Romance Languages

Okay, let’s get this out of the way: *Romance Languages* is *filthy*—but in the best possible way. The kind of filthy that makes you clutch your pearls one second and cackle the next. As someone who’s listened to roughly 473 romance audiobooks, I can confidently say this one stands out for its refusal to sand down its edges. The protagonist’s internal monologue is a delightful mess of academic pretension and panicked horniness, and Truman’s dialogue crackles with the kind of chemistry that makes you *believe* these two idiots could actually fall for each other. That said, the pacing stumbles slightly in the middle. The "training montages" (yes, plural) drag a touch, and there’s a subplot involving the protagonist’s sister that feels undercooked—like Truman got distracted by the main event and forgot to tie up the loose ends. But Iggy Toma’s narration papers over most of the cracks. His Seamus is *chef’s kiss*: a gruff, exasperated himbo who sounds like he’d bench-press a car for his best friend, and his delivery of the steamier scenes is *just* this side of ridiculous, which is exactly what the story needs. The production is clean, though I’ll dock half a point for a few instances where Toma’s volume dips during whispered lines—nothing catastrophic, but noticeable if you’re listening on a noisy commute. If you love enemies-to-lovers but wish they’d stop pretending they’re enemies, or if you’ve ever wanted a romance novel to lean *hard* into the absurdity of its premise, this is your audiobook. Just maybe don’t listen to Chapter 12 in public.