Unwanted

Their Shifter Academy, Book 1

By: May Dawson

Narrated by: Effie Bradley

Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's Summary

By the time I walk through the doors of the academy, where the born shifters of every pack are trained to fight and lead, I’m famous. Infamous? One of those.
 

I’ve already fought a battle or two. And my family’s complicated relationships with magic, which has been long forbidden to wolves, isn’t popular with all the packs.
 

I guess I should’ve said this is the place for born male shifters. There aren’t a lot of shifters like me, with flat irons and skinny jeans packed in their bags.
 

There’s quite the welcome committee waiting for me.
 

My cadre, who want to break me down and build me back up again.
 

My bullies, who just want to break me.
 

My patrol, who rises or falls with me.
 

They don’t expect me to make it to graduation in four years.
 

But I know I will.
 

Who’ll be standing with me at the end?

Their Shifter Academy is a new reverse harem romance series, set in a military academy for shifters.

©2019 May Dawson (P)2019 May Dawson

Story Drags & Reads Like HS Gossip - DNF at Ch. 20

The overview intrigued me into buying. Then the first couple Chapters were interesting. It seemed a lot of opportunities to reveal the world's backstory was missed. Because of that, I felt disconnected from the characters & what was going on.

I kept going, hoping more would be revealed, some info was given throughout the various POV chapters of other characters; but it was too sparse to recapture my already wavering attention.

This story seemed more focused on relationship woes & childish bullying. Those concepts may have worked if the groups bullying weren't supposed to be the future protectors of other shifters. To me, it seemed like a ridiculous thing to occur; especially when no one seemed bothered by the hypocrisy of it all. Maybe if the leaders reacted differently, or something, to make it more believable.

The constant circling around her past relationship w/ Lex just got to be obnoxious. I had hoped for more moments of developing a camaraderie within her patrol; but the focus would only hinge on a couple guys & the same old issues w/ Lex.

I get there is a gap for her not understanding why Lex left her; but her character was built to be impulsive, yet she never directly questions him on what happened jor does she give any explanation to others for anything. It's just absolutely not the behavior I expected; which pulled me farther away from the story.

What made me just completely stop was curiosity on how progressed the story would have become by book 2 (so I read the next blurb).....Yeah, not much really moves forward. It seems some relationships emerge more positively, while the bullying just escalates into....wait for it.... pranks. I just can't continue, knowing what would be waiting.

The narrator actually wasn't bad. She had some issues keeping a consistent tone & speech pattern with some of the male POVs; but as long as you remember who that chapter's main POV is following, you'll be good. At least that was pleasant; as too often a poor narration is what makes me avoid a book.

I do think this entire series could fit with a younger audience or for those who have more patience for repetitive moments that don't use obvious solutions to resolve issues.

Interesting

Not a huge fan of the Male voice fluctuations in this recording but overall the narrator did good. Good story line but felt a lack of chemistry between some of the ones who are to like her. Hopefully in the next book that builds more in their everyday contact and not just bedroom scene

fantastic

I loved it the story was well thought over and the voice acting could not have been better

Great Shifter Series Starter

A fantastic start of series with likeable characters and descriptive world building. The narrator was wonderful at bringing the story and characters to life. This series has shifters, witches & magic - A must read for all paranormal/fantasy fans

Love it 😍

I loved this book already when I read it but it’s awesome to be able to listen to it while I work this is one of my favorite series awesome characters hands down a must read or nuT listen ❤️

Enjoyed my read

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the author. This is me leaving an honest and volontarily review.

In spite of some bad reviews, i wanted to give this book a try nonetheless and i'm so glad i did. The story kept me interested till the end. I liked the military set for this academy. Yeah there is some bullying and some "i love you but can't show it so i have to be mean to you" vibe but overall, i did enjoyed my read. This was my first May Dawson read, so i didn't read Piper's story but i will in a near future.

I liked Effie Bradley, i think she did a great job bringing life to these characters. Will gladly listen to more books narrated by her.

Definitely binge worthy

I binge listened to this last night (until 4 am) and then finished it today. I really enjoyed the imperfections of the characters, especially Maddie, she's very realistic given her age. I enjoyed the action, the bullying, Jensen's attitudes, and so much more.

good read and listen

I really enjoyed the fact that the narrator wasn't a robot. it was a good story line as well

a mix of school drama & urban fantasy thrills

a reverse harem romance isn't exactly polyamory like it looks in the real world, and esp not the pack dynamics in this book... but god, it's still refreshing going into a romance story knowing from both the synopsis and the intro that our heroine doesn't necessarily have to pick only one beau. like, immediately during the prologue, we see her sister and her 8 boyfriends, so we're shown that's a possible trajectory for the story, even if you were to discount that this is called a "reverse harem".

... but the prologue is also like. almost entirely redundant. and there are multiple pov switches, but still using first person pov language, and without a style such in narration, or voice actor switch, multiple times I forgot who I was following if it wasn't Maddy, and had to try to figure it out on my own.

I'm intrigued by the actual martial training we at least get to glimpse in a few scenes in this book-- a lot of school/ college stories seem to gloss over the actual curriculum outside of using studying/ tutoring as an excuse to get characters to hang out; but here, while traditional schoolwork isn't really evident, with frequent Mendon of PT it really does feel like, well, the military-- I'm not in myself, but I'm an officer's brat and friend to a few ex enlisted. from what admittedly secondhand knowledge I have, it feels pretty en pointe.

the misogyny is also pretty rampant-- both intended and I think what's meant to be romantic. this is pretty explicitly a fantasy not only in the magical sense, so whatever, but it personally made me feel skeeved out how "I'm doing this for your own good" was framed as romantic-- not in the eyes of our mc, not yet, but framing makes it pretty clear that the bully is going to end up one of her boyfriends.

and... again I guess bc it's fantasy, but does EVERYONE need to have chiseled abs? like fine muscles are nice I guess, but with so many guys here, I hoped for more diversity of body type than "one of them is REALLY hairy." No love for the soft guys, or the skinny ones, or the bear who's fat AND muscled? it's just a little... boring, I guess. and repetitive-- which is a big problem with the steamy and/or sex scenes. they're all similar to each other, and have a lot of consecutive word reuse within one scene. I know there's only so much that can be done with vanilla sex scenes but... idk, at least go over it with a fine tooth comb so the wording doesn't sound weird.

final nit pick-- "taut abs" became "taunt abs" at least twice, and now I kind of want to draw a >:) on my (admittedly flabby) abs lmao

There's no real plot to this book

she spends half the book whining about the guy she loves, only to sleep with some other guy