This is the first time that I have ever had to post this kind of a review but it was absolutely needed.
In 2012 I became obsessed with Jennifer Cruise. Every time I finished one of her books I couldn't wait to start the next one. And recently I was excited to start the audio version of Wild Ride, a novel co-written by Cruise and Bob Mayer.
Unfortunately, the book quickly went down hill for me.
First of all, the audio narrator does perfectly normal voices for every character EXCEPT for the main girl Mary. Mary’s voice comes across low and masculine…like the voice Mira Sorvino uses for Romy in Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion. And I just don’t understand why she chose to do that because she uses her natural voice for the narrations and the other female characters, so why make your main character sound all strange?
Second of all, this annoyance is far more personal than my other grievances with this books but you have your main guy character carrying a gun with him everywhere he goes!
Here is the thing, a few years ago I had a bad experience with a gun. Now is not the place to get into what happened, but basically I don’t like guns. I’m all for other people owning guns and going shooting as a hobby or having a gun to protect themselves, that is all fine and whatever. But I DO NOT like hearing stories about people not handling guns with respect and caution. When people are careless or casual about their guns it makes me extraordinarily uncomfortable. And in this book they have the main male character, Ethan, carrying a gun with him all the time. Because he feels that because he is ex-military that this is ok. Only he has been either drunk or hung over in every scene I've seen him in so far and he tries to pull the gun out with every little bump or noise or shadow that comes across him.
Third of all, pretty early in the book Ethan gets shot by someone that he is convinced is some special ops guy and yet NO ONE calls the police!!! WTF!!!
I can understand why Ethan wouldn't call the cops because he would be all “I’m military. I can take care of this all by myself because I am a bad ass.” But neither his mother or any of the other people around him react, at all! They are all just like “Oh, you gut shot Ethan. That’s nice. Pass the waffles.”
Fourth and finally, my biggest grievance of all is the forced chemistry among the characters.
I've listened to enough Jennifer Cruise novels to know that no matter how ridiculous the plot may seem in the beginning, the chemistry by the end will make it all worth while. That is Cruise’s best quality as far as I’m concerned. The promised chemistry between the two love interests in the book is what keeps me coming back for more and more of her novels.
And because I've listened to so many of her books, I know from the very beginning with about 98% certainty that Ethan is going to end up with Mary in the end. But at the point where I got in the book Cruise and Mayer where trying to convince me that Mary was going to end up with a guy named Joe and Ethan is going to chase after a girl named Ashley. The chemistry between these two pairings comes across as so forced and fake that I couldn't take it any more.
Every time Ethan thought about how sexy and hot Ashley was, I wanted to puke. Every time Mary got all swoony over Joe I was full on gagging! It was awful! I made it through three out of eleven discs but I just couldn't take it anymore! I had to make it stop!
There have been several times when I have stopped reading a book because I didn't have time for it or because other books had to take priority. But I honestly can’t remember the last time I walked away from a book because it was just that bad. But Wild Ride by Jennifer Cruise and Bob Mayer…it really was.
I think I'm going to take it back to the library and see if I can get a Rachel Cohn or Andrea Creamer book on audio since they are both authors who have co-written a book with David Levithan.
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