On Location by Sarah Echavarre Smith, narrated by Donnabella Mortel. Great narration but I had mixed feelings about the story.
Alia Dunn is a Filipino American working as an assistant producer for the Expedition TV network which specialises in travel-related shows – I imagine it something like a boutique Discovery channel. She dreams of running her own show and when On Location begins, she’s despairing that she’s blown her chance. Her pitch for a series “Discover Utah” about the national parks in that state was turned down by the boss and she’s feeling glum on the subway heading home. She’s particularly crushed as the series was inspired by summer trips she took with her brother and her Apong Lita (her grandmother) as a child when her parents were away in the military and the series was to be dedicated to her beloved and much missed grandparent. All is not terrible, though, as a handsome and built guy gives up his seat for an elderly woman, partially because it was the right thing to do and partially because he wanted to stand next to Alia. Inspired by a comment the boss made, she decides to “take a risk” and ends up going on the best date of her life with the “subway hottie” who identifies himself as Drew.
Unfortunately he ghosts her the next day so it goes nowhere. Alia puts it down to her viral tweet of the subway hottie (a photograph of him she took and posted without his knowledge or permission I might add – way not okay Alia!). She thinks he’s seen it and was unhappy about the invasion of his privacy. (Well, duh.)
The next week at work things take a turn for the better when her Discover Utah series is suddenly un-rejected. Alia has everything she’s ever wanted professionally at her fingertips. There’s only one catch: the boss chose the host and he’s a D-List ex-reality TV star with a massive attitude, an arrest record and a drug and alcohol problem. Alia does get to choose her crew however and her mentor recommends a freelance field coordinator to round out her team. His name is Andrew. I think you see where this is going, right?
As it happens, Drew didn’t ghost Alia at all. He also wasn’t upset about going viral on Twitter (why?). No, he had a tragic phone accident which not only ruined his phone but also the SIM and as a result he lost her contact information. As they had not exchanged surnames he had no way to find her. Jaded Alia thinks it’s a line at first but it becomes apparent that Drew is not like that.
Alia has a lot of trouble with Blaine, the host. Drew steps in and guides Blaine through his lines on every take. Drew had always longed to be a host but has terrible stage fright. However, when he’s guiding Blaine, no stage fright is obvious. Mostly this is because he’s not “on” for these performances but the rest is the ease he feels with Alia. For her part, Alia sees in Drew a natural charisma and screen presence. Drew is fantastic at everything he does. I think you see where this is going too.
As Drew and Alia get to know one another at the various beautiful Utah locations, their mutual attraction blossoms and they begin a fling. She had a bad experience with a cheating director earlier in her career and it has made her very relationship-shy so she’s very sensitive to being gaslit and lied to – to the point where she protects her heart rather than take a risk.
The thing is, Drew is so nice and practically perfect in every way that listeners know Alia’s fears are unfounded. I liked him quite a bit for the most part but I admit I lost some respect for him when he was just too much of a doormat with Alia at the end.
Drew is wonderful all the time – except when the plot calls for him to do something a bit not nice. It didn’t fit his character at all and jarred.
Alia repeatedly (why did she not learn??) misunderstands Drew’s words or actions and this leads to my least favourite trope, the Big Mis. Only there are multiple “mises” – mostly fairly small, leading up to the big one near the end. I didn’t like how Drew just accepted Alia’s actions as perfectly reasonable. She mistrusted him and, for the most part, didn’t use her words to clarify things and thought the worst of him over and over again. But Drew is all “I understand and it’s okay.” In the end, I thought he was just too nice.
The middle of the book dragged a little with not much happening except a lot of sex and sneaking around so the rest of the crew wouldn’t twig to their relationship. Interspersed with creative and hot sex scenes was a lot of “I’ll tell him I want a real relationship tonight” followed immediately by “Obviously he doesn’t feel the same way as me because I’ve just read into something he’s said or done so now I’ll stay quiet” – rinse and repeat. I was frustrated by it the first time but it kept happening. Thank God for assistant producer and best friend Hayley who said what I was thinking – “just talk to him, you dummy!!”.
The narration was quite good and made a lot of difference to my decision to persist and finish the book. There were a few small errors here and there and one or two occasions when the syntax of the sentence was altered by too long a pause at the wrong place but for the most part, Ms. Mortel’s performance was very good and I’d happily listen to her again. Her male character voices were different and believable and didn’t hinder me sinking into the listen and she had a good range of accents and character voices generally.
Ms. Mortel is a Filipino American actress and, given that the main character in On Location is also Filipino American, this worked very well. Her knowledge and familiarity with the Tagalog sprinkled throughout the novel was obvious. I appreciated the representation in addition to Ms. Mortel’s overall skill.
There were parts of On Location that worked well for me and the narration was certainly a plus but there were story aspects which didn’t work for me at all.
Grade: B-/C+
