ONLY IF YOU'RE LUCKY

College sophomore Margot mysteriously loses two best friends in the span of two years in this psychological thriller, which should be categorized as a YA audiobook. Narrator Karissa Vacker does her best with the material, which features voluminous scenes of postadolescent self-reflection that are hard to enjoy listening to if you are well past your twenties. Vacker is gifted at shifting her vocal register to believably voice the male characters, like the fraternity brothers who live next door to Margot, one of whom turns up dead. Although the characters are North Carolina natives and the Outer Banks location features prominently, Vacker never employs an accent. The final chapters are inventive and unexpected, but it takes some listening patience to get there. J.T. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2024]