Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Catch a Falling Star 
AUTHOR: Matt Burlingame
NARRATOR: John Steinkamp
PUBLISHER: Self Published
RELEASE DATE: March 29, 2018
LENGTH: 1 hour, 39 minutes
BLURB:
A therapist once told Martin Stevens that being gay was the only thing that saved him from being the most boring man alive. He spends his daytime working a dead-end job and his nights still pining after the ex-fiance who left him five years ago. When his older brother, Daniel, takes him to see a touring musical, a mishap sends superstar performer Alec Jameson flying off the stage right into Martin’s lap. It’s love at first sight. But can that love withstand the scrutiny of the press, a shock-jock radio personality bent on causing trouble, and the return of Martin’s overbearing ex-fiance?
REVIEW:
Shy and somewhat invisible Martin and his brother Daniel is going out and watching a well-known musical to celebrate his 30th birthday. Only something goes horribly wrong on stage and one of the star actors is falling towards certain injury. That is until Martin literally catches a falling star. To thank him internationally famous Alec invites Martin over for some coffee. And the rest is as they say history.
I love the whole meet-cute trope and the set up was brilliant for this book. Sadly it ended there. The idea and the setup was there, but it lacked in execution. It was too much insta-love, too unbelievable. But more importantly it was too much tell and not enough show. I felt disconnected from the story and the characters and never really cared one way or another. I know that short stories are tricky to nail, and this one sadly missed the mark.
John Steinkamp was, I’m sorry to say, a mediocre narrator. There was no real feelings added to his narration and while I felt like he tried at times to give characters different voices he didn’t quite get there. He mixed the voices together and missed which character was speaking, so there was no relying on his voice to follow the story. On the plus side, I really enjoyed his voice, and while not a perfect narration he definitely has the voice for it.
This was my first book by both the author and the narrator and it was a bit of a miss on both counts for me. There were some highlights and good notes, but it’s not a book I’ll listen to again.
RATING: 
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