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I listened to the audiobook
initially, and I don’t recommend it. More on that later. But in listening, I
was able to sift through the noise enough to know this is a book that packs a
punch. So, upon finishing the audiobook, I opened up the eBook and it was like
a whole different story.
The attention-grabbing, blush-worthy
opening paragraph told from Claudia Grant’s perspective is steamy, but not
overly graphic. And for those who don’t much love the spice, fear not! That
scene continues some thirty pages later, and then, the rest of Gunbarrel Highway
is pure adrenaline-inducing fiction. Author Bridges does a great job in the
first few chapters of building up the mindsets and character of Claudia, and the
main character Daniel, before the big wreck that changes everything.
“Bro. Bro. Legal or not, who
gives a shit? You. You’re guilty as fuck. You know how I know that? I saw it on
TV.”
This quote from hillbilly-ish, brother-in-law Ron, may be the most poignant from the book. It highlights what strikes hardest in Gunbarrel Highway: what should be sensationalism is, sadly, easily imagined in our current political and societal climate. From the not-so-subtle racism and immoral and illegal activities of a congressional candidate to the if-it’s-on-tv-it’s-true mentality and people turning savage on each other for an improbable reward, this book mirrors our messed-up world. The plots and subplots in Gunbarrel Highway are a scary and disheartening train wreck that keeps readers turning pages.
Author Bridges knows how to flesh
out his characters, presenting readers with a robust cast who fall
mostly on the unlikable end of the scale. (Detective Navarro being the
exception, though I couldn’t understand why San Antonio Police would be assigned
a case that happened in San Marcos.) Add to that the omniscient point of view
that puts us inside many individuals' heads, we know them inside and out. Bridges’s
writing is engaging, and he employs some interesting style choices and word
combinations; the former went unnoticed in the audiobook, but both interrupted
the flow of the story when reading with my eyes. A bit of additional editing to
clean-up the smattering of errors and overused words and to tighten up unnecessary
and unnecessarily long passages, would take this book to the highest level.
Anyone who follows my reviews knows it’s a rare book that passes editing muster for me, and I understand that many readers will blow past the things I notice. It’s a bit of a curse to have eyes drawn to errors, and that’s why it’s often a pleasure to read with my ears and enjoy an audiobook where I can’t see them. Unfortunately, the audiobook is a hot mess.
From a technical standpoint,
there are two different chapters that repeat entire scenes from other chapters,
and several other places where lines are repeated. Additionally, listeners hear
the narrator taking deep breaths and even swallowing. The narrator’s natural
voice during expository sections is engaging, and if she’d just read the
book instead of performing, it probably would have been great. But most of the
characters are over-the-top, exaggerated, and unevenly voiced, and the accents chosen
for some of the characters are puzzling. The pacing is inconsistent, and there are
several words mispronounced. I do not recommend listening to Gunbarrel
Highway because the delivery doesn’t do Bridges’s story justice.
So back to the eBook: despite
the polishing issues, the twists and turns in Gunbarrel Highway are stellar.
Even when the reader is likely to predict an outcome, how that outcome comes to
fruition is often a huge shocker. Things get REALLY interesting with a big
reveal that changes the course of the story. It is truly nothing but edge-of-your-seat
reading from that point right to the end, when at last, characters and
readers alike can take a collective deep breath.
To learn more about the book, look for #LoneStarLitGunbarrelHighway on your preferred social media platform.
His Audible Parade Productions company created a serial audio thriller, Triple Six and is currently at work on its next horror/suspense audio series, Parasite Zero.
His latest screenplay, Beginner’s Luck is a 2024 award-winner at the SAFILM-San Antonio Film Festival and Austin Film Festival. He’s also worked on a number of projects for Troublemaker Studios out of Austin, TX. He lives and works in the Texas Hill Country.
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