Audio Book Review: Discovery of the Five Senses by K.N. Smith

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This is an interesting 'superhero' fantasy.
Discovery of the Five Senses
The Urban Boys
Written by: K.N. Smith
Narrated by: Glenn Steinbaum

Duration: 8 hours 10 minutes
Release Date: December 2022
Publisher: Author's Republic
Genre: Fantasy, Teen & Young Adult
My Rating: 3.75 of 5.0 Overall; Story 3.75; Narration 3.75.

Summary
A suspenseful incident in a forbidden preserve heightens the senses of five friends. Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell become super-gifts that forever change the world. But furious battles confront the boys as they try to understand their sensory super powers in a race to save mankind. With light beings and mysterious strangers complicating their plight, can the boys defeat the evil Druth before it’s too late? Get prepared for the twisting and grinding of this award-winning, action-adventure story — an edge-of-your-seat narrative for young and mature readers alike.

Review:
There is a forbidden preserve on the edge of the rural town of Danville Heights. The preserve is surrounded by mystery and preserved as dangerous due to a murder that occurred there years ago. In current day a group of young men dare to go into the preserve while celebrating. They are visited by beings of light although they don’t fully remember what happened. Suddenly, they each have a different sense that is heightened and discover that their senses are even more intensified when they are working together. The boys are confused at first and alarmed when some thugs show up trying to kill one of them. They are able to overpower the attackers and then follow them to a neighboring town where they find complete devastation.

The group of teens begin defending their hometown and taking the fight to the enemy. The situation is not without quandaries as they have to sneak out at night, at least one has to break dates with his girlfriend, and they don’t fully understand what they are doing. Finally they get some help understanding their powers when they are visited by a mysterious stranger who explains that their enemy is a man known as Druth.

Druth wants to steal the powers of some of the newly gifted members.  The light beings fear that Druth will ruin their efforts at peace by continuing to spread his evil. Are the boys ready to fight the evil to save their own community and beyond?

This story has interesting world building with the light beings protecting their special life giving nectar by providing superhero powers to the unsuspecting teens. The story also has plenty of action and mystery to engage the reader/listener. Unfortunately, I was distracted by the author’s interesting writing style. I like good description, but it seemed to me that the author went overboard using personification in almost every other sentence. This writing style makes for good prose but in this fiction setting I found it annoying. Since I was listening to an audio version, I decided to treat it more like a cinematic presentation or screen play script. This made it a little more palatable although I still winced or got exasperated as it continued to the end.

Additionally, I felt there were many unrealistic actions in the story. The boys go off on their vigilante missions while the adult mysterious stranger stands back and watches them go into danger. Later, the adult stranger hides in the bushes while the young men have to address their riled parents. While I appreciate the good versus evil aspect, I had some concern that the boys’ actions could be perceived as subtle permission to commit violence in the pursuit of safety and revenge. If parents were monitoring the reading of this story, they could discuss this with their children.

Overall, the story is engaging but my rating is lower to reflect my concerns. Other readers/listeners did not seem to be disturbed by these issues so readers interested in YA fantasy may want to give this a try.

Audio Notes: Glenn Steinbaum does a nice job with the narration. For the most part he does a good job with the varied voices, although a couple of the thugs had awkward ‘dumb’ sounding voices. I was glad to have an audio version which made it easier for me to get this read.

Source: May 2023 Audiobooks.com Credit for Caffeinated PR Tour. This qualifies for 2023Audiobook and 2023Tour goals.