Audiobooks Olga Listened To - The Kiss Quotient, Wicked King, Love and Luck

Do you know what the best part of your mother leaving the country for two weeks and leaving you her car to use in the meantime is? Getting to listen to audiobooks during your commute! And that's what I did because I never get to do that otherwise! And I was very happy with the audiobooks I picked out, and they made my driving experience all the more fun. Here are the ones I read with my thoughts below:

1. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

This is an adult chick-lit about Stella, who is a brilliant economist who struggles with Asperger's syndrome. She had horrible experiences with dating previously, so she decides to hire a male escort, Michael, to teach her to date and have sex. And as I'm sure you guys are expecting, the two end up growing closer than expected. Michael is also not who he seems to be...

I loved this! The audio experience enhanced the wonderful too! I found the characters very believable and I liked the slow burn romance between the two main characters! Both of the characters had pretty rich backstories, and more details on them were revealed with each chapter, it almost felt like a mystery book, getting the clue little by little with every listen.

I also think it's very important to have books that have proper representation of autistic characters (the author of this also has Asperger's, so I felt confident that it was represented properly in the book). Overall, it was very well written and thoroughly enjoyable!

As for the audio experience, this one was quite different from what I expected... There was background music! And most of the time it did help enhance the experience and set a nice mood to the scene! I especially liked it in the scene where they go to a club and Stella feels overwhelmed with all the sounds, and the background clubbing-type music kept going faster and faster. The only time I didn't like it was during the steamy scene, it sounded quite cringy there.

2. The Wicked King by Holly Black

This is the sequel to A Cruel Prince, which is all about a human girl named Jude, who is living in the Faerie world and is trying to navigate the politics of it and the alienation she experiences from the Fae.

This was a strong continuation from its predecessor! I liked the first one (but didn't love it as much as some others did), and it took me a while to get into  the second one, but once I did I really enjoyed the twists! It felt like the word expanded and that we met more characters and saw more settings there!

And that ending though! I must have the third book! I'm so happy it's coming out in the fall!

The narrator for the audiobook was fine, didn't mind her, but her reading performance wasn't particularly remarkable.

I feel like I didn't write much about this one, but the highlights of this I can't really describe because of spoilers, so you will just have to read this series for yourself and decide!

3. Love and Luck by Jenna Evans Welch

This is a companion novel to Love and Gelato (previously reviewed on here by the lovely Meghan). You don't need to read that one to read this one, but the ending of it will be spoiled for you!

But anyway, this one is all about Addie who goes to Ireland where she randomly gets stuck on a road trip with her brother, who she is not on good terms with, after something went wrong the past school year. She in thrown into a tour of Irish sites, trying to heal her broken heart, and come to terms with previous events.

This one was awesome! It definitely lived up to the high expectation that Love and Gelato left for me when I read it. I was a little worried that this one would disappoint but it definitely didn't!

Some chapters are preceded by excerpts from an Irish travel book for the broken-hearted, and those entries were probably my favourite parts of the book. The narrator of those sounded genuinely sweet and also really funny! The audiobook narrator did a lovely job with reading in her voice as well.

If you expect this book to be a romance (which you might considering the title), there's not a whole lot of romance. And Im happy that the author didn't try to shove it in there too much, cause it would disturb the flow of the book otherwise. This is more of a travel/dealing with hard times/family relationships book. And I think that it presented the relationships that one has with siblings really well. The main character's family is crazy and somewhat chaotic but you can tell that there's a lot of love there. Teh characters in general were well drawn out, and I think that everyone will see a bit of themselves in at least one of them!

I also reaaallllly need to get myself to Ireland! I wonder if Electric Picnic is real?

Do you guys ever listen to audiobooks? Let us know in the comments below!

Olga