Gigi, Listening
Grade : C-

Gigi, Listening is the story of a girl who falls in love with the voice of an audiobook narrator and determines he is The One. Naturally, her life’s journey takes a lot of twists and turns as she pursues her fantasy man.

Our story starts with Gigi’s birthday party during book club. Her friends hand her a ticket to England (nice!) and a bus tour called Shires! Spires! Shores! led by none other than Zane, her audiobook crush. Gigi promptly calls her brother, who is between jobs at the moment, to run the bookstore she owns, and prepares to go on the trip.

Once in England, she is ten minutes late arriving at the bus but is saved from missing the tour because Zane is a no-show. Needless to say, Gigi is bummed. The whole point of going was to meet Zane, so what use is being there without him? After some haggling with Taj, the bus driver, and the newly arrived substitute guide, Angus, she reluctantly agrees to stick with the expedition. Zane will be joining them later, hopefully, so her trip overseas won’t be a total bust.

At this point, we are only twenty percent of the way through the tale, and my eyes were already strained from all the rolling they had been doing. I couldn’t figure out how, in the space of just a couple of weeks, Gigi was able to get the needed paperwork to travel to a foreign country. Less than 40% of Americans have a passport, and most only request them while preparing to travel. They can take as long as six weeks to arrive, so my brain snagged upon reading about her rapid deployment. Her friends spent a fortune on her gift; as described, it would cost at least several thousand dollars, and that seems an awful lot of money, even spread over the handful of people involved. Especially since these friends weren’t close enough to her to know that Gigi refuses to enter churches, which is what the ‘spires’ portion of the journey is all about. I was also flummoxed by Gigi's refusal to listen to the explanation given to the tour group for why Zane isn’t there. Wouldn’t you want to know what was happening to/with a man whom you had traveled thousands of miles to meet? Instead, she stands outside the bus, trying to figure out if there is any purpose to being in England (!!!) if she can’t be with him. Clearly, the only reason to travel is Twu Wuv.

Beyond the unbelievability of the text, I was troubled by Gigi’s immature attitude toward love. Setting aside the fact that a thirty-year-old woman is treating a celebrity crush seriously, I struggled with how she viewed the whole concept of couplehood. Gigi is focused on a meet-cute, on a story she can tell her kids. Her own parents met when her father read a book aloud at a bookstore and her mother had fallen in love with him right then, so it seemed natural to Gigi that she would fall in love with the man who performed the audiobook version of the same story. She fantasizes about how amazing it will be to tell her children how both she and her mother had fallen in love with a guy who read Their Finest Hour aloud. It did not seem special, natural - or healthy - to me. Gigi also seemes to have no understanding that beyond their first meeting, there will need to be a whole relationship.

My biggest problem was Gigi's attitude once she was on the trip. Jet-lagged due to not planning a hiatus between arrival in England and departure on the tour, she takes up Taj’s whole break by first sleeping on the bus (he has to stay with her to ensure her safety) and then by refusing to join the rest of the group and insisting on a few non-tour activities. Her attitude is that he shouldn’t be upset about this because she is the customer and taking care of her is his job. As he explains, he is employed to drive the bus. That’s a whole other issue, as numerous comments in the text treat being a bus driver with heaping handfuls of derision. Gigi seems like the worst sort of tourist at this moment, feeling entitled to being catered to by Taj simply because he’s employed by a company providing her with a service. She isn’t in the least remorseful for demanding far more than what he is contractually obligated to supply.

Once she gets over the jet-lag, which takes a few days of sleeping through breakfast and being grouchy about sticking to the tour timetable, Gigi settles into being a decent human being. At this point, we get to meet the quirky folks who are along on the excursion with Taj and Gigi. and watch how the magic of being together helps them fix some of what is wrong with their lives. It doesn’t, however, fix what is wrong with this book. I liked what little I knew of these people and enjoyed watching Gigi and Taj interact with them, but they aren’t enough to salvage the fact that the heroine begins the story as an immature jerk.

It doesn’t matter, though, because those folks are just there to be a foil to Gigi’s romance. Taj, accepting a lot of scorn over his career choice and an equal amount of snark just because Gigi is jet-lagged, still manages to form a bond with our prima donna during the first part of the trip. He is an amazing hero, and what little enjoyment I derived from this book is due to him. Taj makes it his mission to know everyone around him, from the punters on the river to the guy who owns his favorite sandwich shop. He is patient with Gigi’s foibles, thoughtful of her many quirks, and spectacularly kind to his friends. When Zane makes his appearance at about the 60% mark, delivering a love triangle, I was less than pleased. I understood the author wants to handle Gigi’s obsession, which is the impetus for the tale, but the story had just settled into being charming, if superficial, and Zane was a disruption to that. I also didn’t appreciate how the author resolves the issue. Let’s just say it isn’t much of a contest as to who is the better man. It was, frankly, unnecessary to create this contrast, and it would have added some depth to the story if Zane had been worthy of crossing an ocean for.

Overall, I did not enjoy Gigi, Listening. I wouldn’t have minded spending the bulk of the book with the girl we get at the end, but the snobby, demanding, entitled young woman we meet at the start wasn’t worth 200 pages of reading time.

Over the course of my thirteen years at AAR, I’ve reviewed over 800 books and given a C- to only 5% of them. Unfortunately, this volume has to join that exclusive club. I can’t recommend it.

Reviewed by Maggie Boyd
Grade : C-

Sensuality: Subtle

Review Date : April 29, 2023

Publication Date: 03/2023

Review Tags: 

Recent Comments …

Maggie Boyd

I've been an avid reader since 2nd grade and discovered romance when my cousin lent me Lord of La Pampa by Kay Thorpe in 7th grade. I currently read approximately 150 books a year, comprised of a mix of Young Adult, romance, mystery, women's fiction, and science fiction/fantasy.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

2 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
2
0
What's your opinion?x
()
x