Love Me Never

I’ll admit: I side-eyed *Love Me Never* at first. Another ‘broken girl learns to love again’ story? But within 20 minutes, Amy Melissa Bentley’s performance had me hooked—not because Isis is *likable* (she’s often insufferable), but because she’s *real*. Bentley nails the rhythm of a teen girl who’s too smart for her own good, her delivery swinging between rapid-fire sarcasm and sudden, raw vulnerability. The production is clean, but the real standout is how Bentley handles Isis’s defensive humor; you can *hear* the fear beneath the jokes, which makes her eventual cracks in the armor hit harder. The story itself is a masterclass in slow-burn tension. Wolf doesn’t rush the romance, and the audiobook benefits from that patience. The pacing drags slightly in the middle during Isis’s repetitive internal debates (yes, we *get* it, you’re scared of feelings), but the payoff—a third-act confrontation that had me gripping my steering wheel—justifies the buildup. My one critique? The male love interest’s voice occasionally veers into *too* smug, bordering on cartoonish, which undercuts some of the emotional stakes. Still, the chemistry between the leads is electric, and the ending (no spoilers) avoids the neat, bow-wrapped resolution you’d expect. If you love morally gray heroines, enemies-to-lovers with actual *enmity*, and narrators who make snark sound like an art form, this is your next listen—just don’t expect to like the protagonist all the time. (And honestly? That’s the point.)