The Retreat by Conor Kostick was a good listen. While it was not a topic I would not normally choose, it was interesting and quite entertaining at times.

I give this 3 ⭐️ stars

The Retreat

Big Thanks to NetGalley for the free copy of this audio book.

The book is not my cup of tea!

I normally don’t read this type of story, in a YA age group…. It drew me in at times and in others, I was losing interest!

With this audiobook, I didn’t liked the narrator ~ his voice
seemed off to me or his portrayal for the character.

this weekend I listen 🎧 to this doing chores around the house.

The Retreat is a fun story following a young Hero into battle to follow his dreams of becoming a HERO people would tell stories about. He joins an expedition to the Holy Land, but on the way, he has many trials that test if he is a real hero or not!
I wanted our Hero Guibert to succeed; he came out of one problem and into a big one. This kept the tension high, and I could not put it down.
I don't read too many books based on this part of history, this I found interesting, and the author did a nice job making it feel real.
The other characters are a key part of this adventure. I will take more notice of fiction based on this time.

Although I did not particular care for the narrator the book transported me into a DnD game. This will be a great book rec for my DnD patrons. The writing was very good. The author caught the medieval time period well.

Entertaining. Thats what I thought of this book. It was pretty action packed from start to finish and I couldn't complain. The storyline was interesting and the characters had good development. I actually had issues with the audiobook aspect. I think my concern was the voice. Very good for the specific storyline, a knight, but it just didn't do it for me. and i think it took away from my enjoyment of the story. I would be interested to see what would have happened if I read the book instead.

Thank you to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial, and Connor Kostick for providing me an advanced reading copy of the audiobook.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this audio book.

This was a decent read with plenty of action. It was interesting to see the main character grow and mature throughout the story, and the story itself says a lot about human nature and greed. The narrator did a good job as well.

Thank you net galley for offering me a free copy of the Retreat in exchange for a honest review

An action packed audiobook that will never allow your attention to falter the retreat was an extremely interesting read and a really good start for people like me who usually don't pick up action filled books to get into the genre. The characters especially the MC were extremely well developed as was the world building

DNF at 20%

I hate giving 1 star ratings. More than that I hate DNFing a book. I always feel like I’ve been defeated and will try my absolute hardest to finish it. I received an ARC for the audiobook version of The Retreat from Netgalley. I’m gutted that my first Netgalley ARC was such a disappointment but I cannot force myself through one more minute of this audiobook.

I’m pretty sure the audio is the reason I’ve rated this novel so poorly. Unfortunately the narration is severely lacking. For whatever reason the narrator chooses to read at SUCH a slow speed that I had to increase the speed to 1.5x for him to be talking at a more reasonable pace. I can only assume he spoke so slowly due to having an Irish accent that can be a little hard to understand but it was a huge miss for me. Not only that but the sound quality leaves a lot to be desired. It had that horrible static-y sound that some low-quality recordings have which was an issue that continued to be a problem throughout the parts I listened to.

Unfortunately the audio wasn’t the only problem I had with The Retreat. It’s not a dealbreaker for me but I don’t tend to like books written in first person and this book is a prime example of why. The writing is very simplistic and reads very much like: I did this, then I did this, then I said this. It just wasn’t fun or engaging. That said I do think I’d have enjoyed this more if I’d have been able to read it visually rather than listening to it.

Although I did quite like Guibert, ignoring his self-importance, I don’t think this is a book I’ll be trying again with.

Title: The Retreat
Author: Conor Kostick
Audiobook Narrator: Thomas Feige
Publisher: BooksGoSocial
Genre: Historical Fiction, YA
Audiobook Pub Date: June 15, 2022
My Rating: Stars 3.5

Although I am not the target audience for this story, I was drawn to the description.
I always enjoyed Knights in Shining armor type stories!
When I started this audiobook, I wasn’t sure I liked the narrator ~ his voice seemed too old for the character but he grew on me as I got more absorbed in the story!

Want to thank NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for this Audio eGalley.
Audiobook was released on June 15, 2022

Very diverse characters and interesting story. Great narration, sometimes you feel like you are there, but other times just reading about them. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook.