Welcome to Alexander joining Love Bytes for an occasional audio review !
Reviewed by Alexander
TITLE: Food for Thought
SERIES: Tale of the Curious Cookbook
AUTHOR: Amy Lane
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
NARATOR: Philip Alces
LENGTH: 2 hours 50 minutes
BLURB:
Emmett Gant was planning to tell his father something really important one Sunday morning—but his father passed away first. Now, nearly three years later, Emmett can’t seem to clear up who he should be with—the girl with the apple cheeks and the awesome family, or his snarky neighbor, Keegan, who never sees his family but who makes Emmett really happy just by coming over to chat. Emmett needs clarity.
Fortunately for Emmett, his best friend’s mom has a cookbook that promises to give Emmett insight and good food, and Emmett is intrigued. After the cookbook follows him home, Emmett and Keegan decide to make the recipe “For Clarity,” and what ensues is both very clear—and a little surprising, especially to Emmett’s girlfriend. Emmett is going to have to think hard about his past and the really important thing he forgot to tell his father if he wants to get the recipe for love just right.
REVIEW:
Given what we know about Emmett and his relationship with his best friend Vinny, Vinny’s mother and by extension Vinny’s family, I wondered what was so traumatic that Emmett felt the need to remain closeted to Keegan or Vinny after the death of Emmett’s father. I really felt that there was a gap in the story in this regard. The relationship between Emmett and Vinny and his family was well developed, and had nice authenticity. Keegan was a breath of fresh air and showed respect and restraint considering the attraction he had for Emmett over the course of their year-long friendship.
I have to admit that the fun part was watching Keegan try to behave, and Emmett try to restrain himself, while providing us with a running commentary about his own doubts regarding his sexuality. Sometimes I find this “I’m straight, I’m gay?” technique irritating, but somehow Amy Lane pulled it off and managed a pleasant balance as Emmett came to terms with his desires. Both Emmett and Keegan were reasonably well formed characters, and although Emmett’s girlfriend Christine was referred to quite regularly, we did not get to know her until near the end of the story. Most of the secondary characters were mentioned in passing and not critical to the advancement of the plot.
Alces had a nice narrative voice and added emotion, enthusiasm, and some sound effects to enhance the performance. With a lively pace, Alces kept the story flowing and never compromised the quality of his speech, maintaining clean diction, appropriate use of tone, and intonation. I did notice a few issues with the mastering of the audio file, such as a gap in the narration that pulled me out of the story for a moment, but overall, Alces did a great job.
RATING: 
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