Going Long by Ginger Scott, narrated by Laura Darrell & James Fouhey

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Title: Going Long
Author: Ginger Scott
Series: Waiting on the Sidelines #2
Published by: Audible Studios
Release Date: July 28, 2015
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Laura Darrell, James Fouhey
Length: 8 hours and 40 minutes
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 AtoZ Reading Challenge, Lenoreo's 2019 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2019 Beat the Backlist Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Winter 2018
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ iTunes
My rating:

Blurb:

They fell in love in high school and found their way back to one another despite the odds. But can first loves really be forever? For Reed Johnson, the dream was always football. But then Nolan Lennox took over his heart. Is he willing to give up his first love just to keep his true love? Or will he be too late?

Reed and Nolan’s story continues in "Going Long," sequel to "Waiting on the Sidelines."

My Review:

3.75 stars — Well whaddya know!!  In the end, I enjoyed this one more than the first book!  It had the same conundrum for me: fantastic writing with characters I care about who I simultaneously wanted to smack the fuck outta because they made me so mad with their drama and tendancy towards bad communication.  So basically it was a good book that happened to hit a few of Lenore’s button issues, and thus it’s never going to be a favourite.

I swear to you, I was listening along thinking, okay, this isn’t so bad…and then I started getting some bad feelings about some situations (and apparently my spidey senses were on point, because I totally called some of the conflicts)…and then suddenly I wanted to throw my phone against a wall, and I was so mad, and I was thinking “oh, here we go again!”  And then…I don’t know.  I was still frustrated with some turns of events, but maybe because I got to be in the head of both Nolan *and* Reed, I at least got a sense of what they were thinking.  So while I don’t condone some choices that were made, and certain parts made me uncomfortable, at least I got some more context about the situation and what was going down that I could understand how they both got there.  So I think the reason I came out of this book less mad at Reed and Nolan is 100% down to dual POV.  Maybe if I’d gotten a peek inside Reed’s head in book one and understood his motivations, I would have been more forgiving of him.  I mean, there were still plot devices used (bad/non-existent communication) which aren’t my favourites, but I was happy that I ended the book and was happy with the conclusion.

So yeah…our characters are still horribly flawed.  I still am not *super* comfortable with the way Nolan’s low self-esteem makes her love for Reed seem more like infatuation (though it was better than the first book).  But I really appreciated the growth that we got to see both characters go through in this book.  I felt like they did become better people, even if they had to hit rock bottom first.

I still loved the group of friends that were present in the story, though not really a fan of Trig and his horrible advice.  And OMG I love Buck!  I loved that we got to see more of Reed’s relationships with his family change over time.

As for our narrators, I thought they were both solid.  Maybe because it was split between the two of them, but I enjoyed Ms. Darrell’s narration more in this one.  Mr. Fouhey was AWESOME as Reed.  I wasn’t a huge fan of his female voices, but that’s just a personal preference…and I noticed it less as the book went on.

Ms. Scott definitely doesn’t shy away from hard topics, and doesn’t create perfect characters.  But I was so happy that this one gave me more balance, and an ending that I could get on board with.  I’m a little scared to see what she’s going to put poor Reed and Nolan through in the next book…