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Monday, January 18, 2016

Review: Altered State by Ella Dominguez

Altered StateAltered State by Ella Dominguez

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Writing: ★★★★★
Story: ★★★★
Characters: ★★★★
Female Narrator - Rebecca Roberts' Performance: ★★★★★
Male Narrator - Mateo Reaté's Performance: ★★

Overall rating: 4.0

This audiobook was provided by the narrator Rebecca Roberts in exchange for an honest review.

The Story:

"It's beauty that captures your attention; personality which captures your heart." ~ Oscar Wilde"



This book is about infidleity, but it's not. It's about lying and cheating, murder and mayham, but it's not. What it is about is love and hope, and soulmates.

I loved this story! Lots of delicious twists! What I loved most, is I didn't see them coming! It was one of those major twists that made me stop and go, "Wait. What?" I had to pause, and go back, so to see if I just heard was really what I heard! This book is an erotic thriller with a punch to the gut, and the, heart that will leave the reader (or listener) reeling.


Miranda Delacruz is the wife of Zeke Delacruz, a man she loves and tries very hard to please, and at times even fears. She tries to be perfect for him when she doesn't feel perfect at all and because of this, her marriage is falling apart. Worst of all, she suspects that Zeke is cheating on her.

Could I tell you more than that? Sure. Will I? Hell no! This is one fantastic, roller coaster of a mindfuck that you'll have to read yourself.

Narration


Rebecca Roberts' Performance:

Ms. Roberts' narration was smooth and easy on the ears. I loved how she was able to differentiate the different female characters. I always knew which character was speaking. She slipped between characters easily.

Her voice made me *want* to listen, to invest in the audio format of this story.

Mateo Reaté's Performance:

I've never listened to duel narration done quite like this. Usually, if it's a chapter that is from the female's POV, then it's read by the female narrator, and them same for the male.

Mr. Reaté's reading was very monotone. It was hard to listen to him and come to terms with it being Zeke. Mr. Reaté's voice was disruptive at best. The story would be going along smoothly then all of the sudden there would be a male voice saying (for example) 4 words. There was no inflection in his voice. Zero. The accent wasn't believable. It sounded forced, and not at all like one would imagine Zeke sounding.

I think Mr. Reaté would have better served if perhaps he'd read the story first in order to get a handle on Zeke's character. I felt like he didn't connect with Zeke's character, and if he didn't, that made it hard for me to, (in the audio version, that is. )

Towards the end of the book, when we hear longer passages from Mr. Reaté, it was a bit easier to listen to.

Because of Mr. Reaté, I ended up, for the most part, reading the story on my Kindle, along with the audio.

This book would have been better narrated by one narrator.

Final thoughts:

The story was great, it was solid and I really enjoyed it. So it stood on it's own, regardless of the narration by Mr. Reaté.

I do believe that Mr. Reaté could be a good narrator with the right book, and spoken in his own accent. I would encourage him to take this, and/or other critiques, and use it to help improve something that he obviously enjoys.

I would listen to other audiobooks by Ms. Roberts. She had the perfect energy to bring Ms. Dominguez's book to life!

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