Understanding the Stars

De: Xela Culletto

Narrado por: Lori Prince

Between her father’s terminal disease, high school graduation, and a job delivering pizza, Alexandra Blackwood's life is complicated enough. But when she leaves on another routine delivery and meets Ronan, a handsome stranger with an alien-entangled past, life goes from complicated to perilous. He warns that she’s been the unwitting victim of an alien experiment gone wrong and sets out to help her escape looming abduction, and maybe win her heart.

©2017 Xela Culletto (P)2017 Xela Culletto

Interesting take on aliens

I have been a fan of sci fi, but more so fantasy for a long time I have seen many different takes on aliens and this one is quite interesting. What if they watched us through an implant, but ended up caring for us through this watching. They want to protect us from another set of aliens that wanted to use us for ill.

Good Pacing, Entertaining Read

Any additional comments?

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

I was surprised by the fast pace nature of the book. The pacing didn't take away from the enjoyment of the overall story. The narrator was spot on with the emotional side.

Outer-Space Comes Home

I loved the fast paced actiony feel to this story. Everything that Alexandra and Ronan experienced and the whirlwind feel to the story is great. I've always wondered what alien life forms are like and the way this shows them is really awesome, and yet they are complete jerks. I know when we finally meet them there will e some like this, but there's gotta be nice ones out there somewhere. Then there's Lori's performance and man did she do an amazing job. I loved listening to her narrate this story and all the different voices she used and all the emotions she conveyed was just pure genius.

A very good alien love story

Any additional comments?

I liked this listen right away. The narrator was the perfect choice for this material. The main character, Alex, is a teenager on the verge of adulthood. The narrator never lost that delicate balance throughout all of the alien storyline.

Speaking of, what a unique take on aliens and alien invasions. Alex started doing some dumb things, all for a good cause, but I kept rooting for her. Well, humans.

I liked the love story. Everybody should have a Ronan in their corner, alien or not. This listen is probably not for everybody but I enjoyed it.

Where's the understanding the stars

This is okay. I feel it lacks depth and needs some more character development. It left me uncaring about what was going on.
The narration was also okay.
This Audio book was given to me for free at my request from the publisher, author or narrator and I provided this unbiased voluntary review.

I wanted to give this a

I wanted to give this a 5 Star rating BUT I SHOULD'VE gave it a 3.5 OR 3 however I HAVE HOPE IT'LL GET BETTER IN THE NEXT BOOK!! I just was confused some....and I'm going to listen to it again just to verify its NOT ME! I LOVE THE PLOT & CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT BOOK!!! WE WILL SEE!!

Different type of love story❤️👽

Not a bad Science Fictionish audio book. YA teenage love that has aliens, gun fights, cute kissing scenes. It ended on what I would call a cliff hanger. None the less I still loved listening to it. Lori Prince is a new narrator I haven’t come across, so I’ll be sure to look out for more audible books with her. I give this two 👍🏾👍🏾. Go ahead and download 📖 and 🎧 listen

Mostly an YA romance story with Sci-Fi base.

I had received this book for free from the author / narrator / publisher and I'm providing an unbiased review for this book.

From the cover and synopsis provided for this book, it looked like an young adult romance book. And it mostly is. It just has a Sci-Fi base. That said, the story is fast paced and the narrator does a good job of expressing the emotions. The scenes between Alexandra and her father are specially emotional.

It needs polishing

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Xela Culletto. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

Alexandra Blackwood is just a normal teenage girl on her last year of high school, and she works part time delivering pizzas. During one of her errands she meets a mysterious man who seems to eye her with what she interprets as fondness. Later on she discovers the he is a descendant of some ancient people taken from Earth by aliens thousands of years ago. They are doing some research on Earthlings, and this man has been watching Alex very closely for the last three years. But something goes wrong and both have to escape from an imminent danger.

I found the premises of this story very interesting, and I was decided to plunge into it right away. It is an easy listen and fast paced book. Sometimes too much. I missed some descriptions and introductions to new places. It was like 'Alex is here, and then she was there'. I think it would have helped to create the right atmosphere if this part would have been more polished.

The same happens with characters. They are not very developed, and what we know from them is very little. I also missed descriptions here, since I did not find out until I was half way through the book that Ronan was also eighteen. We get a couple of details when we first meet him, but from this brief description I would have guessed he was much older. He was described as a man, but I would have called him a boy, like Alex was a girl.

I was bothered by how perfect Alex was. It is not that we get a lot of information about her, but everything was so perfect that it was unrealistic. Alex's relationship with her parents did not ring true either. She came and went as she pleased and her mother did not have a lot to say about it. I just missed some of the family drama that we all have. Apart from this issues with the characters, I found the conversations forced and not mirroring real conversations. People just do not talk like that.

There is a second race of aliens in the story. They are evil, ugly and stinky. I think a story increases its value when there are nuances to the characters. The good ones are not so good, and the bad ones are not so bad. I just hate when writers simplify things and make the main character too perfect and the bad ones evil and ugly. Life does not work like this.

There is a bit of romance between Alex and Ronan. Not too much to make it annoying, but I think it is something almost mandatory in a YA book.

Lori Prince's narration was correct, and delivered a good interpretation for Alex. I missed some more voice range for the other characters, which spoiled the story a bit. I think Prince has great interpretation skills but she needs to work a bit more on her voice. There is a sentence repeated at 3:20:05, but no other audio production issues were found.

It was an okay story but, in my opinion, it should have been much more polished before releasing the book. Characters, places and events would have needed more work.

I actually really liked!

I read someone else review and they mentioned that this audiobook need some polishing and i exactly agree. It's a great story! And the narrator did an fantastic job. But there was something kinda... indy about it. But still, Bravo... great story. I will keep checking back looking for more!!