Young Adult Reads: TOUR Audio - YA FICTION - SLANTED AND DISENCHANTED (Disenchanted, #1) by Lisa Czarina Michaud Narrators Zach Lazar Hoffman & Jillian Kuhl

SLANTED AND DISENCHANTED
Disenchanted, #1
by Lisa Czarina Michaud
Narrators: Zach Lazar Hoffman, Jillian Kuhl
Length: 8 hours and 56 minutes
Released: December 13th 2021
Publisher: Barre Chord Press
Genre: Fiction; Young Adult

The Book Junkie Reads . . . Review of . . SLANTED AND DISENCHANTED (Disenchanted, #1) . . . I enjoyed meeting Carla and Pete. I had a different view of what I was expecting with this one. I got more. Friends, family, expectations (meet, exceeded, missed), and life as a young adult in the world of today.

I had the opportunity to meet two new authors to me. I enjoyed both of them. There was a smooth quality to the audio and the smoothness of the narrators complementing the story from Lisa Czarina.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Lisa Czarina Michaud. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

She hates her family. He's hiding behind his teenage sex life. They form a band to escape from it all. On tour, can they start over....or will all secrets come out on the open road?

Carla Bucchio never cared about things like boyfriends and SATs. If she did, maybe life at 20 would be more exciting than developing photos on Long Island. When she chooses the guitar over a social life, it only makes sense because no one talks to her anyway.

Music may be Pete Albrecht's life but what good is his talent if he has no one to share it with? When he's not getting bitched about coffee at work, he's getting nagged about college by his girlfriend. What would they say if they really knew about him?

In 2001 when boy bands and backup dancers have saturated pop culture, Carla and Pete start a rock band. Despite his girlfriend's manipulations and her mother's drunken disapproval, the two form a secret connection through the music.

Before heading out on their cross-country tour, tragedy turns the world upside down forcing them to decide if the band is just a teenage dream or their gateway to freedom...and to each other?

Slanted and Disenchanted is the provocative first book in Lisa Czarina Michaud's coming-of-age Disenchanted series. Told with wry humor with nostalgic '90s undertones, it's High Fidelity meets On the Road with a dash of Moxie that explores sexual tension in friendships, the confusion of adulting, the love and chaos of family....and the soundtracks that get us through it all. *contains strong language, drug and sexual references, and sexual experiences.

Lisa Czarina Michaud is an author and translator. Born and raised in Chelsea before a family relocation to Long Island, she has been writing her New York stories her entire life. Wanting to see the left coast, she attended The Evergreen State College before stumbling through adulthood in Hollywood, then back east to Brooklyn and eventually Paris. Lisa's work has been featured in various publications. She currently lives in France with her husband, son, and cat, Le Tigre. Slanted and Disenchanted is her first novel.

Jillian Kuhl is a voiceover actor living in NYC with her husband and loving, judgmental dog! You can hear her voice on national commercials, radio, and video games. Notably, she plays a character in the Red Dead Redemption II video game. (Earned big points with her husband’s friends!) Originally from Wisconsin, Jillian earned her degree in Musical Theatre before finding her way behind the mic. She enjoys being outside, eating snacks, and watching trashy reality shows.

Zach Lazar Hoffman is a full time actor and voice actor, father of four living in Nashville, TN. A dedicated husband and father, Zach seeks to grow in his artistry to mastery and is dedicated to the art of acting, devoted to the craft of storytelling, and committed to the process of becoming another. His passion is to demonstrate the broken state of humanity through devastating performances in an effort to inspire good in every soul.

From Author Lisa Czarina Michaud

The one comment I get, that seems to be universal from book reviewers to my blurb contributors is that the book has a cinematic quality to it, with imagery that plays out like a movie. I love that this is recognized because while I was writing it, I too could see the characters and scenes play out in technicolor in my head, so I’m thrilled that it translated to text and audio. For Carla, I immediately thought of Léa Seydoux when she was in the Christophe Honoré film La Belle Personne. I imagined the thick long dark hair and ‘60s girl-group bangs, as well as the reserved and observant nature of the character. While sketching Carla out, as much as she is her own person with a different background, aesthetically and some surface personality traits, I thought of Léa in this movie. Pete, on the other hand, took some time to fully realize. I knew he had black-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses, French-boy cool, sexy-messy hair, a slim but muscular build and looked better than anyone in an old t-shirt. I was thinking maybe early Kerouac or Brando but more modern day. James Dean without the cliché . For a year, I had all of the details but not a complete face. It wasn’t until after the book went to press that I saw the movie Ladybird and then Call Me By Your Name that I went, there he is! There’s Pete! And that actor who put the pieces together is Timothée Chalamet and not because he’s French like Pete (although that helps!) but he portrays in his films that messy-cool-boy thing with a vulnerability that I hope I captured in Pete.