Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Antisocial 
AUTHOR: Heidi Cullinan
NARRATOR: Iggy Toma
PUBLISHER: Self Published
RELEASE DATE: August 21, 2017
LENGTH: 13 hours, 52 minutes
BLURB:
Xander Fairchild can’t stand people in general and frat boys in particular, so when he’s forced to spend his summer working on his senior project with Skylar Stone, a silver-tongued Delta Sig with a trust fund who wants to make Xander over into a shiny new image, Xander is determined to resist. He came to idyllic, Japanese culture-soaked Benten college to hide and make manga, not to be transformed into a corporate clone in the eleventh hour.
Skylar’s life has been laid out for him since before he was born, but all it takes is one look at Xander’s artwork, and the veneer around him begins to crack. Xander himself does plenty of damage too. There’s something about the antisocial artist’s refusal to yield that forces Skylar to acknowledge how much his own orchestrated future is killing him slowly …as is the truth about his gray-spectrum sexuality, which he hasn’t dared to speak aloud, even to himself.
Through a summer of art and friendship, Xander and Skylar learn more about each other, themselves, and their feelings for one another. But as their senior year begins, they must decide if they will part ways and return to the dull futures they had planned, or if they will take a risk and leap into a brightly colored future – together.
REVIEW:
I am a huge Heidi Cullinan fan, of her sweeter romances at least, so finding myself not liking one of her books was a surprise, but Antisocial just didn’t work for me. I mean there is slow-burn and then there is glacial and this book sadly ends up in the latter category.
We have Xander and Skylar, two university students thrown together for their senior projects. After some initial disgruntlements and reluctance a friendship is formed. A friendship that slowly grows into something more. And we follow them through all the struggles of self discovery and first loves.
This book was just too longwinded a lot of the time, we stood still, stomping and not really moving forward. While I understand a need for a slower pace for this kind of romance, I still wished for things to move a little faster. Not the relationship per se, just everything surrounding it. I don’t need or want every single detail of absolutely everything. I found myself spacing out at times and when I “woke up” I hadn’t missed a thing…
What really surprised me though was the ending. It came out of nowhere, it felt abrupt and things were left unresolved. Going by the pacing of the rest of the book this just didn’t fit.
I also have to mention the elephant in the room (it keeps staring menacingly at me), the whole gray-ace thing she was trying to portray. Trying, and failing. Now I know that no two people are the same or experience things the same way, but still this was borderline offensive to ace people out there. It highlights the opinions that you are not a whole person without that special someone – and that special someone can and will save you. I will spare you from my rant, but if this is something that bothers you, don’t pick up this book.
I loved Iggy Toma’s narration of this book, it was spot on, he is made for these kinds of stories. These kinds of characters. He’s truly brilliant for them. But not even his amazing talents were enough to save this story for me.
While this book didn’t work for me I will look for more books by Cullinan’s. She is a great author with wonderful stories to tell, but sadly you can’t win them all.
Story: 1 heart
Narration: 5 hearts
RATING: 
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