Okay, I need to talk about how David Baldacci ends this book. Because I was sitting in my car — yes, the sacred garage car time — and I actually said "WHAT" out loud to nobody. Sophie was asleep inside, the monitor was propped on my dashboard like the world's most boring co-pilot, and I'm out here yelling at my phone over a middle-grade fantasy novel. This is who I am now.
But let me back up.
When Your Seven-Year-Old's Book Series Becomes YOUR Book Series
So here's the embarrassing truth. I started the Vega Jane series because Emma was interested in it and I wanted to preview it first. "Responsible parenting," I told myself. Three books later, Emma has moved on to Diary of a Wimpy Kid and I'm the one invested in whether Vega can literally save an entire enslaved world. Cool. Cool cool cool.
The Width of the World picks up right where book two left off — Vega, Delph, and Harry Two (the dog, and honestly my favorite character, don't @ me) have made it through the Quag and discovered that the world beyond Wormwood is... not great. People are living under magical oppression and don't even realize it, which is a surprisingly heavy concept for a kids' series. Baldacci doesn't sugarcoat the enslavement themes here, and there were moments where I thought, okay, this is darker than I expected from the guy who writes the Camel Club thrillers.
The new addition of Petra as a character works well enough — she's scrappy and suspicious in equal measure, and she gives Vega someone to bounce off of besides Delph (who I love, but the boy needs to form a complete sentence sometimes). The world-building in this third installment is bigger and messier than the first two books. You're dealing with a whole new society, new rules of magic, new political structures. For a 10-hour audiobook, there's a LOT packed in.
And here's my honest take: sometimes it feels like too much. Baldacci is juggling so many plot threads — Vega's powers, the resistance movement, the romantic tension that's simmering between her and Delph, the mystery of who's really pulling the strings — that certain stretches feel rushed while others drag. There's a middle section, maybe hours 4 through 6, where they're gathering allies and learning the lay of the land, and I kept losing track of new character names between school drop-off and picking up the thread again during nap time. This is NOT a survived-47-pauses book, honestly. You need to pay more attention than I sometimes had to give.
Fiona Hardingham Carrying This Thing on Her Back
Let me be clear about one thing: Fiona Hardingham is the reason this audiobook works as well as it does. She's been with this series from the start, and by book three, her Vega Jane voice IS Vega Jane in my head. There's this fierce determination she puts into Vega's dialogue — not shouty, but steel-spined — that makes you believe a teenage girl could actually lead a rebellion.
Her Delph is warm and slightly rough around the edges, and she does this subtle thing with Petra where there's always a hint of guardedness in the voice, like Petra's never quite letting you all the way in. For a single narrator handling this many characters across 10+ hours, she keeps things clear enough that I rarely got confused about who was talking. (The new characters in this installment are harder to distinguish, but that's more about there being SO MANY of them than any failing on her part.)
The emotional beats land because of her. There's a scene toward the end involving Harry Two — I won't spoil it — where Hardingham's voice just... cracks slightly. Not melodramatic. Just enough. Made me cry at school pickup. Worth it though.
Who's This Actually For (And Is Your Kid Ready?)
Here's where I put on my mom hat instead of my audiobook-obsessive hat. This is marketed as middle grade, and it is, but the violence in this installment is more intense than books one and two. There are battle scenes. Characters get hurt in ways that aren't glossed over. The enslavement stuff is handled at a level that I think a mature 9 or 10-year-old could process, but I'd want to be around for conversations about it. Emma at 7? Not yet. I'm gatekeeping this one for another year or two.
For adult listeners — look, it's not going to challenge you the way literary fiction does. The villains are pretty clearly villains. The moral lines are drawn in bold marker. But sometimes you don't need groundbreaking. Sometimes you need a brave girl and her dog fighting bad guys while you fold laundry and pretend you're anywhere but your living room.
The pacing issue is real though. If you're a multitasking listener like me, you might want to save this for longer listening windows rather than choppy 10-minute bursts. It rewards attention in a way that not all middle-grade fantasy does.
The Garage Verdict
I liked this. I didn't love it the way I loved the first book, which had that fresh discovery energy. The world got bigger but somehow the stakes felt both higher and harder to track. Hardingham's narration elevated everything by at least a full star for me. I had a similar experience with Sorceress, where the narrator was genuinely the difference between a three-star story and something I actually cared about finishing. And that ending — which I won't spoil but will say sets up book four with a genuine gut-punch — had me immediately putting the next one on hold at the library.
My book club will love this (if I ever have time for book club again). Or at least, the two moms in my book club who are also secretly reading their kids' fantasy series will.
