The reader killed this book for me

Really hard to rate this book itself, particularly for a UK English ear, as I can't get past the narrator's voice which, to me, grates terribly. Every sentence follows the same path, no matter the content of the sentence: start with breathiness like an infomercial, and descend through the sentence into that US 'vocal fry' thing - lower register and grittiness from the back of the throat. Every single sentence follows this descent, almost robotically, in 'Johnny One Note' fashion. There's also no discernible attempt to differentiate between people by changing the voice when different characters speak. When there's no 'she said, he said' this becomes almost baffling. One of the characters turns out to be a 'working class Brit' and his working class British accent is remarked upon by the narrator. But, this happens right after the narrator delivers his lines in the same mid-west US accent every other character has, making no attempt to deliver it as written, presumably because she can't. There are some brilliant voice actors narrating Audible books, who don't get in the way of the story but enhance it. I kept going with this book in the hope I'd just adjust to the narrator and tune her out. But, it didn't happen. The layer of blandness and apparent disinterest - the faux smile and enthusiasm that starts each breathy sentence is regardless of the context or content at each stage of the story - the narrator puts between book and listener defeated me. I don't like dissing a debut novel, so hopefully this book, when 'read' comes across as more believable than when listened to.

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