Strings Attached - Nick Nolan,Luke Danie...

Audible

I decided to mark my audio books with an extra sign, because I don't want to mislead you.
As I've noticed, audio books that I enjoyed make often a different impression on my GR friends when they pick up an eBook after reading my review. No, it is not an excuse for loving a book, that someone might not, but just an attempt to explain that I have other criteria in rating an audio book, comparing to an eBook. A good audio book is for me 60% a plot and 40% a performance.

And [b:Strings Attached|108296|Strings Attached (Tales from Ballena Beach, #1)|Nick Nolan|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1388518659s/108296.jpg|104356] had all my attention during listening to it. Yes, thanks to a terrific narration by [a:Luke Daniels|2978188|Luke Daniels|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1331514576p2/2978188.jpg]. He created a wonderful movie in my head, that had everything I needed to enjoy it. Let me say so: it started like a family drama, changed to Disney sweet tale, and then turned suddenly into a thriller, with a mystery part, that normally would make me roll my eyes. But here it was just about right. I totally bought it and ate up without hesitation. A poor boy who suddenly became a rich boy, whose life changed from one day to another, but who kept his heart at the right side.

A charming, sweet, quick pacing and multifaceted story-line, well-developed characters, many touching moments, not without a Disney influence, and an excellent narrating. What do you need more?!

I received this book for free from Brilliance Audio in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Double Bound was released by Brilliance Audio at the same time as Strings Attached, so I requested them both. While I wasn’t exactly impressed with Strings Attached, I did like Arthur, so I decided to listen to Double Bound anyway.

Double Bound is Arthur’s story. It begins with brief flashes of his life prior to Jeremy’s arrival in Belena Beach, but quickly returns to the present. As he, Jeremy, and Carlo travel to Brazil to work out a deal with some luxury hotels, Arthur starts to confront his own feelings for Jeremy. There’s not much time to worry about feelings when they all find themselves in trouble in an unfamiliar country.

An immediate problem I had with this book was the way the expository information was presented. I think it was important to understand Arthur’s background, but I think it would have been better had it been fleshed out throughout the novel, instead of introduced in weird little sections at the beginning. Despite that, I liked learning more about Arthur and really getting to the core of why he acts the way he does sometimes. When it got to the core conflict of the story, I became a little disinterested. Honestly, I was more interested in the romantic subplot, and that’s a problem. The mystery-esque suspense story just wasn’t doing it for me. I knew where things were going the whole time. Sometimes that doesn’t bother me, but I like being surprised by suspense stories, and I never felt that. The story was okay for me, but I can’t think of many things to give high praise. One thing I do appreciate about both Double Bound and Strings Attached is the relationship between Jeremy and Carlo. It’s so rare that I read a book with an interracial couple. Most of time if I do, it feels forced or like it’s a tool to teach a lesson. Their relationship never felt that way. It felt natural and I wish I could come across more books (or TV or movies) that achieve that because it’s reality. I get sick of watching and reading about white people hanging out with other white people. That’s an entirely different subject though.

I think Luke Daniels is an excellent voice actor. He gives fully-voiced performances with character voices that very recognizable. He did a few Mexican and Brazilian accents, and I thought they sounded pretty authentic. He has great syntax and pacing, and he does a good job getting emotionally invested in the performance. My problem is that I didn’t like his voice for this book. I can’t explain why, I just didn’t, and that cost the narration a better rating. The production was great, though I wasn’t crazy about the music choice for the title and credits. Still, I’m always impressed by the quality audiobooks Brilliance produces. They’re one of my favorite audiobook publishers.

I was interested to find that some people had shelved this as M/M Romance on Goodreads. For those of you who don’t know, that stands for male-on-male. I can kind of see why someone might do that. There is a romantic subplot, and there are relatively explicit sexual scenes (though not many). Still, when choosing genres, I try to look for “the main point.” This book really isn’t about Arthur falling in love with someone. That’s a part of the story, but it’s not what everything revolves around. Also, in my experience, M/M Romance is MUCH more explicit than this book. All that said, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to anyone under the age of 18.

 

Double Bound was released by Brilliance Audio at the same time as Strings Attached, so I requested them both. While I wasn’t exactly impressed withStrings Attached, I did like Arthur, so I decided to listen to Double Bound anyway.

 

Double Bound is Arthur’s story. It begins with brief flashes of his life prior to Jeremy’s arrival in Belena Beach, but quickly returns to the present. As he, Jeremy, and Carlo travel to Brazil to work out a deal with some luxury hotels, Arthur starts to confront his own feelings for Jeremy. There’s not much time to worry about feelings when they all find themselves in trouble in an unfamiliar country.

 

An immediate problem I had with this book was the way the expository information was presented. I think it was important to understand Arthur’s background, but I think it would have been better had it been fleshed out throughout the novel, instead of introduced in weird little sections at the beginning. Despite that, I liked learning more about Arthur and really getting to the core of why he acts the way he does sometimes. When it got to the core conflict of the story, I became a little disinterested. Honestly, I was more interested in the romantic subplot, and that’s a problem. The mystery-esque suspense story just wasn’t doing it for me. I knew where things were going the whole time. Sometimes that doesn’t bother me, but I like being surprised by suspense stories, and I never felt that. The story was okay for me, but I can’t think of many things to give high praise. One thing I do appreciate about both Double Bound and Strings Attached is the relationship between Jeremy and Carlo. It’s so rare that I read a book with an interracial couple. Most of time if I do, it feels forced or like it’s a tool to teach a lesson. Their relationship never felt that way. It felt natural and I wish I could come across more books (or TV or movies) that achieve that because it’s reality. I get sick of watching and reading about white people hanging out with other white people. That’s an entirely different subject though.

 

I think Luke Daniels is an excellent voice actor. He gives fully-voiced performances with character voices that very recognizable. He did a few Mexican and Brazilian accents, and I thought they sounded pretty authentic. He has great syntax and pacing, and he does a good job getting emotionally invested in the performance. My problem is that I didn’t like his voice for this book. I can’t explain why, I just didn’t, and that cost the narration a better rating. The production was great, though I wasn’t crazy about the music choice for the title and credits. Still, I’m always impressed by the quality audiobooks Brilliance produces. They’re one of my favorite audiobook publishers.

 

I was interested to find that some people had shelved this as M/M Romance on Goodreads. For those of you who don’t know, that stands for male-on-male. I can kind of see why someone might do that. There is a romantic subplot, and there are relatively explicit sexual scenes (though not many). Still, when choosing genres, I try to look for “the main point.” This book really isn’t about Arthur falling in love with someone. That’s a part of the story, but it’s not what everything revolves around. Also, in my experience, M/M Romance is MUCH more explicit than this book. All that said, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to anyone under the age of 18.

I really wanted to like this book. The writing was great and the beginning really caught me. Arthur was a very interesting person at the start, and his depression was described very well.But then the story went down the drain for me.I didn't like the sexual tension between the father figure and the son of his first love - that felt wrong to me. Then the age difference: A 39 year old and an 18 year old? I don't buy into the "I had a hard childhood and therefore mentally I am MUCH older than my young and sexy body looks like"...the old guy had a hard youth as well, how old does that make him now according to this logic?I think that especially young people who have a unstable or difficult youth are even more vulnerable. I never really believed in this "hard experiences make you more mature and strong". It might be true for some people, but my personal experience with pretty much everybody I ever met, says clearly different. I think it is kind of a nice idea that you get maturity and wisdom out of a shitty childhood, but in real life? I am not so sure. And the relationship doesn't prevail. So the whole "I love you so much, can't live without you" is more or less pointless, because they stay "only" friends in the end. Would have made a better story imo if they didn't fool around with each other in the first place - the whole Daddy-re-live-first love-issue was a bit much, especially with the physical similarities between father and son. I don't know, but in Jeremy's place, I would not feel so special and cherished and loved for myself, if I found out my lover was the first love of my Dad's, whose spitting image I am...As I said, I enjoyed the very good writing (some even poetic phrases in between), but the story and characters were not really interesting to me and hit some sore points with me.

Yeees let's start the book off with the Evil, Drug Abusing, Whorish Mother trope. Let's Do This. This will in nooo way make the reader hate the author. Nope. Not at all. All women are whores you see. WHORES (except you, pure reader, who paid good money for this drivel)

I think I got about three pages in.

Here's a clue, don't start your novel off by shredding the mother of the MC's child. I didn't even have a reason to care about him when he started throwing her sexuality in her face. If I were her, I'd hate him too! Shocking ain't it.

Edit because I guess that wasn't the MC? I guess? I really don't know and don't care to find out because they were both so hateful I can't see the book improving from that.