Narrated by Andi Arndt & Sebastian York
Scrooged is an anthology containing 3 short stories of various lengths (Sexy Scrooge, The Merry Mistake & Kissmas in New York). Coming in at 2 hours 47 minutes, it doesn’t take a big time commitment – something I very much appreciated at this time of year when I seem to be very time poor.
Sexy Scrooge is the shortest tale in the anthology and is about a couple who accidentally share an Uber one snowy Christmas Eve. The pick of the bunch for me, it was sweet and charming and had a fairy tale quality to it.
The Merry Mistake was the least successful story of the book; I didn’t warm to the male lead at all really. Our heroine offers a free lunch to a man outside her building who appears to be homeless – only he’s not homeless and he jumps down her throat at the suggestion he is. Piper is kind and generous and didn’t deserve his treatment of her. (On the other hand, I thought she was a bit judgey when she offered money to an actual homeless person which came with strings about what he could do with it. That’s not how to do it, Piper. Gifts should be string-free.) I enjoyed Piper’s relationship with her elderly neighbour Mr. Hanks but I didn’t really feel any particular chemistry between her and Mason.
Kissmas in New York is about a woman about to be divorced and her friend who dares her to be spontaneous – in this case, kissing a man in the coffee shop they’re in. The dare is part of a thing these gal pals have been doing with each other forever (and I found it frankly terrifying – saying yes before you know what it is? No thank you!). Fortunately, Margo cares about consent and asks permission before laying a hot one on Chet.
Chet is a lawyer and, as it turns out, is representing Margo’s loser soon-to-be-ex. There are obviously some ethical issues which keep them apart. I appreciated that attention to detail but there was a thing Chet learned which he would never be able to tell Margo and it’s a thing which could have been very important so I admit I had a little discomfort about that. However, apart from an unreasonable dislike of Buddy the Elf, Chet was actually a good guy and I think he and Margo worked well together.
The anthology has some explicit suggestion but no on-page sex. It’s not quite “play it out loud with your kids in the car” stuff but it’s certainly a lot tamer than previous offerings from this author duo. I think that was mainly due to the brevity of the stories actually.
There wasn’t an even split in narration duties between Andi Arndt and Sebastian York. The first short was performed solely by Andi Arndt and the other two had dual narration but it wasn’t quite 50/50 – the female POV was predominant. As much as I enjoy listening to Andi Arndt, I admit I wished I got a little more of Sebastian York in my earholes.
There were some uncharacteristic errors in the performances of both narrators – nothing major, a couple of mispronunciations and places where the wrong emphasis was put on a word in a sentence, suggesting a different meaning than that intended in the text.
An unintended outcome of the whole anthology being read by the same narrators was that each main character sounded exactly the same as the previous one. Normally, I’d listen to a book with different performers next but here, going straight into the next story was a little jarring to be honest. Perhaps it’s the way my brain works but I found myself occasionally just a little confused about who was in which story.
I enjoyed the first short the most, the “asshole quotient” was a little too high for me in The Merry Mistake but the final tale brought this short anthology to a happier ending for me. Best for dipping into in small bites, Scrooged was a little Christmas petit four with something for most listeners to enjoy.
Kaetrin
Buy Scrooged by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward on Amazon
