Okay so I need to vent for a second before I say anything nice, because I spent a solid chunk of yesterday afternoon painting a client's brand deck — the kind of tedious work where you need audio that moves — and Torn just... did not move. Not because Jennifer L. Armentrout's story isn't doing things. It absolutely is. It's because Amy Landon's pacing turns what is essentially a 300-page paranormal romance into an 11-hour endurance test, and at some point around hour six I started wondering if I'd accidentally switched to 0.75x.
Here's the thing though. I didn't stop listening. That's the review right there, honestly.
The Secret That's Eating Ivy Alive
This is book two of the Wicked series, and Armentrout drops Ivy Morgan into an impossible position from page one: she's carrying a secret about her own nature that would get her killed by the Order — the same Order her tattooed, devoted, morally serious boyfriend Ren serves with his whole heart. The tension isn't will-they-won't-they romance tension. It's will-she-survive-if-he-finds-out tension. Different animal entirely, and way more interesting to me. Days of Blood & Starlight runs on that same kind of dread — the kind where the emotional stakes are already catastrophic before anyone throws a punch.
Ivy knows Ren would choose duty. She knows it because she knows him, and Armentrout makes sure we know it too — every scene where Ren talks about the Order with that particular quiet conviction is another layer of dread on top of the intimacy. The chemistry between them isn't just heat, it's grief-adjacent. She's already mourning something she hasn't lost yet. My heart. MY HEART.
Abuela would've been completely scandalized and completely hooked. She would've been clutching her rosary over the Fae Prince's whole situation while also absolutely wanting to know what happens next.
Amy Landon and the Pacing Problem (Let's Talk About It)
Amy Landon is an Earphones Award winner and I respect that. Her enunciation is clean, her emotional engagement is present, she doesn't mangle names or stumble over the worldbuilding vocabulary — and in a paranormal series with Fae lore and Order mythology, that matters more than people give credit for.
But.
The pacing. I cannot pretend the pacing isn't a thing. Some narrators find the natural breath of a sentence and ride it; Landon tends to give every beat equal weight, which means tense moments and transitional moments land with the same measured gravity. Reading this book apparently takes three hours. Listening takes eleven. That math is telling you something about how much air is being added between the words.
For a book that's supposed to feel urgent — Ivy is literally running out of time while a Fae Prince tries to open a gate to the Otherworld — the narration occasionally works against the plot's own momentum. I found myself doing something I almost never do: considering bumping to 1.25x. I, Elena Rodriguez, who listens at 1.0x as a spiritual practice. That's how you know.
I didn't do it. I stayed at 1.0x because I'm stubborn and also because the emotional moments genuinely landed when they came. Landon handles Ivy's interior anguish — the lying, the longing, the self-betrayal — with real care. Those scenes earned it.
Who This Is For (And Who Should Just Read the Paperback)
If you're a JLA completist who needs the full Wicked series in audio form for continuity, go in knowing you'll want patience or a slightly faster speed. If you're someone who listens while doing active, fast-paced work — client calls, intense design sprints, anything requiring your brain to stay quick — this audiobook is going to feel like moving through warm honey.
But if you're a rainy Sunday book person? If you want to curl up with something that has genuine emotional stakes, a love interest who actually has convictions that create real conflict, and a heroine whose secret isn't just plot device but actual character wound? This is your book. Make tea. Let it be slow. Let Ivy's dread sit with you.
The story deserves better audio pacing than it gets. The audio pacing doesn't ruin the story. Those two things are both true.
