Audiobook Review – Gilded (Gilded, Book 1) by Christina Farley, Narrated by Greta Jung (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 9 hours and 49 minutes (339 pages)
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Release Date: March 1, 2014
ASIN: B00I8QOMOI
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Guilded series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 2/5 stars

“Sixteen-year-old Jae Hwa Lee is a Korean-American girl with a black belt, a deadly proclivity with steel-tipped arrows, and a chip on her shoulder the size of Korea itself. When her widowed dad uproots her to Seoul from her home in L.A., Jae thinks her biggest challenges will be fitting into a new school and dealing with her dismissive Korean grandfather. Then she discovers that a Korean demi-god, Haemosu, has been stealing the soul of the oldest daughter of each generation in her family for centuries. And she’s next.

But that’s not Jae’s only problem.

There’s also Marc. Irresistible and charming, Marc threatens to break the barriers around Jae’s heart. As the two grow closer, Jae must decide if she can trust him. But Marc has a secret of his own—one that could help Jae overturn the curse on her family for good. It turns out that Jae’s been wrong about a lot of things: her grandfather is her greatest ally, even the tough girl can fall in love, and Korea might just be the home she’s always been looking for.”

This is the first book in the Gilded series. I enjoyed the Korean setting and mythology but the writing itself was technically lacking and the story was predictable and boring.

I listened to this on audiobook. The narrator did an excellent job with different characters voices and accents. The narration was probably the best part of this book for me.

Some of the technical issues with this book were that the dialogue between characters was very simple and awkward sounding. Additionally, there were places where the wrong tense (past and present) are used interchangeably. This book could have benefited from better editing.

The story was also lacking. Our heroine makes the same mistakes over and over again and never seems to grow or change as a character despite, her experiences. The ending was predictable and the at times just plain boring.

Overall this was a poorly written book and I was happy when it was over. If I hadn’t been listening to it on audiobook I probably would have stopped reading it. I won’t be continuing with the series which is too bad because the Korean setting and mythology were intriguing.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Goodreads Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge