...Bookfanatic

First things first, let's get it out of the way right off the bat...I am totally a Heidi Cullinan fan. I read and loved more than a couple of her books...Nowhere Ranch, Carry the Ocean, Dance With Me, her Minnesota series...I've loved them all...and I wanted to love this one truly I did...but I just couldn't.

Now the other thing I want to make perfectly clear is that I was given an audio copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. So yes, I listened to this book from start to finish and the result was that at the end of it all. There was more that didn't work for me than did.  I'm going to try and explain some of both but at the end of it all there are a lot of really good reviews out there both for and against this book...read them, check them all out because you never know one mans treasure and all that....

Let's start with what attracted me to this book and whether it in fact worked for me or not...

The cover...specifically the manga art style used. I raised a son who loves manga. It's not a passion that he got from either of his parents...he found it all on his own and he shared it with his mom. I've read 'Full Metal Alchemist' I've watched the anime, I've also watched 'Wolf's Rain' , 'Samurai Champloo' and 'Deathnote' and I've read some of 'Bleach', 'Nana' and a few more with titles that elude me at the moment. Trust me it's been a few years and my point is not that I'm an expert by any stretch of the imagination just that this is something that I'm familiar with so it's a bit of the reason that my eye was drawn to the cover of this book.

The whole aspect of these college kids being into mange...yeah, that worked for me. I've had more than a few college age kids pass through the doors of my home and more than a few of them have been dedicated fans to one or more anime/mange titles. 

What didn't work for me was the 'over the top' fanaticism about Japanese culture. I can understand and appreciate someone having a really strong interest...dedication, if you will to Japanese culture. It's a culture that steeped in ritual, beauty and an incredible history but somewhere along the way in this story I started to feel like the focus was more about Japan than the story that was being told. 

I was intrigued by the idea of a story with characters who weren't the usual straight, gay, bi colors on the rainbow. I wanted something new different and hopefully maybe at least a little bit enlightening and informative. Sadly I have to say that I really don't feel any more enlightened or informed when it comes to aspects of the ace-spectrum or being non-binary and while I honestly don't expect to learn about gender and/or sexuality in a book that's fiction. I like to at least feel comfortable with the representation that's being presented in the book and I have to admit I'm not sure that I was in this book and that was at least partially due to the fact that there was just too much going on in this story and not enough clarity given to some things.

I'm not even sure that I could really cover all the different aspects of this story...it was a lot! Which leads to my next point...

In general the blurb interested me and this sounded like it was going to be an interesting and enlightening story. Only for me it just ended up being one really, really busy story that sometimes left me feeling like I was running down a lot of dead end roads or maybe more accurately like a dog chasing it's tale...the end was always there in sight and I just couldn't quite catch it...

and lastly on this list...I was offered the opportunity to listen to the audiobook and for some reason the idea of listening to this one on audio sounded like it would be a really good plan...ok, really not so much. I admit it, this ended up being one of the biggest issues I had...

Iggy Toma was the narrator on this one and while I haven't listened to any audio books by this narrator to date. I have listened to a number of samples of books that he's narrated and there are a few of them on my wish list for the next tie I go shopping. 

Unfortunately 'Antisocial' was not a good match for me. There were times that it seemed like Xander and Skylar's voices sounded remarkably close. Skylar's friend, Unc simply did not sound like a young college student...but more like some of the seniors that I cared for when I worked in a nursing home. But worse than any of this was Xander's friend Zelda. I wanted them to be feisty, confident, person who stood up not just for themselves but for their friends and I'm sorry to say that was not what came to mind when I heard Zelda's voice. Quite honestly what came to mind whenever Zelda spoke was the word 'harpy'...again people, this is very much a personal preference issue. Other's who listened to the audio book may very well differ in how they perceived Zelda's voice...once again it's subjective opinion time.

While there are things that may or may not work for each of us as readers. This is something that I think is common to all books and while I really, really wanted and thought that I was going to love this audio book at the end of the story it turns out that I didn't...am I sorry that I took the time to listen to it...no I'm not. It was a listening experience that I appreciate the author sharing with me.