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Audiobook Review: Spin by Lamar Giles


Spin by Lamar Giles

Narrated by Bahni Turpin, Shawana Carter and Sisi Aisha Johnson

10 hours 50 minutes

When rising star Paris Secord (aka DJ ParSec) is found dead on her turntables, it sends the local music scene reeling. No one is feeling that grief more than her shunned pre-fame best friend, Kya, and ParSec's chief groupie, Fuse - two sworn enemies who happened to be the ones who discovered her body.
The police have few leads, and when the trail quickly turns cold, the authorities don't seem to be pushing too hard to investigate further. Only no one counted on Paris's deeply loyal fans, ParSec Nation, or the outrage that would drive Fuse and Kya to work together. As ParSec Nation takes to social media and the streets in their crusade for justice, Fuse and Kya start digging into Paris's past, stumbling across a deadly secret. With new info comes new motives. New suspects. And a fandom that will stop at nothing in their obsessive quest for answers, not even murder....
 Amazon
Check your local library for a copy

I saw this book posted on Twitter and just from the synopsis, I was excited to read it. I was really into music as a teen and this is the book my young heart would have loved. The story is told from three point of views. Kya who is the longtime friend of Paris and is narrated by Sisi Aisha Johnson. Fuse is the new friend and social media manager for DJ ParSec and is narrated by Shawana Carter. Both POVS are set in the present while Paris who is narrated by Bahni Turpin is set in the past starting at the rise of DJ ParSec up until the time of her death. Kya and Fuse are not friends but are thrown together by circumstances and are forced to work together to find out what happened to Paris.

I really liked Kya and Fuse. They were both good friends to Paris but outside situations caused a rift. Working together to solve this crime and their shared grief built a friendship between the two despite past issues.

Giles weaved this tale of mystery in the death of a young black girl and how the world reacts to that. Add in the use of social media and how it can help artists rise, create a toxic fan base and be used to hurt others. That was one of the most realistic elements in the book for me and I kind of couldn't relate as an adult but I think younger readers would really identify with those aspects.

I gotta talk about the narration. I really love listening to black narrators and black stories. The characters are people who look like me and people I know and they sound like people I know. As always Bahni Turpin was amazing in her narration. Sisi Aisha Johnson was new to me and did and great job with the narration. Shawana Carter another new narrator to me was good but I had issues. I would love to listen to her again but she had a lot of awkward pauses in her narration that seemed like she was reading directly from the work and was a bit unfamiliar with stops and starts in the reading. If she worked on that she could become an amazing narrator because she has a great voice. I would still definitely recommend the audiobook in place of reading.

Overall I really loved this book. This was my first introduction to Lamar Giles and I plan on looking into his back list and look forward to reading new work by him. 5 stars







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