Color Me Crazy

By: Wanda Jennings, Louise Turner

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

"There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for family!" Pete Reynolds is nothing but a layabout drunk. It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have such a sweet and polite son who suffered from his abuse. When Opal comes across Pete’s son, Wilbur, in the woods one morning, she invites him back to the Manor for lunch. Wilbur becomes a regular and eventually moves in with the Montgomery family after his father is thrown in jail yet again. In between Opal’s sold out plays and Maude’s prank war with her annoying neighbor, Ruby finds herself balancing the excitement of the upcoming holidays with the tension of a potential custody battle. The Stone Sisters find themselves at a crossroads when Wilbur’s happiness suddenly comes to an abrupt halt. One thing after another rocks the small town until one night changes the course of all of their lives.

Story of small town coming together

Tight-knit small-town friends come together to save a young boy who his alcoholic father is abusing. The plot is convenient, and the characters are predictable, but not so much that it becomes boring. The narration, however, was almost monotone, and toward the end of the book, I was unsure which chapter because I was driving and couldn't look; it became garbled and difficult to understand. This was the first virtual voice book I listened to and will be the last. I found the narration flat, and it cannot distinguish between heteronyms. One example that stands out in my memory is when it had a bass became a musical instrument when the characters were fishing. Although human narrators also make errors that are missed during editing, I doubt a human narrator would make this mistake and find it more annoying than any human error. Perhaps it is a personal bias, however it was grating.