Audiobook Review – A Taste of Marrow (River of Teeth, Book 2) by Sarah Gailey, Narrated by Peter Berkrot (3.5/5 stars)

Reading Level:Adult
Genre: Alternate History/Fantasy
Length: 4 hours and 15 minutes
Publisher:‎ Tantor Audio
Release Date: September 12, 2017
ASIN: ‎B0759WFDJC
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the River of Teeth series
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Library
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

“A few months ago, Winslow Houndstooth put together the damnedest crew of outlaws, assassins, cons, and saboteurs on either side of the Harriet for a history-changing caper. Together they conspired to blow the dam that choked the Mississippi and funnel the hordes of feral hippos contained within downriver, to finally give America back its greatest waterway.

Songs are sung of their exploits, many with a haunting refrain: “And not a soul escaped alive.”

In the aftermath of the Harriet catastrophe, that crew has scattered to the winds. Some hunt the missing lovers they refuse to believe have died. Others band together to protect a precious infant and a peaceful future. All of them struggle with who they’ve become after a long life of theft, murder, deception, and general disinterest in the strictures of the law.”

Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the River of Teeth duology. I borrowed this on audiobook from the library.

Thoughts: I enjoyed parts of this second book in the River of Teeth series. The characters are a fun group and unique and interesting to read about. I enjoy the premise of Hippos running feral on the Mississippi, and enjoyed the tamed hippos as well.

This book starts up shortly after the first one ended. Our original group of characters is scattered across the Mississippi. They are stuck trying to survive feral hippos and other conniving outlaws as they hope to group back together.

I did continue to enjoy the premise and the characters here. However, this book doesn’t do a great job of resolving the main point of the story and the pacing was all over the place. This novella spends most of its time bringing the characters back together that were torn apart in the first book. There are a lot of POVs that we read from and it was just too much for this little novella. The beginning seems slow because of this and everything feels pretty unresolved…in fact the original problem they were trying to solve seems even worse by the end!

I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was well done. The narration is fun to listen to and the characters voices are well done. I would recommend listening to on audiobook if you enjoy audiobooks.

My Summary (3.5/5): Overall, the above complaints aside, this was a fun romp in a hippo infested wild-west America and it is short, so it isn’t a huge time commitment to read. If you enjoyed the first book, I would recommend this. If a strange alternate wild west with hippos sounds intriguing to you, I would say give the series a shot. It’s not a huge time commitment and it’s fun.