I tried too many times to read this one and finally downloaded the Netgalley audio version thinking this would be the kick in the butt to get into it but alas it still didn't pull me in.

There wasn't enough of a foundation to meet the characters ahead of all of the grief that was overtaking them and I'm in a rut regarding books on grief as many people get into their feelings over the characters feelings of grief but I'm not and that's a problem with an empathetic connection. There are two characters, one grieving his dead mother where he buys a bookstore with the insurance money and the other who is the Ferryman of the River Styx who has one more year to go before he's free of the curse of ferrying those across. The two of their worlds collide.

It felt like stuck spinning wheels, nothing quite happening enough but something is certainly going on. It didn't work for me.

I received a special edition of this book in my Owlcrate and knew nothing about it, but when I saw Netgalley had the audiobook I was interested in starting!

This is not something I typically read, but I did enjoy the story. I am on a roll reading books that show how people overcome loss and finding themselves. This book was such an interesting concept with the "real world" and the "mythical world" mixing. The readers in the audio book did a great job reading clearly and differentiating the voices so you could clearly tell whose POV you were reading.

The only issue I had with this book was that at times I could hear a dull ringing in the background or I could tell when the voice was stopping and starting its like the background dull noise came and went and at time it was all that I could focus on.

This is such a unique story and very different from anything I've read before. Styx bounces between the POVs of Bastian and Zan. Bastian survived a car accident where his mother died and that he feels responsible for. He's floating through life without much direction. Zan is bound to the River Styx and must deliver souls that got stuck on the way to heaven or hell for a term of 500 years; he's on year 499 at the time of the story.

These two should have never crossed paths, but Bastian keeps appearing in Zan's realm because he was actually supposed to die in the accident, too. Bastian doesn't want to die. Zan wants his freedom but doesn't want Bastian to die, either. They form a relationship while trying to sort through these things and the fact that they do not exist in the same place. This leads to an interesting perspective on grief and moving on.

I really enjoyed the audiobook version of this book. It was recorded in a dual narrator format, so Zan and Bastian both get a voice. I loved getting a voice to pair with the characters I'd read about previously; I think it helped me to get a better idea of what they were supposed to be like (for example, one voice was lower than I had originally imagined). They both speak clearly, which allows you to speed it up if that's your jam.

Thanks to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for an ALC of this audiobook for an honest review.