Narrated by Renee Chambliss
Defiance is a book that has been on my radar for over a couple of years now. Of course, as with all things TBR list related, it got shuffled to the middle of the stack with each new release. However, when it came out in audio format this year, I didn’t hesitate to use one of my (precious!) Audible credits and snap it up. Unfortunately, it looks like I’ll be using that handy dandy return button Audible has.
Rachel Adams has hit a wall of hopelessness. It has been sixty days since her father set out on a courier mission and didn’t return. Under the laws of her community, he is to be declared dead and forgotten. Rachel knows, however, he can’t be dead. He knew the Wasteland better than any other person and if anyone could survive it, it would be him. But the Commander, the leader of their community, refuses to send out a search party. If only he would, Rachel knows they could find her father. She has a plan if anyone would listen.
Rachel’s plans change when it’s discovered her new guardian is none other than Logan McIntyre. Not only is Logan not an appropriate guardian – he is only two years older than her – he is the man she declared her love to and who then denied her. There’s no way her father would have put him in charge of her care. But Logan, too, loved her father; maybe he will help her to search for her dad. When Logan says no, Rachel vows she will do whatever it takes to go and rescue her father.
As my introduction suggests, Defiance is not one of my favorite books. From the beginning, it is a difficult listen to get into. I tried several times to start it then finally had to force myself to sit down and listen. The author captured that impetuousness and “damn the torpedoes” spirit that all teens seem to have. And this is the problem; this impetuous, annoying-on-a-good-day (as any person who works with teens will tell you) is not tempered with any intelligence or lesson learned attitudes. Rachel is particularly guilty of this – she never thinks about the consequences of her actions on others. She never seems to learn from the mistakes she makes. I will say the romance aspect of this book is developing nicely though. It does cover the ground of first love and the embarrassment and angst associated with it.
The narration of this story is not to my taste. Chambliss captures the youth of Rachel and Logan and some of the age of the Commander. However, her choice for the male characters leaves much to be desired. They all sound fake with slow, low gravelly voices reminiscent of Bale as Batman (and man do I dislike that affectation!). I want to say I have heard worse productions, in terms of production quality and voice, so don’t think there are major issues with the overall performance. There aren’t; I just really didn’t like her choices. I even tried to speed up the narration to see if it helped but it didn’t. Something else – she sometimes forgot which character she was portraying. I noticed it first with the Commander and then with Logan a few chapters later. I think it is an honest mistake because the chapters alternate viewpoints between Rachel and Logan and she used each character’s tone for their inner thoughts. I bet it would be hard to keep up when you had to go back and forth so many times. Honestly though, this is a small issue next to the fact I couldn’t get into her performance. I’m afraid it will be a while before I attempt her performance again.
Diana
Narration: C-
Book Content: C
Steam Factor: You can play it out loud
Violence: Escalated Fighting
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Tantor Audio
