School for Psychics, Book 1

By: K.C. Archer

Narrated by: Madeleine Maby

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's Summary

An entrancing new series starring a funny, impulsive, and sometimes self-congratulatory young woman who discovers she has psychic abilities - and then must decide whether she will use her skills for good or...not.

Teddy Cannon isn’t your typical 20-something woman. She’s resourceful. She’s bright. She’s scrappy. She can also read people with uncanny precision. What she doesn’t realize: She’s actually psychic.

When a series of bad decisions leads Teddy to a run-in with the police, a mysterious stranger intervenes. He invites her to apply to the School for Psychics, a facility hidden off the coast of San Francisco where students are trained like Delta Force operatives: It’s competitive, cutthroat, and highly secretive. They’ll learn telepathy, telekinesis, investigative skills, and SWAT tactics. And if students survive their training, they go on to serve at the highest levels of government, using their skills to protect America and the world.

In class, Teddy befriends Lucas, a rebel without a cause who can start and manipulate fire; Jillian, a hipster who can mediate communication between animals and humans; and Molly, a hacker who can apprehend the emotional state of another individual. But just as Teddy feels like she’s found where she might belong, strange things begin to happen: break-ins, missing students, and more. It leads Teddy to accept a dangerous mission that will ultimately cause her to question everything - her teachers, her friends, her family, and even herself.

Set in a world very much like our own, School for Psychics is the first book in a stay-up-all night series.

©2018 K. C. Archer (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio

So bad. So incredibly, irretrievably bad.

This is easily the worst audiobook I've listened to in years and I want my $5 back. I could only get through a few hours before having to turn it off. The writing is basic, unimaginative, and peppered with so many desperate references to pop culture (Instagram, Facebook, selfies, "the web" etc...) that the author comes across as someone's aging auntie trying to connect with "those cool young millennial kids" by regurgitating buzzwords she heard watching Youtube for a weekend. The story itself is predictable and has heavily borrowed plot points from X-Files, Harry Potter, tv shows like Bones, etc. and you'll instantly recognize the patchwork of story elements that just do not fit together. Characters are stereotypes you'd see all over television and there's nothing to keep the reader engaged. This book is such a waste of time.

Ok, not great.

I've read lots of young adult fiction but I wasn't impressed with this. The premise is interesting but it was poorly written - like a 10th grade creative writing assignment. It needed another rewrite or two to polish it up before publication.

She chose... poorly.

I wanted to like this book and there were times when I actually did. But when the main character, presented with a choice, chooses the dumb one or the unethical one *every time* I stop caring what happens to her. I’m curious how this story ends but not enough to waste two and a half hours of listening time on someone I don’t particularly like and certainly don’t respect.

As for the narrator - she only read the main character in a regular voice and at an even tempo. Everyone else spoke slowly and haltingly. It was an affectation that grew tiresome very quickly.

From fun to addictive

This was a”I need something new,time to go outside my comfort-zone”. Ok. I have loved sci-fi in futuristic setting sometimes I have found awesomely amazing listens. This is in it’s own league though. It is finally for adults. It reminds me of Homeland plus the Vault of dreamers. Top three of this year so far. Don’t miss this one.

Not bad, but not ‘realistic’, terrible narration

I like paranormal, and thought I would really enjoy this series. I’m fine with the story and characters, though their abilities are a little over-the-top in some instances and weak in others - a bit inconsistent for me. The thing that ruined the book and prevents me from continuing with the series is the narration. The male voices are all robotic, devoid of personality, not at all likable, and all sounded the same (even the ‘strong’ female roles had the same voice). I will be avoiding Madeleine Maby narrated books in the future.

Worst narration

Storyline was interesting and main character narration was fine but all the men spoke in a slow monotone which became tedious. I almost gave up on the book because of the narration. I hope there’s a different narrator for book 2

Decent story, robotic narrator

The idea of a school to train people with psychic powers is not particularly new but the setting was different. For me, the biggest issue was the narrator. All of the dialog was in essentially the same voice and the narrator took great pains to enunciate clearly but it comes off robotic and not how people speak. It was off-putting enough that I almost stopped listening. If the second book has the same narrator, I probably won’t get it.

Good premise, but meh execution.

Maybe I'm just not the target audience, but I had too many moments of cringing.

The gal reading it sounded like she had mush in her mouth a bit. She was good about repeating the same vocal patterns for different characters to help pinpoint the speaker, but I just really am not impressed with all these single reader books (Dune was awesome! With many very different readers). I mean even just 2 readers that have range could do so much more than a single person ever could.

And while the premise to the story sounded neat, there was way too much angsty romance ("what is he thinking?"), repeated bad decisions, and lots of events that made no sense to me over and over. Yes in the end they try to tie many together into an overall reason along with a moral, but that happened very abruptly. And way too often I'd hear they had X minutes only to hear one sentence of dialog and "times up". Too much disbelief lost I guess.

Predictable and painful

First, as many have pointed out, the narration was subpar, particularly when she had to do male voices. The story would have been middling if this were classified as a YA story... but as an adult story, this was not very good at all.

YA parading as adult?

The story itself was good. the way the main character acted was at times very juvenile. The students in the story were supposed to be mud 20's but acted like middle schoolers most of the time. I have read YA fiction before that didn't have this dissonance. Make up your mind.The writing needs polishing, and someone to look at continuity. But, again I liked the storyline and I am interested in what happens in the next book.

Great 1st book

This isn’t any of my usual genres by a long shot. But I really liked listening to this book. It’s well written and certainly kept me listening.