Interesting story, but a very hard listen

Would you try another book written by A. J. Thomas or narrated by Andy Babinski?

Written by A. J. Thomas - yes; narrated by Andy Babinski - probably no. There are a lot of coincidences in the story, most of which are believable - it is fiction and not a documentary! I felt some of the background detail in a couple of places bordered on being over-specific, even for someone like me who has no experience of rock climbing. However - despite the grating narration - I enjoyed the story, could believe the characters, and found myself getting impatient to know what would happen next when I got back into my car after work. A difficult subject, and handled pretty well.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Doug, probably. A man like many who is in the middle of people with whom he can never really be himself, whether because of cultural, family, historical, or sexuality issues. I could feel a lot of empathy with him. I would probably have liked Christopher (not Chris!) more had the narrator not made him sound so unpleasant all the time.

How could the performance have been better?

The voice characterization for Christopher was enough to make me dislike him at the start, and I don't think did the character justice in the emotional scenes. It was difficult to distinguish between Ray and Doug at times, and whenever a number of characters had dialogue at once, determining which was which was quite a challenge, It was easy to hear pages turning, but at least the narrator's voice did not change noticeably each time he had taken a break and re-started recording, as often happens - the "morning voice" and the "I've read three chapters already today voice" were pretty much the same, and - sadly - both equally irritating. It felt like the voice characterizations may have been done on the fly, and left the narrator with nowhere to go later on in the story.

Do you think A Casual Weekend Thing needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Yes, there are some loose ends at the end of this book, which could be tied up in a number of different ways. I would certainly be interested to see if and how the relationship(s) continue.

Any additional comments?

Definitely worth a listen - the subject matter is adult, but is handled in an interesting way. You just have to try to ignore the style of narration.

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