Audiobook Review: Endlessly

Endlessly
Paranormalcy, Book 3

Author: Kiersten White
Narrator: Emily Eiden
Duration: 9 hrs, 55 mins
Publisher: Harper Audio
Source: Harper Audio for review

Description from Goodreads:
Evie's paranormal past keeps coming back to haunt her. A new director at the International Paranormal Containment Agency wants to drag her back to headquarters. The Dark Faerie Queen is torturing humans in her poisonous realm. And supernatural creatures keep insisting that Evie is the only one who can save them from a mysterious, perilous fate.

The clock is ticking on the entire paranormal world. And its fate rests solely in Evie's hands.

So much for normal.

Series:
1. Paranormalcy (review|Goodread)
2. Supernaturally (review|Goodreads)
3. Endlessly

Review:
It's been quite a while since I read Paranormalcyand Supernaturally, but I remember liking them, mostly because they were funny. I also appreciated that Evie is unapologetically a girly girl, but that archit doesn't mean she won't fight to defend herself. White also kills off at least one of Evie's friends in the earlier books, which adds a darkness and seriousness to the otherwise fluffy story. I don't know if it's because of the format change or not, but I did not enjoy Endlessly quite as much.

The plot does a bit of meandering. The overarching goal is to try and let the faeries and other paranormals that want to go home through a portal of Evie's construction. The drama lies in convincing Evie to try and in surviving the attempts by opposed parties to stop this happening. Much of the book is composed of those latter attempts, as both IPCA and the Dark Queen don't want the paranormals to leave for their own nefarious reasons. These challenges felt rather superficial and silly to me, perhaps because of how easy they were to resolve, and how little sacrifice was entailed. In the end, they really just seemed like ways to make the book long enough.

Here's the other issue: despite the fact that everything is accomplished pretty easily in the grand scheme of things, Evie whines NON-STOP about the things that don't go right. Every tiny thing that doesn't go her way she complains about ENDLESSLY (see what I did there?). So, for example, in a turn of events that delighted me because she deserved it, she and Lend are cursed such that if they are in the same room, he falls asleep. This happens just after a battle and Evie comments on how sore her body feels, which she then attributes to MISSING LEND'S TOUCH. Girl, it's been like two days of not touching your boyfriend. You can freaking deal. They need boundaries.

Seriously, I cannot remember if Lend and Evie were so completely disgusting in the prior books. From what I recall I kind of liked them. Either way, they annoyed the heck out of me in this one. They're CONSTANTLY professing their endless love for one another and arguing about which of them gets to sacrifice themselves for the other. BARF. Their every interaction is insanely sappy and made me miss the previous book where Lend was often gone for school.

Also, I have to mention the birthday/Christmas presents they give each other because OMG so ridiculous. Lend gives Evie a masquerade ball. Ariana made her a fancy dress (the one from the cover) and also made masks for pretty much every person in town. What? Who does this? Why not just have them go to prom? Later, Evie gifts Lend with a ten minute video of every single scene from Easton Heights where a character says 'I love you,' with Lend's favorite song playing in the background. Evie is the WORST gift giver ever. Giving that to her, since it's her favorite show would be thoughtful, but Lend tolerates it for her. Way not to buy a real present. If I were Lend, I would have dumped her right then.

Still, the book did entertain and had its funny moments. Jack, who stupid Evie accepts back as a friend, turns out to be the most entertaining character, mostly because Evie and Lend find him somewhat insufferable. I actually hated him before, but I liked him more the less I cared for Evie. Despite how many issues I had with just about everything, these are still entertaining, which is why you'll probably be surprised to see a rating of 3. This is one of those books that you enjoy even as you're constantly rolling your eyes.

Narration:
Being fairly new to audiobooks, I don't yet know narrators by name and which ones to avoid. Well, Emily Eiden is going on the 'to be avoided at all costs' list. I just could not stand the sound of her voice, which is really unfortunate since I had to spend almost 10 hours listening to it.

She tries very hard to sound youthful, but, to me, she sounded like an old woman imitating a teen, not convincing at all. She portrays Evie in such a way that she comes across as a smug bimbo, when I always imagined Evie sounding friendly and perky. This Evie I wanted to punch in the face. Eiden did an okay job with the other characters, but since it's told from Evie's perspective that's really not enough to improve the situation.

Rating: 3/5