning ears only
Violence Rating: None
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Roommates was provided to AudioGals by Tantor Audio for a review.
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