Narrated by Elizabeth Evans and Anthony Ferguson
Welcome to a world populated by humans, the Nephilim, and the Stained. Who are the Stained and what do they do? Well, even after reading this first installment in Ella James’ Stained series, I’m afraid I can’t give you a good answer, and it isn’t for fear of spoilers. Rather, it’s because I simply don’t know. I finished listening to this seven-hour-long book and shook my head in utter bewilderment. Sadly, Stained is one of those books that didn’t manage to live up to its synopsis, and lack of clarity is a huge reason why. Add to this some very average narration, and you’ve got a recipe for dissatisfaction.
Seventeen-year-old Julia is pretty sure her life has finally worked out for the best. She’s no longer being moved from one foster home to the next, and her days spent in the county children’s home are nothing but memories. She traded a life of uncertainty for something loving and stable. So, imagine her surprise when she comes home from a friend’s house to find her house aflame, and a winged creature hunting her from the sky. Julia knows her secret has finally caught up with her, and, rather than waiting around for the police or fire department, she takes off into the night. Are you confused yet?
Julia decides to hold up in an abandoned warehouse. Somehow, that’s better than talking to the police or potentially ending up in another foster home. Granted, she doesn’t realize the warehouse is already inhabited, but, even when she’s confronted by the young man who has been staying there, she doesn’t leave. Oh no! Instead, she joins forces with the sexy stranger, even though he gives her next to no information about himself. He seems to know a lot about her too, but he doesn’t think it’s worth revealing, and Julia only makes a token effort to get him to share what he knows.
Cayne is a Nephilim, half human and half demon, with super powers by the dozen. He’s intent on killing Samyaza, who is also a Nephilim, and responsible for killing Julia’s parents. He knows Julia is who Samyaza is really after, but he decides not to tell her why. Grudgingly, he admits that it has something to do with the strange birthmark she bears, and with her ability to heal the injured, but he won’t reveal more than that. Instead, he’s dark, brooding, and supposedly very attractive. Maybe he’s supposed to come off as mysterious, but it didn’t work for me. Instead, I found him ten kinds of irritating, and totally unsympathetic. He wasn’t hero material, but that’s obviously just my opinion. Even Samyaza, who is the story’s villain, had more believable motivations than Cayne does. There’s something very wrong with this picture.
Both Anthony Ferguson and Elizabeth Evans were entirely unsuited to this book. Neither sounds remotely like a teenager, which was very distracting since that’s exactly what Julia is, and Cayne masquerades as someone barely out of high school. There are a ton of narrators who could have performed this book with quite a bit of aplomb. Sadly, Ms. Evans and Mr. Ferguson didn’t even seem to try.
If you take away the fact that Ms. Evans sounds at least forty, you might say she’s a decent performer. Her character differentiation is very good. I was impressed with the wide array of pitches and accents she employed to make sure the listener always knows who is speaking. Her delivery was very well-modulated and her pacing matched the text very well. Still, I couldn’t get past the fact that she sounded far too old for our heroine.
I’ve heard people rave about Anthony Ferguson’s skill as a narrator. This was my first experience listening to him, and I found his performance here to be inconsistent at best. There were times when he spoke with something resembling a New York accent. Then, he would slip into a Scottish brogue. Normally, narrators use different accents to depict different characters. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this is the norm. However, Mr. Ferguson sometimes seemed to forget which voice he assigned to which character. Cayne is supposed to be Scottish, but he only sounds like it about half of the time.
I was singularly unimpressed by Mr. Ferguson’s portrayal of Julia. His voice is far too deep and resonant. He attempted to raise the pitch when speaking for Julia, but this resulted in something very close to a squawk. Then, factor in the small matter of Julia’s southern accent. The combination was far from attractive.
The story itself is full of holes. Aside from the fact that Cayne and Julia act in ways that defy logic, the premise itself just didn’t make sense to me. Julia is one of the stained, but, as I said before, I really don’t know what that means. All I know is they all have birthmarks, and I assume they all have some kind of supernatural ability, but I don’t know that for sure. Julia knows nothing of others like her. Her information only comes from Cayne, and he doesn’t share very much.
Stained definitely has a Young Adult feel to it. The sexual tension is more implied than actually present. Most of the characters, but Julia in particular, were very immature. This made them difficult to identify with. I had to remind myself on numerous occasions that these were teenagers, but that didn’t seem like enough of a reason for the bizarre nature of some of their actions.
Perhaps some of my questions can be answered by Book 2 in the Stained series. Sadly, I don’t care enough to find out.
Shannon
Narration: Elizabeth Evans: C and Anthony Ferguson: D
Book Content: D
Steam Factor: You can play it out loud
Violence: Fighting
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Audible, Inc.
Stained was provided to AudioGals by Audible, Inc. for review.
