cover image The Wild Zone

The Wild Zone

Joy Fielding, read by Jeffrey Cummings, Brilliance Audio, unabridged, nine CDs, 10.5 hours, $36.99 ISBN 978-1-4233-6268-5

When Jeff, Will, and Tom make a wager to see who can bed an attractive woman first, it (inevitably) blows up in their faces and sends them all down paths of destruction from which no one will walk away unscathed. Unfortunately, neither the prose nor the narration can sustain our interest in the characters or their fates. Fielding’s attempt to inject several core character-building events (a dying mother, rival brothers, post-traumatic stress from fighting in Afghanistan, childhood abuse and exploitation, body dysmorphia, and more) falls flat. Jeffrey Cummings’s narrative voice keeps the story going, but his character voices are lacking: his female voices lack authenticity and his male characters sound forced. An Atria hardcover (Reviews, Dec. 14). (Feb.)