{Audiobook} Review: Sublime by Christina Lauren

Title: Sublime
Author: Christina Lauren
Narrator(s): Elizabeth Louise, Cal Wembly
Series:  n/a
Length: 8 hrs 2 mins
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication Date: October 14, 2014
Source: audiobook received from publisher
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible

True love may mean certain death in a ghostly affair of risk and passion from New York Times bestselling duo Christina Lauren, authors of Beautiful Bastard. Tahereh Mafi, New York Times bestselling author of Shatter Me calls Sublime “a beautiful, haunting read".

When Lucy walks out of a frozen forest, wearing only a silk dress and sandals, she isn’t sure how she got there. But when she sees Colin, she knows for sure that she’s here for him.

Colin has never been captivated by a girl the way he is by Lucy. With each passing day their lives intertwine, and even as Lucy begins to remember more of her life—and her death—neither of them is willing to give up what they have, no matter how impossible it is. And when Colin finds a way to physically be with Lucy, taking himself to the brink of death where his reality and Lucy’s overlap, the joy of being together for those brief stolen moments drowns out everything in the outside world. But some lines weren’t meant to be crossed…

A ranty, snarky, SPOILERY review follows. Read at your own peril.

I wasn't interested in reading this writing duo's Beautiful Bastard series because erotica really isn't my thing, so I don't honestly know what made me think I'd like their foray into young adult. Well, besides the fact that I do have a lot of Goodreads friends who seem to like this pair's work, so I thought, Maybe this will be more my speed, and I can still see what all the fuss is about without venturing into that territory.

And it starts off fine, with a character that doesn't know who or what she is, only that once she sees Colin, she knows she's here for him. Their romance went from 0-to-90 in no time, and that's with Lucy revealing that she's a ghost and Colin discovering that he couldn't physically touch her without causing her some discomfort. Insta-love: boo. Romantic complications: intriguing.

Here's where things get interesting weird. Completely by accident, they discover that putting Colin at the brink of death lets him hover between this world and...well, whatever lies after. While he's in the in-between, he and Lucy can make physical contact. The places there "relationship" couldn't go before are suddenly possible and they're ready to explore them. Even though they've known each other mere weeks and she's a freaking ghost. Whatever, teenagers have done crazier things, right? /sarcasm

So, the pair calls on Colin's best bud to help them continually test the limits and leave Colin in this in-between state for as long as possible before true death sets in. They do so by recreating the same circumstances under which they discovered this miracle that very first time: dropping Colin into a frozen-over lake -- the very lake Lucy actually haunts -- and inducing hypothermia. Oh, they take precautions to make sure Colin always returns, but really, this is just about the dumbest idea I've ever heard. I get that both Colin and Jay are adrenaline junkies, but realistically, who would go to such lengths just to be able to touch his girlfriend? Move on, buddy.

With all the attention on these two gettin' it on -- and the fact that the authors write erotica for a living -- you'd have thought that when it finally does happen, it'd be more than just a fade-to-black sex scene. I don't have a problem with sex in YA, as long as it's not gratuitous and it's portrayed realistically. Nothing about this story was realistic, though, so I guess I should have expected this.

Going into this story, I knew it was unlikely I'd get a HEA. A ghost and a real, live boy, falling in love? Yeah, that's never going to work out. Not in any good way, anyway. Since everything else in this book was so utterly wrong, it shouldn't have surprised me that Colin made one final, stupid last-ditch attempt to be with his ghost girl by throwing himself back into that frozen lake. Without anyone knowing. And without any aide. This boy's survival instincts are seriously on the fritz. But the "walkers" like Lucy were known to take people with them, so maybe it was more Lucy's influence than the fault of Colin and all his risk-taking. It was clear to me that Lucy was draining a bit of Colin's life force each time they met in that overlap between their worlds, and so maybe some of his sanity left with it. I don't think it went to Lucy, though, because I'm pretty sure she was convinced that she was becoming less of a ghost because of Colin's presence in her afterlife, not because of anything she might be doing to him, whether intentional or not.

Pretty much, this book is only getting a star because I listened to the audio, and it features the voice of Elizabeth Louise for Lucy's chapters and Cal Wembley for Colin's. Louise has repeatedly lent her voice to one of my favorite new adult series, and considering what she had to work with, I thought she did a fair job on this audiobook. Cal Wembly sounded an awful lot like Kirby Heyborne, and when I did some research, I found both names listed as narrators for this book-- somewhere, but I can't find the link now that I'm trying to write up my review. Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if he were one and the same, as a lot of narrators have pseudonyms they record under based on the genre or type of book they're recording. When I first started listening to audiobooks, I couldn't stand Cal/Kirby, but his voice has really grown on me. But maybe it's those first stories that I initially disliked because I discovered that, as Colin, I found Cal's narration a bit annoying. That's a good sign that Cal becomes the character, but it doesn't bode well for the overall experience. Still, I probably wouldn't have even finished this book had I been reading a physical copy, so there's that.

I've read a story like this before, and I had a much better experience with that one than I did here. If you're curious, it's Hereafter by Tara Hudson. Mind you, that link takes you to my review, one of the very first ones I ever wrote here on the blog, and by my reviewing standards now, I'd probably only rate the book three stars. That's still much better than Sublime rates, though. And Hereafter's premise revolves around more than endangering one's life for sex -- like, saving a boy's life. Imagine that.

GIF it to me straight:

I don't even...what the...what the hell did I just read?!?

About the author:

Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of long-time writing partners/besties/soulmates/brain-twins Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. The coauthor duo writes both Young Adult and Adult Fiction, and together has produced seven New York Times bestselling novels. Their books have been translated into 22 languages. (Some of these books have kissing. Some of these books have A LOT of kissing.)

Find Christina & Lauren:

Website | Christina Twitter | Lauren Twitter | Goodreads

Labels: audiobooks, christina lauren, disappointments, ghosts, paranormal, reviews, simon schuster, sublime