Nora Dahlia’s unconventional romantic comedy, Pick-Up (12.5 hours), focuses on divorced parents interacting (and sometimes behaving even more childishly than their offspring) during drop-off and pick-up at a Brooklyn public school. Fans of contemporary romance audiobooks have grown accustomed to hearing from two different narrators as each half of a potential couple tells their side of the story, but here, Dahlia shakes things up by adding a third voice, that of “Very Involved Mom” Kaitlin, whose relationship to the protagonists is not immediately clear. Actress Gilli Messer shines as barely-holding-it-together Sasha, and Teddy Hamilton exudes warmth and confidence as her love interest, Ethan. Eunice Wong’s Kaitlin is vaguely menacing for reasons that only later become clear. Listeners who enjoy witty enemies-to-lovers romances will find much to appreciate in Pick-Up.
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
