Antonevia Ocho-Coultes narrates Sarah Dass’ YA/teen romance set during Trinidad’s Carnival celebration. Tess Crawford dreams of being a successful Trinidadian Carnival costume designer like her genius-renowned uncle, Russell Messina, and someday inheriting leadership of the family’s masquerade band, Grandeur. Unfortunately, Grandeur’s future faces ruin because of band rivalry and changes in the industry. Desperate, Tess joins forces with the bane of her existence, classmate Brandon Richards to save the family business. Tess and Brandon spend time together trying to save Grandeur and Tess gets to know him better, she discovers that what she thought she knew about him may not be true at all.

Ocho-Coultes narration complements Dass’ descriptive writing, and vibrant and detailed world-building. She’s a terrific narrator, able to create different voices for a variety of characters. Her animated narration and perfect accent draw you into the story immediately, and you can’t stop listening. Ocho-Coultes’ voices/narration for Tess and Brandon match their characters, and the secondary ones. With accents, dialects, pacing, emotion, and inflection, she gives them distinct voices, revealing their personalities, feelings, quirks, and state of mind. Her skillful narration suggests that there could be multiple narrators.

Prideful, set in her ways, and short-tempered, Tess doesn’t fit in with her classmates. She can be close-minded and has poor people skills. 

Fascinated with costumes for as long as she could remember, Tess loves the art form of creating costumes for Carnival. Sewing since she was a child, she’s a talented seamstress and costume designer, who focuses on the quality of the costumes she designs, believing what you choose to wear and project to the world for Carnival says more about who you are than the secrets hidden under makeup and costumes. Despite what Brandon does or says, Tess won’t trust or give him a break. She always thinks the worst of him. Everything about him drives her crazy, especially how attractive she finds him when she wants to hate him. His connection to her horrible ex-boyfriend David, who shared personal details about her and her parents with her classmates, doesn’t help.

Arrogant, confident, and honest, popular social media influencer Brandon works with Grandeur to improve their social media/marketing. There’s more to him than what appears on the surface. Surprisingly, Brandon knows Tess well, while she doesn’t appear to know him at all. Though she thinks she does. He loves pushing her buttons. And he even has an affectionate nickname for her that drives her crazy. He loves social media and marketing, but his parents want him to focus on a real job instead.

I love Tess and Brandon’s snarky banter, connection, vibe, and interactions, which are fiery, funny, and full of sparks, attitude, and chemistry. Dass skillfully transitions their relationship from hate-to-love/enemies-to-lovers, using the character’s senses to make each interaction richly detailed and emotion-filled. Brandon and Tess earn their beautiful, romantic admissions of love.

Tess lives with her aunt and uncle. Loyal and obsessive, she loves Grandeur and clashes with her uncle over how to keep them relevant and competitive. Tess and her uncle are both stubborn, each believing they know what’s best for Grandeur. However, Grandeur has fallen behind the times with social media and is having trouble keeping up with other bands, especially concerning fetes and Carnivale experiences.

I love her skeptic and cynic cousin Hazel, her only friend, and their relationship. A socially awkward introvert, Hazel is a romance writer. The secondary romance between Hazel and her boyfriend is sweet and hilarious. It also contributes to Tess and Brandon’s relationship development because Hazel’s boyfriend is best friends with Brandon. He’s also married into her family’s rival band.

Funny, emotional, sweet, romantic, fast-paced and angsty, When the Vibe is Right is an entertaining audiobook highly recommended for fans of enemies-to-lovers, forbidden romance, Black love, and YA/Teen romance. It explores themes of friendship, mistaken impressions, following your dreams, falling in love, taking chances, family, carrying on the family legacy, doing your own thing, fighting parental expectations, doing what you love.

Content Warnings: panic attacks, grief/loss, parent death (past)

Advanced listening copy provided by HarperAudio via Netgalley for review.

This was a cute little enemy to love trope that one could throughly enjoy. My students would devour this because Jim the right amount of drama with a love story. I enjoy learning about Trinidadian carnivals and the importance of preserving that history and legacy.

Get ready to dive into an excellent romance that takes place in the stunning land of Trinidad! Sarah Dass weaves a charming story where enemies become lovers. Meet Tess Crawford, who's all set to be a big-shot Trinidadian Carnival costume designer like her famous uncle. But here's the twist - she can't stand her classmate, Brandon Richards, a social media star. Uh-oh!

When Tess's family's masquerade band, Grandeur, faces trouble, they must join forces, even if they'd rather not. But guess what? As they spend time together, things get interesting! Love starts blooming in the most unexpected places, and the beautiful setting of Trinidad's Carnival makes it even more exciting.

Sarah Dass's storytelling is pure magic! The romance is heartwarming, and you'll feel like you're part of the Carnival celebrations yourself. When the Vibe Is Right is a fun read that shows us that love can surprise us when we least expect it. So, jump in and enjoy this extraordinary journey of love and discovery!

Classic coming of age enemies to lovers story with likable and relatable characters, realistic and compelling conflicts set among the costume makers of Trinidad's carnival culture. The setting is fresh and vivid. It will appeal to young readers who are familiar with Island culture and seldom get to see it in popular books, and it will be a new insight for readers who are new to it.

This book was so good I forgot it was using a synthetic voice. I can't wait to see what It's like when there's an actual voice actor.

Thank you Netgalley and Harper Audio for the ARC/ARL in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a cute YA Romance that taught the reader a little bit about Carnival culture. This book centers around the life and relationships of Tess. Tess is grieving from the loss of her parents. She is in high school in Trinidad, which is the setting of the book. Tess is really trying to find her way through life while in her last year of high school. Tess is very talented in making carnival costumes,

Shortly after the audiece meets Tess, Brandon comes on the scene. Brandon works for a rival company which is not solely the reason for his and Tess' hate relationship. Though these two are enemies, I think if the author wanted the antagonistic relationship to drive the plot, it lackluster in developing the enemy component. It was more of frenemies. at best, it did not get a strong vibe (no pun intended) that Tess and Brandon were enemies or dealings intolerable. Though romance (especially YA Romance) is not what I normally enjoy, this made me want to read more YA romance.

This is a super cute story that develops slowly, although Tess and Brandon's enemies-friends-love story was cute, I enjoyed the secondary characters (Hazel and Chris) love story just as much. Though I enjoyed the book, it did not wow me.

In reading this book I learned a little bit about the Trinidadian culture, which interest me a bit. I give this overall a 3.5 star rating and recommend.

I am not sure what the odds are that I would read this book while teaching Romeo and Juliet (and watching Romeo + Juliet), but it was absolutely kismet to find that this book has both the play and 1996 film adaptation at the forefront as well as drawing inspiration from them for the plot and conflict! (“Some consequence yet hanging in the stars,” anyone?) This was so unintentional but has been serendipitous. I not only enjoyed the story but am surrounded by it in my life right now. I really loved learning about Trinidad, its culture, and Trinidadian Carnival, plus I am a Billy Shakes gal and sucker for enemies-to-lovers, so this was a win all around. Thank you to NetGalley for the audio ARC!

I enjoyed this frenemies-to-lovers YA romance. Despite this being a trope that I don't usually read, this one was a decent introduction, although the enemies part was lacking a little. I listened to the audiobook via Netgalley, and the dialogue was a little weird. If I had read this, I would've enjoyed this a lot more.

But I most importantly enjoyed learning about Carnival and Trinidadian culture. I think this book will resonate with many younger readers interested in traveling and Carnival in general. Also, how can you deny that beautiful cover?

Thanks to NetGalley and Audiotoure for the free audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. From the overall story to the history and education of Carnival. This story remind me to follow my passion but also not to become so stuck in my ways to not allow help from others.

I can’t wait to see which narrator is chosen for the book because the auto version doesn’t do it justice.

3.5/5 - Such a fun read! I love an enemies to lovers story - maybe the only trope I love. This was a fun story and cute match. The dialogue read awkward at times, at least via audiobook. Otherwise, big fan and would recommend if you're looking for a quick YA romance read. Thanks to NetGalley and Audiotoure for the free audiobook in exchange for an honest review

I almost didn't finish the book, because I had a tough time with the narration. Asides from the narration, it's a nice interesting book, I would definitely get the physical copy once it's released.

I’ll admit that listening to a synthetic narrator is really tough and it makes the experience less desirable.

This book was decent. Not very exciting. The main character wasn’t very likeable to me but I can’t pinpoint why exactly. The story was good, had rich history and ultimately ended well but overall the book left something to be desired.