Peyton’s Price

I’ll admit: I rolled my eyes at the ‘childhood best friend’ premise—until Avie Page’s performance gutted me in the first chapter. There’s a scene where Peyton, now an adult, watches Liam across a crowded bar, and Page’s voice does something *unnatural*: it trembles not with nerves, but with *rage*. That’s when I realized this wasn’t just a love story—it was a dissection of obsession, and Page nailed the toxic cocktail of adoration and bitterness in Peyton’s tone. The chemistry between her and the male narrator (who handles Liam’s dialogue) is electric, but it’s Page’s solo moments—like the way she hisses Peyton’s internal monologues—that linger. The pacing is where opinions might divide. Leroux takes her time, letting Peyton’s fixation marinate across years of near-misses and self-sabotage. Some listeners might crave more payoff sooner, but the slow burn works because the audiobook’s production mirrors it: no rushed deliveries, no melodramatic music swells, just the quiet, creeping dread of a woman who’s built her entire identity around a man who barely notices her. My only critique? The ending feels slightly uneven—Liam’s emotional turnaround lacks the nuance of Peyton’s arc, and a few secondary characters (like Peyton’s sister) fade into wallpaper. But when the focus stays on Peyton’s unraveling, it’s *mesmerizing*. If you love morally gray heroines and narrators who can make silence feel like a threat, this is your next obsession.