Jonathan Maberry is real hit or miss for me. I like the Joe Ledger series even though I generally hate his writing style. But I still keep giving him a chance. This book won the Bram Stoker Award so I thought I was in for something good here. If this is what they honor, then I don't actually get what the BSA is about.

Once again Maberry has about fifty million characters and we have to jump to all of their POVs. It didn't feel like there was any sort of cohesive story just random vignettes that pull together separately. It was all slow as hell. There were hints at horror elements, but not enough for there to be anything called horror, really. There was more of the human crime element.

Even the people that were obviously supposed to be the good protagonists weren't in my opinion. Everyone knew this guy Vic is beating on his 14-year-old stepson but no one does anything about it because Vic is friends with cops or some such nonsense. Our "hero" Crowe calls himself doing something by befriending the kid, Mike. On this night Mike had already gotten into an accident and was injured and Crowe knew that sending him home with his stepfather was a bad, dangerous idea but did it anyway because the Mayor told him to. When he leaves the kid to do the job he was tasked with and comes back to be told by a witness that Vic came to get Mike and full on punched him in the gut before tossing him in the car, Crowe was pissed. And that was about it. We're then treated to a very extended and graphic scene of Vic beating the ever-loving shit out of Mike. It was horrific and supposed to somehow be ameliorated because Mike realizes that Vic is nothing more than human during the beating? What the?

Back to Crowe and the very next thing he's thinking about getting home to his girlfriend and the meal she cooked him. That's when I was done with this book. There are no good guys in this story if they just let something like that go on and do nothing. He didn't even bother to go check on the kid! Then he realized said girlfriend was probably in trouble and that's all that mattered. Speaking of the girlfriend, the topper on my DNF was her running back to the farm where the killer who had kidnapped her and her family was instead of trying to get any sort of help.

I don't care about these characters at all. Except Mike and since he isn't getting help I can't stand to read/listen to more. I don't care about what's coming, if anything is coming because the whole thing has been boring as hell. And long as hell. I actually groaned out loud when I was halfway through because there was still another seven hours left! I tried, but it's not worth my time. I'm super disappointed. I was hoping to have a fun creepy/scary trilogy to get me through the rest of October.

ETA: I forgot to mention that the narrator was pretty awful as well. I actually ended up getting used to him eventually, but he was in no way good.

You can tell Audible out a lot of work into producing this audiobook. There is a full cast of actors playing different voices, fully acting out their parts complete with sound effects.

All of this is really great, however, when adapting the graphic novel they did not adapt the action in the panels. So this was very much like listening to a television show. There were a ton of times where action was happening but the listener has absolutely no idea what is going on or what just happened (unless, if course, they are following along in the books or have read them before). I could follow along with the story for the most part but there were big gaps in my understanding. The people adapting the comic should have turned the action panels into exposition. Especially in this case as the authors were involved in the production. 

I can't complain too much, I suppose, as I got a decent amount of entertainment from this free audiobook. Thankfully my library has these in e-comic form so I'll eventually go through them. If you're going to listen to this I'd suggest you check to see if you can get your hands on the books to read along.

I liked the story itself well enough though the resolution of one element at the end didn't make sense to me. I didn't mind that it happened—I expected it to—I just wasn't down with the way it happened. And I really disliked some of the deaths. Speaking of which,

P.S. If you want to try it out, it is still free and will be until November 4th. Can't beat that price, at least.

How sexy he finds her.

What he wants to do to her.

How long he's wanted to do it.

His feeling on all the parts of her body.

What her breasts look like.

What her nipples look like.

What they taste like.

What her vagina looks like.

What her vagina feels like.

What her vagina tastes like.

Everything he wants to do with her vagina.

What he does to her vagina.

How wet her vagina is.

How sexy she finds him.

What she wants to do with him.

How long she has wanted to do it.

Her feeling on all the parts of his body.

What his body looks like.

What his penis looks like.

How erect his penis is.

How big and erect his penis is.

What color his penis is when it is super erect.

What his penis looks like as it is erect.

What the veins of his penis look like as he is getting erect.

What his penis feels like in her hands.

What his penis tastes like.*

What his penis feels like in side her.

What both their genitalia looks like as he moves in and out of her.

What both their genitalia looks like when he pulls out of her.

What the build up to orgasm feels like.

What the orgasm feel like and do to them.

How much they want to do all the sex again.

What I don't know . . .

Why in the hell these two think they're in love with each other.

Yeah, graphic (though not as graphic as the actual book) but I think represents my problem here well. This book was all show when it came to sex but nothing but tell when it came to them being in "love". They knew each other nearly two years ago in Syria is as much as we're given. In this book they're either talking about the mission or sex. There was one little spate of getting to know each other's backgrounds. "He loved her and now he wanted to know everything about her." Sigh. Okay.

Oddly, there was a secondary couple that met during the book and THEY had real conversation and I can see what they have in common and would like about each other outside of sexual attraction. Why couldn't we get any of that for the primary couple? I might listen to the next book if the library gets it if it is this secondary couple hoping that we'll get even more of a foundation since there is at least already one in place for that story.

The other major problem with future books in this series, aside from knowing there'll be an overabundance of graphic sex supplanting story and unnecessary POV jumping is this strange thing of Walker describing the women as so diminutive they look like children. Thankfully the heroine of this book was adult sized. But the hero of the secondary couple initially thought the heroine was a little boy. Then called her a sexy cherub. Uh, ew. At the end of the book the historian they hired showed up and it's clear she's going to be the heroine of a future book and she's described as looking like a little girl at first. What is that? That's so creepy. Especially when they're going to be paired with these massive former Navy SEALS. It kind of reminded me of seeing Hayden Panettiere and her husband at first. See? But worse because it's going to be so graphically described.

Meh. We'll see. If the library gets any more of this series in and whether or not I run out of other things to listen to I might listen to the next book.

Because in the first three chapters we're tortured with Psycho-POV more than three times longer than the hero and heroine's POVs combined. On top of that, before the story has really started, before we find out more about the heroine even (other than what we know about them from the first two books) we have to suffer through an exceedingly long, excruciatingly explicit rape and murder scene. Why in the name of all that's fucking holy was that necessary?

It wasn't. All of it just made me want to flounce this book. I might have if I weren't indisposed at the time. But I made it through the first two books so I want to know if I'm right about who the killer is. Even my hopes the heroine wouldn't be as annoying and bitchy as she was in the last book have been dashed so far. I hope it gets better.  I hate it when books make me all ragey. Especially right off the bat. 

I picked up this book for two reasons:
1. The cover
2. Alison Sweeney
More about this on the full review on my blog.

Scared Scriptless is the story of Maddy Carson, a 35 year-old talented script supervisor at the hit prime time show The Wrong Doctor. She is very organized and dedicated to her job. She grew up in a small town in Wolf County, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. After high school, following a family friend’s suggestion, she moved to LA to what she thought was just going to be a sort of internship to get the hang of TV production. But it turned out to be a good career which she has enjoyed for the past 10 years.

Maddy’s life revolves around her job. She hadn’t had a serious relationship since she broke up with her high school sweetheart. We meet Maddy as she starts dating an executive at her job but we also see how an actor is trying hard to sweep her off her feet. Maddy is still unsure if dating her boss is a good idea and on the other hand she has a dating rule: No actors. Will she break her rule and find real love? Well, that’s for you to find out. ;)

But this book is not only about the love triangle. On a trip to her hometown, Maddy finds out that everything is not running so great back home. So we follow her as she comes up with a brilliant idea on how she can save the day and keep everything in town running as smoothly and charming as she remembers it to be.

Scared Scriptless is Sweeney’s second book. Having not read the first one, I can’t say if this is a sequel. Even if it is, it is written as a standalone, you don’t get the feeling that you are missing details or info from the previous story.

The characters in this book feel real and that’s what makes this story believable. But what also makes this book credible, are all the details on how a TV show is made. More about this on the full review on my blog.

Scared Scriptless is a nice read, not so fast paced but an enjoyable story. A story about love, friendship, treason, family bonds, perseverance and happily ever afters. I would recommend this book as a “transition read”, i.e. a cute light story after reading a long and heavy book. Definitely a book that all Days of Our Lives fans shouldn’t miss. If you really, really, really miss Samantha get the audiobook narrated by Alison herself! ;) A book for those who want to be in the reality show or day time drama industry, it gives you an idea of how that sort of environment works. A good summer read that would also look cute in your beach/tote/vacation/summer bag. ;)

Samantha Brady may have left Salem for good, but Alison Sweeney is still around and I’m going to check out her next books in the future.

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DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

I received an Electronic copy of this book but was not financially compensated in any way nor obliged to review. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my personal experience while reading it. This post contains affiliate links.