Sunset Park (Audio Review)

Title: Sunset Park (Five Boroughs #2)
Author: Santino Hassell and Michael Ferraiulo (Narrator)
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press LLC
Release Date: May 24th 2016
Genre(s): M/M Contemporary
Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
Reviewed by: Belen
Heat Level: 4 flames out of 5
Rating: 4.83 stars out of 5
Blurb:

A Five Boroughs Story

Raymond Rodriguez’s days of shoving responsibility to the wayside are over. His older brother wants to live with his boyfriend, so Raymond has to get his act together and find a place of his own. But when out-and-proud David Butler offers to be his roommate, Raymond agrees for reasons other than needing a place to crash.

David is Raymond’s opposite in almost every way—he’s Connecticut prim and proper while Raymond is a sarcastic longshoreman from Queens—but their friendship is solid. Their closeness surprises everyone as does their not-so-playful flirtation, since Raymond has always kept his bicurious side a secret.

Once they’re under the same roof, flirting turns physical, and soon their easy camaraderie is in danger of being lost to frustrating sexual tension and the stark cultural differences that set them apart. Now Raymond not only has to commit to his new independence—he has to commit to his feelings for David or risk losing him for good.

There are a lot of positive reviews for Sunset Park here, so I’m not going to rehash the story. The story and the writing are excellent, okay? Even when I wanted to throttle the characters (which was pretty much the whole story), I was still engaged wanting to know what happens next. What I’m going to focus on here is the audio.

Michael Ferraiuolo hits a home run with the narration. Period. He nails this. Pure and simple – he absolutely took two pretty unlikable characters and not only made them interesting, he made them fascinating. I cancelled a date to keep listening to this audio book. Sure, a good part of that is Hassell’s writing, but Ferraiuolo takes it not only to another level, but a whole other universe.

You want to hear good narration? I can name hundreds of audio books with good narration. But excellent narration? Superlatively fantastic narration? I can count them on both hands and still have a couple of fingers left over.

Ferraiuolo joins that distinguished group of narrators. He absolutely blew me away with his pacing, his timing, his sublime character voices…this is excellent narration.