Two of the five responses under this audiobook were written before it existed. One carries the date October 2013, more than five years ahead of the November 2018 recording. The second lands in December 2014, close to four years early. Both discuss Exile at length, and neither writer can have heard a minute of Caitlin Kelly's reading, because at the time the reading had not been made. The column on this page belongs to the printed book and was carried across wholesale when the audio edition went up.
Three Plots in Parallel, Paid for in Runtime
Sophie Foster has settled into the world of the lost cities when the first female Alicorn appears and refuses to trust anybody else. She is handed the job of training the creature so it can be shown to the lost cities as a sign of hope, which sounds like a gentle assignment and turns out not to be one. The secrets buried in her memories have gone nowhere. Before long she is back in serious danger, chasing answers that could save her own life and the life of someone close to her.
Fourteen hours and forty-one minutes is a substantial commitment for a title filed under children's audiobooks, and none of it reads as padding. Leann's response, the oldest here, sketches the load Sophie carries: training a rare alicorn, called a very endearing winged unicorn in that review, trying not to fail her classes at Foxfire, and fielding obscure messages from the Black Swan while a goblin bodyguard shadows her everywhere. Three plots run in parallel, and the runtime is what that costs.
Abby S, writing in December 2014, opens with NO SPOILERS in capitals and then makes the most useful structural observation available anywhere on the page: the first book lays foundations, and the second gets its hands into the story. That is the shape of a working middle grade sequel, where the worldbuilding has already been paid for and the plot can finally move. Ryan J. David, the lone four star grade, disagrees about the ranking and prefers the first, while conceding that this one did its job and sent them straight to book three. That is a useful pair of verdicts to have from inside a single column.
Fourteen Hours, One Name in the Credit
Caitlin Kelly is the only name in the narrator credit, carrying every one of those fourteen hours across a cast the responses keep naming, from Sophie herself to Dex Dizznee to Keefe. Audible Studios lists nobody beside her. On a series driven this hard by dialogue between young characters, one reader handling every voice for that long is the production fact worth having, and the page offers no further detail about how the recording was assembled.
Leann's 2013 entry doubles as the fullest plot summary anywhere on the listing, which makes it a service and a hazard at once. It walks through Sophie's standing as an outcast, the bodyguard, the messages from the Black Swan and the trouble at Foxfire inside a single paragraph, then breaks off mid sentence. Come to it without book one and you will learn considerably more than you wanted. Come to it having read book one and it is the clearest orientation on offer. The distance between those two experiences is the whole argument for reading the column last.
Younger listeners are the target, and the filing says as much, but the material is not weightless. Ryan J. David notes questions of right and wrong and of good and evil, brief but genuine, folded into quick action. TwinFunParents calls the characters cute, loves the plot and the mystery, and recommends the book to EVERYONE in capitals. Between the two of them you get the range: fast enough for a reluctant listener, substantial enough to hold an adult listening alongside.
One Response Counts Amazing Five Times
Spoilers are the main hazard among the written responses, and they arrive from the entries with the most to say. The oldest response lays out Sophie's situation in detail. The 2014 entry announces no spoilers and then compares the first two books closely enough to give away the shape of both. Anyone meeting this series through this recording should leave the written responses alone until afterward, which is a strange instruction to have to give about a page that exists to help you choose.
Enthusiasm outruns information by a wide margin here. One response counts its own use of the word amazing, reaches five, announces the tally and carries on regardless. Another consists of four sentences of pure delight. Neither hands you anything you could act on. Four of the five grades are five stars and the exception is a four, so the column is close to unanimous, which is pleasant and no help at all when the real question is whether fourteen hours suits a particular child. The one grade that is not a five also runs to two sentences, the fewest of any entry here.
Keeper of the Lost Cities fills the series field with a 2 beside it, and the description opens by calling this an enchanting sequel, so the listing is honest about where you are standing. What the page never does is say how long the series runs. One respondent talks about the rest of the books as though the count were common knowledge, and a newcomer has no way to learn it from anything printed here.
Wrong Entry Point for Anyone New
Families already inside the series will need no persuading, and neither will a listener who finished book one and wants the same world with the plot moving faster. The alicorn storyline gives this volume a hook of its own, distinct from the introductions the first book had to make, and fourteen hours is a long and useful companion for car trips or a summer stretch. Anyone planning family listening will find the runtime the main constraint, not the content. Adults listening alongside will find enough moral texture to stay engaged, on the evidence of the one reserved response.
Wrong entry point for anyone new. Every response that touches structure says the same thing in different words, that book one lays the foundation and this one builds on it, and the single reserved grade ranks the first higher on exactly those grounds. You will also not find an opinion on the reading here, since the two most detailed reviews predate the recording and the rest never raise the subject. Keeper of the Lost Cities starts one book earlier, and that is where these fourteen hours begin to make sense.
Common Questions
Can I start the Keeper of the Lost Cities audiobooks with Exile?
Better not. The series field marks this as volume two, the description calls it a sequel, and every response that discusses structure says the opening book lays groundwork this one builds on. One reviewer even ranks the first higher for that reason. Begin one book earlier and this fourteen hour listen pays off properly.
Who reads the Exile audiobook, and is it a full cast production?
The credit lists Caitlin Kelly and stops there, with no co-reader named anywhere on the page. That means one voice for Sophie, her classmates, her bodyguard and every adult in the lost cities across a long runtime. The publisher supplies no further production notes, and no reviewer describes the result.
