Not For Me

2 out of 5 stars

I was so looking forward to listening to this! The reviews are all mostly positive so I dived in eagerly, but oh my word, the narrator was awful. Maybe it was this fact that had me disliking the book too, I don’t know for sure!

The world is separated into two different factions as such, the below ground dwellers who are waiting till the world is habitable again, and the mutations, people who live on the surface but have some form of mutation. Isabella is a below ground dweller and has never been outside in her 16 years. Her grandfather tells her that the mutants are dangerous, not really human and would kill and eat you if they had the chance. But Isabella is curious and when she sees some mutants swimming in a pool above their shelter (don’t ask me why they have a see-through pool above them anyway) she needs to investigate. Night after night she puts on her grandfathers’ safety suit until she is caught by one of the mutants, Malcolm. She soon learns that he isn’t like her grandfather said and she decides to leave with Malcolm and his tribe and step into the outside!

Sounds good, right?? It kind of was, but also wasn’t. Isabella was annoying at times and I couldn’t connect with her. She literally falls in love with the first guy she has ever seen, (that wasn’t related to her) and is completely focused on him. I really wish she would have experienced some of the outside first and then met Malcolm and fallen in love. I think it would have made it more real, instead, she wants to marry a boy she only just met and knows next to nothing about. Plus she has no problem leaving her family behind, she didn’t really hesitate! It felt too unreal.

The overall plot was slow. Not much happens for ages, only Isabella fawning over Malcolm, and I felt like giving up then, but I kept listening because I had to give it a fair chance. And while I finished it, I really don’t think I’ll keep on with the series. I didn’t connect with the characters or care what happens to them, unfortunately.

Now onto Carlo Libertini. I rarely give a one star to any narrator because they put a lot of effort into their work, but this narrator read the whole book as if he was reading it to a young child, He read it in a happy, uplifting tone the whole way through and it really, really grated on my nerves and I had to speed up the narration to make it any bit bearable. He made the story extra hard to get into or like.

Book Description:

Into The Outside by Henry Dixon, Lynda Engler
Narrator: Carlo Libertini
Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
Series: Into The Outside #1
Published by Self Published on July 22nd 2016
Genres: Post-Apocalyptic
Brian
Latest posts by Brian (see all)

Related Posts

2 thoughts on “Audiobook: Into The Outside by Lynda Engler & Henry Dixon (Narrated by Carlo Libertini)”

    1. Oh, I’ve had a ton of those. A couple more 3-4 star books coming in the next couple days. Nothing amazing, nothing super disappointing either.

      Reply

Leave a Reply