Our Shouts Echo was perfectly narrated! I am not sure that I would have stuck with this title until the end if I had read it. Hand this to teens who enjoy contemporary works about real teens facing real life struggles in this imperfect world.

Niarah lives with constant anxiety--fear about natural disasters, fear about the end of the world, fear about other people and their possible reactions. She copes with this anxiety the only way she knows how--by always being prepared. She can't wait for her senior year to be over so she can spend her summer building Camp Doom, a backyard bunker-style shelter. When Niarah ends up failing English and PE and must attend summer school, her plans for Camp Doom are in jeopardy. But a new opportunity to fulfill her PE credit will lead to new experiences and new friendships, if she can let them happen.

I really liked Niarah's snarky tone, and the mental health struggles in the book all felt realistic. My main complaint is the frequent inclusion of casual drinking and smoking pot that occurred throughout the book. Although there are probably some teens who behave this way, it's difficult for me to purchase and recommend a book to teens that makes it seem like drinking and smoking while just hanging out is a typical behavior.

I reviewed the hard copy of this book. It was good. It was well-executed and deeply introspective. It captured the existential angst of adolescence as well as anything I’ve read in the last 5 years.

However.

This audio version? It was like reading an entirely new text. There were moments when I gasped. The way she captured the essence of the moment in the simple intonation of her voice? It elevated the novel in such a way that it added layer upon layer of meaning without forcing anything. Often I read audio books for convenience. In this case, I highly recommend the audio version for the masterful way the text was captured in sound. What a beautiful experience—even when what I was hearing was hard to hear from an emotional perspective. What a read!