Archer’s Voice Book Review: Overall Disappointing
| 📖 Genre | Romance, Contemporary, Adult |
| 📃 Number of Pages | 345 pages |
| 🪴 Average Goodreads Rating | 4.24 ⭐ |
| 🌻 My Rating | 2.5⭐ |
Even though Archer’s Voice came out ages ago, it got popular again via BookTok, so I thought I’d give you my quick thoughts. I expected a lot with a premise like that – because I genuinely love characters for whom communication is a challenge for some reason, and this one fits the bill. However, I ended up disliking it. Beware, there will be spoilers.
Archer’s Voice Book Review: My Thoughts
Archer’s Voice starts great: we have a beautiful premise and intriguing characters (even though there are way too many descriptions of our heroine brushing her teeth or getting dressed). It starts as a slow burn, with palpable attraction between our two main characters.
And I expected it to be a really slow burn because they should have many internal obstacles to overcome before they can be together. She has a traumatic event in her past and Archer is a recluse who hasn’t properly interacted with another human being in years. He can’t talk (and to be honest, I would have preferred if she didn’t know sign language and had to learn it or they had to find a different way to communicate).
The romance
After meeting properly three times, the FMC tells him her whole life story, and then after meeting two more times they kiss and start their relationship. It just doesn’t feel genuine, doesn’t seem like something these two characters would actually do.
Once the relationship starts, it’s all smut. And I love smut, don’t get me wrong, but there’s just so much of it with not much happening in between and it’s very… blatant. I expected more subtle prose in this area because the entire story seemed like it would focus more on the emotional impact of this relationship, but apparently not.
I don’t know… I just wish we got more of them before they started their relationship: the pining, the tension, them building trust (it can’t be all insta), them finding common ground, interests they share, etc. I’d give them until at least 70-80% of the book before they could start admitting their feelings to each other. Because it makes more sense.
The soap opera plot
Then there’s the drama: oh boy the drama in this one. By the end, it feels like a soap opera. An evil brother, an evil aunt, spending months depressed because he left (a la Bella Swan), him getting shot, and being in a coma. I mean, come on. This story would have had enough obstacles and drama if we removed all of these. If this was just a story about a traumatized girl coming to a small town and falling in love with a mute recluse, it would have been enough (this is what I expected, actually). Stop piling stuff on.
Their conversations also felt incredibly stilted and staged. Like someone is poking them with a stick and making them say things. There were too many conveniences as well: he can’t talk but it’s okay because she knows sign language, etc.
And that bait and switch at the end when on one page, she talks about him like he died but then it turns out he didn’t and it was just a coma? Hated that, really.
On top of all of that, I didn’t feel anything when all of these dramatic events happened.
Archer’s Voice Book Review: Bottom Line
I read this book in a day, so I can tell you it’s very addictive (and easy to read). I get why so many people loved it. But it just didn’t work for me.
If you want to see some great romance books, check out my list of the greatest, swooniest romances here. Those are much better than this one.
