Ballad & Dagger

I’ll be honest: I went into *Ballad & Dagger* expecting another urban fantasy with a side of social commentary, but what I got was a full-body experience. Lee Osorio’s narration is the secret sauce here—he doesn’t just *read* the book, he *performs* it. The way he shifts between Mateo’s reckless charm and the quieter, rawer moments (like when the characters sing in San Madrigal’s lost language) gave me chills. That said, the audiobook’s pacing stumbles in the middle; Older’s world is so rich that the political maneuvering sometimes feels like a detour from the emotional core. I found myself rewinding during the council scenes, not because they were confusing, but because I’d zoned out waiting for the action to kick back in. But when it *does* kick in? Oh, it’s glorious. The magic system—where songs literally rewrite reality—is one of the freshest I’ve encountered in YA. Older doesn’t just tell you how it works; he makes you *hear* it. The fight scenes are visceral, the romantic tension crackles (though I wished Chela’s internal conflict got more airtime), and the ending? A gut-punch that lingers. My only real critique is the occasional over-reliance on exposition dumps about San Madrigal’s history. I get why it’s there, but in an audiobook, it can feel like a lecture breaking the spell. Still, this is a story that *needs* to be heard—preferably at high volume, with the bass turned up.