Audiobook Review: Stained by Cheryl Rainfield

Stained
By Cheryl Rainfield

Stand Alone Novel

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Suspense
Publisher: Hough Mifflin Harcort
Narrated by: Emily Bauer & Kirby Heyborne

Goodreads Summary:

An intensely powerful account of a teen, bullied for her port-wine stain, who must summon her personal strength to survive abduction and horrific abuse at the hands of a deranged killer.

Sixteen-year-old Sarah Meadows longs for “normal”. Born with a port wine stain covering half her face, all her life she’s been plagued by stares, giggles, bullying, and disgust. But when she’s abducted on the way home from school, Sarah is forced to uncover the courage she never knew she had, become the hero rather than a victim, and learn to look beyond her face to find the beauty and strength she has inside. It’s that- or succumb to a killer

Links:

Stained on Goodreads, Amazon, Audible, and Barnes & Noble

Cheryl Rainfield’s Website

My Thoughts:

I won this audiobook from the author but that in no way affected my review.

Stained was the first audiobook I listened to and I was instantly hooked. I’m hooked on audiobooks and more importantly I was hooked on Stained. It only took me an evening and part of the next morning to listen to the entire book which was almost 8 hours. Cheryl’s writing is so powerful. She broaches very difficult subjects like kidnapping and bullying, but she always manages to infuse a sense of hope into her books.

The things Sarah goes through are beyond horrible and even more heartbreaking is knowing that people experience these things in real life. Stained will make you take a look around and realize how much we take for granted and how often we judge people without realizing it.

Sarah really is a superhero. She has this fierce determination and such a kind heart. Even though this book has such a difficult subject matter there’s also a light at the end of the tunnel feeling throughout and that’s because of Sarah.

Like I said, I listened to this as an audiobook; it was written and narrated in dual points of view. Each point of view was read by a different narrator. The switching narrators didn’t bother me at all, in fact half the time I didn’t even notice it. It was definitely a good choice for  my first audiobook experience.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5