I saw a live of the narrator reading another book and was impressed with her acting, so I looked up books she has read previously. I saw this one and based on reviews, gave it a try. My mistake.
The narration was awful. Each sentence was stunted with weird pauses between each word, as if a period fell after every word in the book. It was so distracting that it was hard to ignore.
But the story was just awful. It had so much promise, but became so unbelievable that it was laughable.
*Spoilers below*
We’re supposed to believe that the FMC just doesn’t spark even one flick of remembrance in her brother or childhood friend? Not once? Not even through their weird and random torture they put her through? All for…jealousy? The explanation between the warring kingdom and clan is barely explained and yet we are supposed to buy this complete hatred amongst the two. Plus, the fixation the FMC had on her best friend (a mermaid we really don’t get to know beyond surface level), borders on obsessive, so much so that I was waiting for a lesbian storyline to emerge. THAT would have made this at least interesting!
I DNFd this book about 3/4 of the way through. I found I just didn’t care about any character to finish to learn about their fate.
And now I am treading very carefully before listening to another novel with this narrator because if that pausing is truly her style, then I won’t be giving her books another listen.