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    Waking Olivia
    Waking Olivia
    Waking Olivia
    Audiobook10 hours

    Waking Olivia

    Written by Elizabeth O'Roark

    Narrated by Stephanie Wyles and Rock Engle

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A failing farm.

    His father's debt.

    And a struggling college track team.

    Will Langstrom has too many responsibilities, and the last thing he needs is Olivia Finnegan, a beautiful but troubled new transfer student.

    A smart mouth.

    A strong right hook.

    And a secret that could destroy her.

    Olivia is her own worst enemy, with a past she can't seem to escape, and the last person she wants help from is a cocky track coach she can never seem to please.

    Refusing to be pushed away, Will is determined to save her.

    And determined to resist an attraction that could destroy them both.

    Contains mature themes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 22, 2018
    ISBN9781977379689
    Waking Olivia

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    Reviews for Waking Olivia

    4/5

    182 ratings14 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 2/5
      Male narrator is so bad, like he is half asleep. Couldn’t bear to listen after few chapters

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      It was a good story and the female narrator was great. The male narrator’s voice just doesn’t do it for me. He was speaking as a 20 something guy but he sounds like he is in his 50’s. He isn’t horrible, just needs to read for older characters

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      This is a pretty good story but the male reader sounds like he's drunk or drugged through the whole book. I wish I had read the book in stead of listening.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Male Narrator was awful I could barely finish the book.
    • 4/5
      3.75 ⭐

      It's not the book, it's me. It was apparently a wrong pick for me at the time. I just failed to connect with the characters in a way that made me care what happens to them beyond the shock of it.

      It's a good story. Well written and well narrated. I enjoyed how forward Olivia was and how she didn't back down from talking back. Will felt a little bit immature, but if I remember correctly there is no big age gap here. The girlfriend is made into a villain, but it didn't bother me as I didn't really care about her. Erin was an interesting side character, so I will probably continue with the duet and read her story.
    • 5/5
      Lovely. Satisfying. Just enough of all the good stuff. I recommend.
    • 4/5
      Nice story well acted/ narrated. Will read more from this author
    • 3/5
      This book has skipping issues. You still get the story but it’ll skip in the middle of a chapter.
    • 4/5
      Loves the book but hate how narration would just cut off at the end of the chapter
    • 5/5
      5 stars.
      This appears to be written for the 18 to 25 age group, so I was surprised it appealed to me. ..I enjoyed secondary characters … the H’s mom.. for example. The h went through hell as a child … and the PTSD was wrecking her life… but I will not spoil the ending
      This should be read before Drowning Erin by the same author
    • 4/5
      Very good writing plot and character development, highly recommended, enjoyable
    • 5/5
      This was really good. I will give fair warning that when you get deeper into what happened in her childhood, the floodgates will likely open and drown you. I almost wanted to skip past knowing what was coming. Great story, but if you are highly emotional like me, you are warned.
    • 4/5
      Sometimes, if you're lucky, you pick up a book that immediately lures you into its world. Waking Olivia, a new adult novel by Elizabeth O'Roark, is such a book.

      Olivia, a troubled girl who once seemed destined for track stardom, has lost her scholarship to her Division 1 school and is now at a lower division school in a smaller town. She brings with her lots of baggage and a police record. Olivia comes across as pugnacious initially, but it's a defense mechanism that masks vulnerability and conscientiousness. She is sarcastically funny, which made reading this book a treat.

      Will is the young track coach who is trying to keep his parents' farm in the family after the death of his father and is working to give his younger brother the carefree education that he had received. The last thing he wants and needs is Olivia Finnegan, who is not only troubled but beautiful.

      When Olivia and Will meet, sparks fly, and despite themselves they find they are quickly attracted to each other. Nothing can happen between them though, because Will is Olivia's coach and he could lose his job. However, that doesn't stop him from being jealous when other boys and even his brother take notice of Olivia.

      All of the characters in Waking Olivia have been written to avoid stereotypes, with the exception of Will's girlfriend, Jessica, who turns jealous, scheming, manipulative, and vengeful when it seems she might be losing Will. The other characters for the most part are likable or, at least, believable, especially Will's mother, Dorothy, and his younger brother, Brendan.

      So, you have a new adult novel with a progressing romance, so why not throw in a mystery? It works. The mystery in this case is what is going on with Olivia? What is she hiding? Why is she living the way she is? You're not finding any spoilers here, but suffice to say the climax brings it all together.

      Now, unfortunately, what kept this from being a great book for me was the fact that the book went on too long after the climax and tried to have another, shorter climax, which felt, well, anti-climatic. There's a reason why books pretty much end after the summation at the end of the climax and that's typically based on the reader's emotional reaction to the climax. If the writer has done a good job, the reader is happy and then there's The End. If the writer chooses to go on, the following should be a bigger, more wrought climax followed by a summation, etc.

      And then there was an epilogue. I don't mind epilogues, by which I mean I'm apathetic toward them. A lot of romance books seem to find them necessary, as if you didn't already guess that there was supposed to be a happy ending. Epilogues seem to be the author's way of saying, I know you love these characters as much as I did writing them and look how wonderful everything turned out because they now have 2.5 children! Joy, joy. Huh, maybe I don't like epilogues for romance books.

      After these last two paragraphs, it might seem like I'm itching to give this book a bad to average review, which isn't the case. The points I brought up are actually the reasons why I didn't give it a 4 1/2-5 rating, which I really thought it was on its way to when the story swept me up so completely. This just goes to show how important endings are.

      This book gets 4 out of 5 on the heat index--and the heat is very well written. There is language that some might find offensive.

      I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review. Waking Olivia was published on March 13, 2016.
    • 4/5
      3.5 StarsI was pleasantly surprised by this book. The NA genre seems full of overused tropes and physical relationships with no real depth, but Waking Olivia breaks the mold.Will and Olivia are great characters who show growth and development over time. While their relationship is the main focus, there are so many great subplots going on that create a heartfelt and entertaining read. Olivia's story is heartbreaking, but Will's treatment of her is perfect. He doesn't treat her as broken, but instead helps empowers her. I loved that it took half the book (maybe even longer) before anything really physical happened to them. There was no insta-love and this slow tension was perfect, especially considering the circumstances. The secondary characters add to this and Dorothy, Will's mom, is my definite favorite. How caring she is of Olivia and her own children melts your heart. Other side characters such as Will's brother, Olivia's teammates, and Jessica Will's girlfriend/ex-girlfriend who I hated rounded out the great cast. I wouldn't mind seeing another book come from this world.