Waiting on the Sidelines by Ginger Scott, narrated by Laura Darrell

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Title: Waiting on the Sidelines
Author: Ginger Scott
Series: Waiting on the Sidelines #1
Published by: Audible Studios
Release Date: July 28, 2015
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Laura Darrell
Length: 12 hours and 50 minutes
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult, Romance, Coming of Age
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 AtoZ Reading Challenge, Lenoreo's 2019 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Winter 2018
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ iTunes
My rating:

Blurb:

Listening time 12 hours 50 minutes

Nolan Lennox had things figured out. Named after a baseball legend, she enjoyed being the Tomboy, her closet filled with her brother’s hand-me-downs, cut-off jeans and soccer shorts. But when her first trip to high school results in a broken heart from the first boy to ever make her heart flutter and cruel words from an older girl she once thought a family friend, Nolan starts to question the very person she thought she was and wonders if her humble upbringing can compete with the afforded luxuries of her privileged peers.

Throughout the next four years, Nolan struggles to maintain herself throughout her path of discovery, learning just how cruel teenagers can be through the pressures of underage drinking, sexuality and class. And despite how life seems to continue to work against her, she still manages to listen to her heart, falling deeper and deeper for the guy the entire town adores, even if he only sees her as a friend. Can Nolan strike a compromise between her own integrity and the boy she loves? And can she make him notice her before it’s too late?

Reed Johnson came to Coolidge High School with a lot of fanfare. The son of a hometown football legend and the brother of a local football hero, Reed wore all the pressures of carrying a town without hope into the spotlight. Thankfully, he had the talent to back it up. But when he meets a girl who makes him think twice about exactly what being a hero means, he starts to wonder if following in his brother’s footsteps might be all wrong.

Nolan Lennox was everything that was opposite of expected. She didn’t flirt, she didn’t drink and she didn’t sleep around. Nothing about her was easy, but something about her made Reed want to try harder. Though she didn’t look the part, she seemed to be spending a lot of time in Reed’s thoughts, and he wondered if she could be the one who made it all worthwhile. But could Reed handle letting her down? And would breaking her heart break him beyond repair?

Waiting on the Sidelines explores young love to its fullest, exposing how real young heartbreak and passion is and how important it is to discover yourself and hold onto your own identity. The story follows two young characters as they deal with mature situations, including the prevalence of bullying and promiscuity in today’s high school setting. Ultimately, Waiting on the Sidelines is a story of hope, honesty and those powerful, first true loves—the ones worth holding onto at any cost.

My Review:

3.5 stars — I previously reviewed this book here.  This is mainly a review of the audiobook narrator, as my opinion of the book really didn’t change much.  The book still started off super strong, yet by the end I was left feeling frustrated and angry with both Reed and Nolan.  It was just one too many instances of Reed behaving badly, which suggests to me he will always deal with stress and uncertainty in a harmful way; and one too many instances of Nolan bending over backwards for him and taking him back with barely a whisper of an apology, not helping him to learn and grow in the future.  Now, they are teenagers.  But still.  This is the one book that I can now say I consistently end it wishing that the two hadn’t ended up together.  At least not yet.  Not without more growth.  Perhaps I will get that in the next book.

Anyways, as for our narrator, I thought she was decent.  Her pacing was fantastic, I thought she did a good job of the different voices of characters, and her voice fit as Nolan for me.  I will admit that the way she narrated Nolan made me more acutely aware of just how much Nolan’s love of Reed felt more like infatuation…but again, she is a teenager.  And I definitely felt some of the emotional moments from her.  I did notice the occasional pronounciation that twigged me (though apparently one of them can be pronounced both ways), and while I enjoyed her, she didn’t make my top narrator list.  But I would be fine listening to her again in the future (which is good since she narrates the next book in this series).