Starr Z. Davies Audiobooks

Ordinary: the Powers Trilogy opener, young adult fiction with a sharp idea at its centre

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.5/5 average

79 listener ratings

Who is Starr Z. Davies?

Calling a novel Ordinary and then shelving it inside a sequence named the Powers Trilogy is a deliberate provocation. The title and the series name pull against one another, and that tension is the invitation: a story built around what it means to stand outside the extraordinary.

Starr Z. Davies writes for the young adult shelf, where the best work refuses to talk down to its audience. At a full ten and a half hours this is no novella dressed up as a novel. It is a proper first volume, given the room to build a world, set out its rules and leave a listener wanting the next instalment.

Starr Z. Davies in audiobooks

Ordinary is the natural place to begin, and for most listeners it will be the only place to begin, since it opens the sequence and sets its terms. Nathaniel Ascher narrates across ten hours and thirty-two minutes.

The rating stands at 4.5 from a healthy body of listener scores, which for a series opener is the encouraging kind of signal: the people who finish it tend to like it. If you read across the teen and young adult shelf and want something with a concept at its heart rather than a formula, this is a sound choice. Have a listen to the audiobook below.