Audio Book Review: Wolves And Roses By Christina Bauer

Wolves And Roses
(Fairy Tales of the Magicorum #1)
By Christina Bauer

Narrated By: Christina Bauer
Length: 11 hours

Seventeen-year-old Bryar Rose has a problem. She’s descended from one of the three magical races—shifters, fairies, or witches. That makes her one of the Magicorum, and Magicorum always follow a fairy tale life template. In Bryar’s case, that template should be Sleeping Beauty.

“Should” being the key word.

Trouble is, Bryar is nowhere near the sleeping beauty life template. Not even close. She doesn’t like birds or woodland creatures. She can’t sing. And she certainly can’t stand Prince Philpot, the so-called “His Highness of Hedge Funds” that her aunties want her to marry. Even worse, Bryar’s having recurring dreams of a bad boy hottie and is obsessed with finding papyri from ancient Egypt. What’s up with that?

All Bryar wants is to attend a regular high school with normal humans and forget all about shifters, fairies, witches, and the curse that Colonel Mallory the Magnificent placed on her. And she might be able to do just that--if only she can just keep her head down until her eighteenth birthday when the spell that’s ruined her life goes buh-bye.

But that plan gets turned upside down when Bryar Rose meets Knox, the bad boy who’s literally from her dreams. Knox is a powerful werewolf, and his presence in her life changes everything, and not just because he makes her knees turn into Jell-O. If Bryar can’t figure out who—or what—she really is, it might cost both her and Knox their lives… as well as jeopardize the very nature of magic itself.

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My Review:

This is the second novel by this author that I've read and I've come to the conclusion that her books don't work for me. The writing style makes everything slow and longwinded. There are a few parts here and there that remind me why the story was interesting in the first place but it goes back to walking through quicksand a little bit later. The concept of this universe the author created was so interesting, but the way it was written threw me off.

Bryar Rose started off interesting but became annoying throughout the story. She seemed to be the exception to impossible rules. There were times when I wanted to strongarm her into getting a grip and asking the important question that would move the story along instead of her taking time to think things through and have something catastrophic coincidently happen. There were a few situations where some basic common sense would have done her some good and would have made that situation not happen or have it go by faster.

Knox was standoffish in the beginning and eventually won me over throughout the story. He turned out to be sweet and caring, but his inner wolf was one annoying beast. It kept repeating obvious actions to certain situations during the story and by the end I wanted to punch him myself.

Everyone that wasn't Bryar and Knox felt one dimensional. Most of the adults in this novel were either evil or spoke in riddles (which only added to my frustration with the slow-moving plot). This is a trope I'm not fond of and would like to never encounter in any novels.

Overall I'm disappointed with this book because it had so much potential. The concept is unique, but it was too slow paced for me to enjoy. I don't know if I'll be picking up the next book in this series.

The Audio Book:

This was the first audio book that I had to set the reading speed higher for me to finish listening to it. The narrator (who is also the author) does a good job with the narration. My problem was the combination of a very slow-paced novel with a narrator who naturally reads with larger pauses. I was ready to give up by hour 6. My aversion to how slow-paced this novel was probably made me more antsy than necessary with the narration.

My Rating: