Assist by LA Witt

[lightreads]

Assist

2/5. M/M/M hockey romance (this is a definite thing in the genre now, which is an excellent example to hold up to anyone who thinks fanfiction follows pro romance trends rather than the other way around). I picked this out of the heap because it's poly, but meh. I set this book down yesterday to hang with the toddler, and when I came back to it an hour later I couldn't remember whose POV I was reading, and then couldn't tell for several pages. Which, youch. These are interchangeable bros whose only distinguishing features are their issues, which, like. Write about being scarred by a childhood punctuated by repeated acrimonious divorce if you want, write about being closeted if you must, but maybe, just maybe, write in such a way that you don't mistake giving characters issues for giving them personalities.

Okay okay, now that I've said what's actually wrong with this book, I can admit I got off on a very bad foot with it for the entirely petty reason that the narrator grievously, cringingly, face-palmingly cannot pronounce empanadas. This is the audiobook equivalent of hating the cover.

Comments

[jadelennox]

I have found some books unbearable because an otherwise perfectly acceptable narrator got a pronunciation wrong and the word kept coming up. I don't mind it so much if it's in character not to know, but it can be so painful. There was some recent Boston based book—Tuesday Mooney, maybe—where the narrator couldn't pronounce the names of a bunch of Boston-area places and it pulled me out of the book every time. Just go to youtube! You can find people pronouncing the place name!

[lightreads]

Yeah. Or, very unprofessionally, when two different narrators in a multi-voice project pronounce a proper noun in the book very differently. How does this get past the audio editor? Six of Crows was nearly ruined.

[cyprinella]

A local county name recently showed up in a series I like and the pronunciation was just butchered. And like, English writer, English production company, English VA so I'll give them some leeway but it's so glaring!

[fitzcamel]

......how does one mispronounce empanadas? is this like calling a certain western state Ne-VAY-duh?

[jesse_the_k]

As a former book designer and audio reader, may I suggest it's not the cover as much as the font design, and that stuff matters!

I may never finish Jill Lepore narrating her own These Truths when, digging deep into Progressivism, she pronounces "LaFollette" to rhyme with awful wet.