Promising at First, then Terrible

I took a chance on this one despite the only written review for the book having two stars. At first, I thought the reviewer was crazy or overly picky, and I was really loving the book. It started off cute and with a premise something like Ascension of a Book Worm. Somehow, the plot never went anywhere and the dialogue devolved into something for kids with no memory retention. Also, the reactions of many of the characters were downright odd. Sometimes, when something unexpected happened, there were repeated declarations of surprise and confusion with people repeating that fact over and over and over again. It was just so awkward. Eventually, I had to bail out with two hours to go because the writing was getting worse by the minute and I didn't see any payoff for my suffering in sight. Maybe If you are young enough, you might enjoy this, but otherwise I'd give it a miss.

12 people found this helpful

A great start to a new story

I’ve been wanting light novels to have audio done for them for a while now and this is a very good start to what I hope will be many more books.

4 people found this helpful

wonderfull expirence!

i had a lot of fun listening to this one.
i love isekai!!
enjoyble!!!!

4 people found this helpful

light hearted

I enjoyed it. It's a decent start for a new series
The The 2nd narrator was pretty much useless. He's not bad. If they would have just kept the female Narrator It would be better. Instead of switching off and on. Between the two he could have just done the male voices and she could do the female voices that would be great too. but no He reads a portion of the book she reads the portion of the book It's quite annoying. It's still a good book.

3 people found this helpful

hot garbage

This book sucked, don't waste your credit on it. I feel sorry for anyone who wasted time listen to this junk.

2 people found this helpful

Male narrator is a drag.

I'm not sure why instead of a male narrator doing the male voices and the female the female, perhaps I'm spoiled by SBT doing a good job on theirs, but everytime the male narrator tried to do a female voice I wanted to drop the book. Neither narrator had a good vocal range so characters kinda mashed together as well.

As for the story itself the MC is unrelatable and odd at every turn, her motivation is to repay debt but at the same time she refuses to do anything to help her actually do that 90% of the time. The world building is haphazard at best with half of everything being mild contradiction to previous statements. I'm not looking forward to learning how magic outside alchemy works as it feels like it'll be poor at best.

2 people found this helpful

Slice of life in another world.

Nothing crazy happens, just a simple story for the most part, about the main character growing up in a new world with most of her memories and can use alchemy.

1 person found this helpful

Eager to Hear Where it Goes Next

I very much enjoyed listening to this story. I wouldn't say I've got a firm grasp of the plot or anything like that yet, but the story is still in it's building phase right now. Worldbuilding, character building, and very slowly plot building. Like anyone starting life from the very beginning, the protagonist doesn't have a clear sense of direction or purpose yet, but she is discovering her talents and the aspects of this world that she's going to have to live with and deal with as she ages, so I have hopes about how this story may develope. As a standalone book, the most notable part about this first volume, I think, is the themes of trust and familial bonds. Our protagonist is not a one-dimensional character lacking personality or backstory. There's something from her past life (which I won't spoil) weighing on her that makes living with her new adopted family all the more awkward. While conversely, the secondary protagonist is dealing with having unexpectedly adopted a daughter so soon after coming home to divorce papers, his wife and real daughter having left him. This theme of both the worst and best of family and family bonds is very intriguing to me, and I look forward to seeing how that progresses in volume two. Finally as for the reading, I enjoyed it thoroughly. This is the first light novel I've listened to as an audiobook, and I'm probably a bit biasedly pleased with the result. I do think the man and the woman could have made the experience better if they didn't read the opposite gendered lines in their sections, and I would recommend that for the next volume, but I have no issues beyond that.

1 person found this helpful

Promising start but loses steam

This books starts and has themes you will be very familiar with if this isn't your first time with an isekai themed story. There isn't anything groundbreaking but it was a enjoyable causal listen as the books gets going. Cassandra Morris does a fantastic time narrating and is this audiobooks best highlight. Grahm Halstead does a passible job however his parts tend to take me out of the story, that may not be his fault as Ill explain.

The storys starts off basic but interesting, as it gets going we get little bits of world building and some interesting magic/ alchemical systems. Up until this part the book is rather enjoyable. However here the story started to get very bizarre and much less enjoyable in my opinion.

The main male characters dialogue and decision making is so bizarre and clunky that the book almost became impossible to finish. There is a part of the story where his adopted daughter is potentially being kidnapped and his actions here are nothing but bizarre and make no sense as a listener. The story really seems to stall and I found myself becoming less and less interested in our two main characters.

While not a terrible books by any means, it doesn't live up to the potential it sets for itself.

1 person found this helpful

had a hard time finishing the book.

author needs a thesaurus they keep repeating themselves. they write a poor male characters. I will be trying the next one think a drinking might be interesting just chose a word it will be over used