Spare Me by Tara Sivec, narrated by Tim Paige & Kelsey Navarro. Enjoyable but the humour (always subjective) was at times a little overbroad for my taste.
I haven’t read or listened to a Tara Sivec book before. I know fellow AudioGal, Melinda, enjoys her books so I thought I’d give Spare Me a try when the blurb caught my eye.
Humour is very subjective of course. While I did laugh occasionally and overall, enjoyed the story, some of the humour was a little too much for me. I can (and do) enjoy a joke about balls from time to time but perhaps not as many as are crammed into Spare Me. It seems trite to say, but for those whose humour aligns more strongly with Ms Sivec’s writing, this book is going to be more successful. The reverse is also true. Me? I think I’m somewhere in the middle/middle-positive range.
Ryan Hutton is an amateur ten-pin-bowler and maths teacher on Summersweet Island. He is kind and nice and, frankly, a bit of a doormat. People walk on him all the time and in return he continues to be kind and generous. So, when a frenemy from college asks Ryan to let his little sister move into his (Ryan’s) house, sight-unseen, Ryan says yes. Because that’s a thing that happens.
Said sister, Danica Brewster, is an artist who has broken away from her rich, corporately-minded family. Her brother (Ryan’s frenemy) completely mischaracterises Dani to Ryan and so he thinks she’s in dire need of being talked into returning to the bosom of her family.
Dani is wild and free and spontaneous. She also isn’t afraid to call it how she sees it and over the course of the book, Ryan finds himself picking up some of her traits. The Ryan of page one would never say “choke on a dick, Chad” but he certainly does later on.
In Ryan, Dani finds a personal cheerleader and a sense of home, acceptance and belonging she has been unable to find within her own family.
Of course it doesn’t hurt that they are 100% hot for one another from the beginning.
Ryan is expected to take over his father’s mantle as the Mayor of Summersweet Island. Ryan doesn’t want to but hasn’t been able to tell his dad – he doesn’t want to disappoint. However, as time passes, it becomes an unavoidable conversation.
Ryan’s autocorrect woes are amusing even when they are also occasionally implausible and the wider cast, including an ex-football star who likes to craft add to the overall zaniness of the story.
Spare Me is a light-hearted romp and not meant to be taken all that seriously. There are some unlikely things within the story which don’t bear close examination. I admit, there were times I did examine a little too closely. (For example, I think a maths teacher who is arrested for indecent exposure would have some career issues as a result.)
The performance is good from both narrators but I preferred that of Tim Paige. Kelsey Navarro has a vocal fry (at least I think that’s what it is) which is not to my taste. I found it kind of wearing after a while. It was far less noticeable when she was speaking dialogue from a male character. That helped. Of course, this is very much a personal taste thing so other listeners will have less of an issue with it. Otherwise, Ms Navarro’s character differentiation and pacing were very good. I got a strong sense of who Dani was from her performance. So, even though I didn’t exactly like it, I can’t say it was, by any stretch, bad.
Tim Paige does “nice guy” really well and Ryan is, squarely, a nice guy. His earnestness and puppy-like qualities were obvious not just in the text but also in my ears. I could tell Mr Paige had a lot of fun leaning into these traits, but always keeping it just the right side of caricature. (The same can’t always be said of the text but that’s part of the schtick of the story.)
I can see that for some listeners Spare Me will be a complete giggle-fest. I wasn’t quite in that camp but I was nonetheless entertained and count the listen as a positive. That said, I think that Ms Sivec’s books are likely to become the kind of treat I’ll consume sparingly for maximum enjoyment.
Grade: B-
