When the Sky Fell on Splendor

By: Emily Henry

Narrated by: Amara Jasper

The Serpent King meets Stranger Things in Emily Henry's gripping novel about a group of friends in a small town who find themselves dealing with unexpected powers after a cosmic event.

Almost everyone in the small town of Splendor, Ohio, was affected when the local steel mill exploded. If you weren't a casualty of the accident yourself, chances are a loved one was. That's the case for 17-year-old Franny, who, five years after the explosion, still has to stand by and do nothing as her brother lies in a coma.

In the wake of the tragedy, Franny found solace in a group of friends whose experiences mirrored her own. The group calls themselves The Ordinary, and they spend their free time investigating local ghost stories and legends, filming their exploits for their small following of YouTube fans. It's silly, it's fun, and it keeps them from dwelling on the sadness that surrounds them.

Until one evening, when the strange and dangerous thing they film isn't fiction - it's a bright light, something massive hurtling toward them from the sky. And when it crashes and the teens go to investigate...everything changes.

©2019 Emily Henry (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Compelling story, unpleasant narration.

This is the first Emily Henry book I've read/listened too, and I'm impressed! The cast of characters is complex and well-developed, and the plot is compelling. My only complaint with the audiobook: the voices the narrator used for dialogue, especially lines spoken by the male characters and the younger version of Franny (in flashback scenes), which range from cartoonish to whiny to gratingly gravelly. I had to turn the volume way down and turn the speed up to get through some dialogue-heavy sections. If you're particular about audiobook narrators, this might not be for you.

slow moving story not well narrated

male voices were terribly gruff, including the teenagers. story was slow moving. I love this author but the novel is not as good as any of her others.

When the Sky Fell

I wanted to love this book. The storyline sounded great. But, it got off to a slow start, and the characters weren’t evoking any feelings. I found myself multitasking while listening. There was too much information about some background, not enough about others. When the story finally grabbed me, I realized the performance was grating, making losing myself in the story an effort.

No offense to the narrator, but the effort to differentiate the characters ended up making them sound cartoonish.

I really liked the ending. All in all,it is probably better to read When the Sky Fell on Splendor.

Loved it all!

The characters, the plot line, the dramatic reading. I was hoping it was the start of a series. I want to hang out with the ordinary more and more.

Excellent scify mystery

Hard to follow so deducted a star because they could have divided the chapters by time or character. The reader was good. The story was great. Just SO hard to follow..no space between flashbacks and current timeliness. The ending was a twist! If they could fix this problem it would be totally worth a credit.