Author: TJ Klune
Narrator:: Michael Lesley
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Run Time: 10 Hours, 24 Minutes
Rating: 5 Stars
Blurb: Do you believe in love at first sight?
Paul Auster doesn’t. Paul doesn’t believe in much at all. He’s thirty, slightly overweight, and his best features are his acerbic wit and the color commentary he provides as life passes him by. His closest friends are a two-legged dog named Wheels and a quasibipolar drag queen named Helena Handbasket. He works a dead-end job in a soul-sucking cubicle, and if his grandmother’s homophobic parrot insults him one more time, Paul is going to wring its stupid neck.
Enter Vince Taylor.
Vince is everything Paul isn’t: Sexy, confident, and dumber than the proverbial box of rocks. And for some reason, Vince pursues Paul relentlessly. Vince must be messing with him, because there is no way Vince could want someone like Paul.
But when Paul hits Vince with his car – in a completely unintentional if-he-died-it’d-only-be-manslaughter kind of way – he’s forced to see Vince in a whole new light. The only thing stopping Paul from believing in Vince is himself – and that is one obstacle Paul can’t quite seem to overcome. But when tragedy strikes Vince’s family, Paul must put aside any notions he has about himself and stand next to the man who thinks he’s perfect the way he is.
Review: How I know I’m sucked into a story: when it has me laughing my fanny off in less than five minutes into it.
Michael Lesley is a new to me narrator, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be on the lookout for more from him. He plays Paul to perfection and didn’t do too bad a job at giving voice to Vince and the other secondary characters involved; although I must say all the women’s voices sounded the same, but at least they sounded like women. I felt sometimes his pacing was a little fast, but that just gave me the impression that Paul was either a bit hyper or drank too much caffeine, or both, just what I’d expect of Paul’s character. Still, Michael outdid himself with his comedic delivery. I will never really think of Captain Hook, sandwich bags, and bagels without my twisted and warped sense of humor kicking in.
And, as a side note, I absolutely loved Paul’s grandmother’s homophobic parrot, Johnny Depp. He’s just too cute to describe. What can I say? You know TJ Klune. Tell Me It’s Real is a very funny story! If I had to choose between reading and listening, I have to say listening wins, mainly because of the emotion thrown into the narrator’s performance.
There was only one thing that annoyed the heck out of me while listening to Tell Me It’s Real, that being the long pauses in between the chapters. It was a technical difficulty Dreamspinner should be made aware of that detracted from the flow of the story but didn’t affect my overall love of it.
Tell Me It’s Real is highly recommended to those who love humor, and I’d love a sequel with Helena/Sandy and Darren.
You can buy Tell Me It’s Real here:
Tell Me It’s Real is one of my all-time favorite books. With my favorites, I always worry that the audiobook won’t live up to my imagination. I’m glad to read that the narrator does such a good job here. I might just give it a try. Thanks!