E.R. Arroyo

My original Sovereign audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Cori will always be an outsider. She thinks and acts differently. She is not originally from Antius. Brought in after her father was killed by "savages" and raised by a benevolent leader. This leader suddenly passes and Cori's world is turned upside down. She is forced into the military a year before she was supposed to be and pushed almost beyond her limits. She has to escape, she must escape, she will escape. Follow Cori and her closest friends attempt to leave the only place they've ever known for the unknown outside.

Narration was done by the Corinne Bupp (which I thought was awesome because the main character and the narrator had the same first name). Cori (the narrator) absolutely kills it. She was able to use the perfect voice for Cori and gives a wonderful performance. She gives each new person we meet in the book a new voice so that the reader is not totally confused throughout. The production and voice quality were perfect. No issues at all.

My first thought post-listen was "Woah." Which was quickly followed by "Oh, please tell me the series is written and that there are more audiobooks on the way. Well Ms. Arroyo, if you are reading this, please know that I (and I'm sure others) would love to hear the second book in this series voiced by Corinne.

The story had the perfect arc. Sometimes with a series the author will leave a lot of things on the table, leaving the reader to feel gipped or like they didn't get the whole story. This is not one of those stories. Upon finishing this, I could theorhetically walk away and be okay. I know enough of what is going on that I am comfortable with where it was left off. With that being said, I do not want to walk way from this series. I found it absolutely fascinating and interesting.

I love a good dystopian. One of my favorite all-time books is 1984. Sovereign was written perfectly. I rarely say that about books. I can usually find one flaw, but with this, I really feel like I was given a wonderful story, told perfectly, by a character that I feel for.

Cori is strong, misunderstood, and severely damaged, but that just made me love her more. I really felt for Cori throughout this book. When she felt mad, I felt mad. When she was confused, I felt confused. Just a sign of an incredibly hashed out character and story.

If you like character-driven storylines, you will love this. If you were a fan of The Hunger Games and Divergent, I think you just found your next series. Take some time, read or listen to this story and fall for Cori like I did. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.… (más)

I’ll be honest; I don’t often review collections of short stories because I find the reviews so hard to write. This one was different however. First of all, it was referred to me by an author whose work I had read before. Secondly the stories were all related and supposed to tell one tale. That intrigued me since each author’s story was their own.

I was very pleasantly surprised at how well integrated the stories actually were. Each of the stories had their own characters, although there were a few that crossed stories which brought a connectedness to the whole. It was rather like looking at the disaster from outer space and taking snapshots from above.

Each of the authors’ stories was a satisfying story on its own. It had its own beginning, middle and end as every good short story is supposed to. Yet each story was more than that because when combined with the others it was just one small part of a whole picture. The stories didn’t necessarily blend together moment by moment time-wise but as an over-arching view of the catastrophe it gave you an excellent picture of what was happening.

Although technically Prep for Doom was an anthology, each of the stories completes part of an overall, larger story with twists and turns and a mystery of its own to solve. Prep for Doom was fast-paced and kept me reading, often to the exclusion of everything else because I wanted to know the resolution of the mystery presented as part of the twists and turns in the story.

I don’t know how much the author’s collaborated on which parts of the story they were each going to write on, but the testament to their skill as authors is shown in way they each executed their complete stand-alone short story which fits seamlessly into this larger integrated collection of short stories.

I loved this book of short stories! If you like dystopian or apocalyptic books, but shy away from books of short stories, give this one a try. I think you’ll be amazed. I gave Prep for Doom 5 stars out of 5.

Thank you to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review. A positive opinion was not required. All thoughts are my own.

To see my complete review visit Shelf Full of Books http://kathrynsshelffullofbooks.blogspot.com/2015/06/book-review-prep-for-doom-b...… (más)