Working Class

I’ll admit, I approached *Working Class* skeptical of yet another ‘gruff captain mentors rookies’ story, but Lowell subverts the trope by making the cadets *actively terrible* in ways that feel painfully real. There’s no instant camaraderie or noble sacrifices here—just a bunch of overeducated, underprepared kids making the same mistakes their instructors warned them about, and Ishmael’s barely suppressed exasperation is the audiobook’s darkly comic heartbeat. Kafer’s performance elevates this immeasureably; his timing is *chef’s kiss*, especially in scenes where the cadets’ academic jargon bounces off Ishmael’s world-weary grunts. The production is crisp, though I’ll dock half a point for a few instances where the audio levels dip during whisper-quiet moments (a minor but noticeable hiccup in an otherwise polished listen). Where the book stumbles slightly is in its pacing—Lowell lingers *just* a beat too long on the bureaucratic fallout of the cadets’ blunders, and a subplot involving their academy liaison feels like it’s spinning its wheels until the final act. But when the action hits (and oh, does it hit), it’s a white-knuckle ride. The standout sequence—a botched boarding gone horrifically wrong—is so viscerally rendered that I actually paused to double-check my headphone volume. This isn’t a story about heroes. It’s about people who show up, screw up, and (sometimes) survive to do it again tomorrow. If you love your sci-fi with a side of ‘oh god, why did they *do* that,’ Kafer’s growling delivery will make every cringe-worthy decision a delight.