[ApK]

I'm listening to David Balducci's "Zero Day."
It's narrated by a man and a woman, doing the male and female voices respectively. I don't mind that, in this case because Orlagh Cassidy does a great job with the female voices. Other books that have split the narration that way have not been as successful to my mind.

And the book does have musical bridges between chapters, which hasn't been particularly offensive. But then they go and throw in gunfire sound effects during gunfight scenes.
It's awful. totally unneeded, takes me right out of my immersion in the world. And ironically, what makes it worse for me is they that seems to be the ONLY sound effects they include. And the gunfights are not that frequent, so it's like a sudden intrusion of noise when I'm not expecting it.

I don't mind fully produced audio dramas as such, but an audio book should be a reading performance of a book, that's it.

It's like they tried too many gimmicky embellishments in this book.
Two narrators? OK, it works in this case. Music bridges? Hrmm...no need for it, but OK. GUNFIRE EFFECTS??? WTF??

No, I say Nay. Nay! I say!

ETA: I just realized the music is worse than I thought. It's not specifically at chapter breaks. It's whenever a situation gets "dramatic." What's next, a laugh track? Grrr.