50 Acts of Kindness
By: Ellyn Oaksmith / Narrated By: Wendy Rich Stetson
Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
Surprisingly delightful, and the narration makes this a gutsy, kinda snarky, heroine
Yeh yeh yeh—I’m kinda a total Romance fiend, but I must admit that Contemporary Romances are uuuusually not my favorite thing. First, they can be steamy (Toes curling NOW!), and I don’t fancy the dialogue as it’s sooooo… well… contemporary. Gimme the sometimes stuffy manners of a Regency any day of the week!
So I was delighted to find that I spent a good amount of time listening to 50 Acts of Kindness nodding my head and chuckling. At first I found the narration off-putting, as Wendy Rich Stetson has a deeper and kinda more gruff voice. But as we headed into the opening problem, I decided this was a good thing as our heroine Kylie is a bold, sassy, gutsy woman. I was worried Stetson’s rich tones would make Kylie tooooo snarky, but heck! She was. But at least throughout the story we find that she’s able to laugh at herself and to eveeeentually learn from her mistakes.
And she’s CONstantly making mistakes.
Kylie is an up and coming go-getter at a large firm who’s called into her boss’s office for what she thinks miiiight be a promotion. Uhm, nope… Rather, it turns out that one of her trademark rampages was caught on phone video and was uploaded to YouTube (Over 2 million hits!) titled: The World’s Worst Boss (One reeeeally should NOT bring a heavily pregnant woman to tears…!). With no place to go after being canned, Kylie heads home to see her mother and to lick her wounds. No problem… uhm… maybe.
It’s just that Mom is kinda a hippy dippy good soul who wrote a book about doing 50 acts of kindness—it’s a self help challenge. And Mom unequivocally states that Kylie must undertake it if she’s going to be staying. And so begins Kylie’s attempts to game the system. She’ll make the attempts, sure, but she’s going to be doing it on social media, kinda tweaking her woeful image.
Naturally EVERYthing that can go wrong does, and each time things go awry the town’s sheriff shows up. Of COURSE this would be the fabulously handsome Chet who was the quarterback of her high school’s football team—something she haaaates. And she also haaaaates that each time he comes to save her, she’s in an embarrassing position. It turns out little old ladies do NOT want you to carry their groceries out if you’ve not been asked, and you really shouldn’t pretend to be a massage therapist to get inside a person’s house if you’ve got ulterior motives. People don’t like that.
Throughout the whole thing is Kylie pondering what it means to come from a small town where people know each other as opposed to living in a big ol’ exciting metropolis where you can kinda ease back and lick your wounds withOUT people knowing about it. Then too Kylie’s high school years were unhappy ones, her prom was a nightmare, and as things wound up? Well, Dad left the family and wound up marrying Kylie’s best friend. Uhm, AWKwaaaard… EsPECially with a high school reunion looming, things are looking rough.
Fortunately, Kylie (Who was actually named Cedar in one of Mom’s hippy dippier moments) has a good sidekick, an awesome if hideous dog, and cooking at Mom’s B & B—which happens to be a nudist B & B (Kylie spends plenty of time trying to have conversations wherein she does NOT glance to nether regions). This will all help as she navigates those 50 acts of kindness which soon become trying to do them all for one crotchety and cantankerous old woman who totally isn’t into being helped.
Kylie has a lot to learn, but will she learn it in time to find a Happily Ever After? Dunno, but after a Reunion fiasco, New York’s looking mighty good.
Sure it’s kinda predictable, but Kylie is such a refreshing heroine, and Chet isn’t an annoying Contemporary Romance Hero who’s all looks and no flaws. He puts up with a lot, but he’s willing to draw lines in the sand without being a sanctimonious toad about anything (Sorry toads).
Good crisp writing, with just a bit of heat but still refreshingly clean, great narration. And for this, the last week of checking audiobooks out with Audible’s Escape package? I thought it was a hit and am now sorely sorrowful that I shan’t get a chance to wallow in Romances from here on… not for a pittance, at any rate…
:(
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