Avery Weston has been working on being fine. The audiobook of E.J. Noyes's sapphic romance Go Around, narrated by Abby Craden and running 8 hours and 38 minutes, is built on its opening architecture of that single word - "almost" over Elise Hayes, not quite over her, 15 months into the kind of not-quite-healing that is different from not healing at all. Avery works as a federal air marshal, a profession that attracts someone who has learned to maintain composure under external pressure while managing internal turbulence with complete efficiency. Elise is an award-winning actress and current television standout whose departure from their relationship 15 months ago left a gap that Avery has been systematic about filling with the routines of her professional life. When Elise turns up seated next to her on a work flight, the gap opens again in an instant, and the emotional progress Avery thought she had made resets before she has time to decide whether to allow it. Noyes builds the book's entire premise on that instant - the way genuine emotional recovery is never quite as complete as the person doing the recovering needs to believe.
First, the Big Picture
Noyes builds the romance on character rather than plot machinery. The stalker subplot - an overzealous fan threatening Elise's safety that forces them into the same living space for a few weeks - is structural rather than central, a credible scaffold for emotional proximity rather than the story's real concern. What Noyes is examining is the specific texture of being asked to reassess past hurt when the person who caused it is present with genuine remorse and genuine change. Avery's restraint - her commitment to not allowing the spark between them, which has lost nothing in 15 months, to overrule the hurt she has every right to hold - is the book's central emotional challenge to resolve. Craden's narration makes that distinction with care and consistency across the full runtime. She delivers Avery's composure without flattening her into blankness, which is the precise interpretive judgment the first-person voice requires. One reviewer describes loving Avery for being "honest and just good," which is accurate - Noyes writes protagonists with a moral clarity that makes them attractive not in spite of their restraint but because of it. Avery's professionalism and her emotional life are rendered as genuinely integrated rather than in competition, and Craden captures that integration in the way she handles the character's interior life.
The Best Parts of Go Around
Second-chance romance lives or dies on the quality of the reason the couple originally separated. If the break feels manufactured or the obstacle arbitrary, the resolution feels unearned regardless of how well the rest of the book is written. Noyes handles this with specificity: Elise's departure, the specific ways she failed Avery, her apologies and what limits those apologies run into, and the particular thing Avery needs from her in order to genuinely move forward - rather than simply giving in - are all developed with enough precision that the emotional conflict feels real rather than genre-procedural. The professional setting - Avery's work as an air marshal, the logistics of her life around flight schedules and security responsibilities - gives the story a texture that distinguishes it from the generically contemporary romance landscape where most second-chance sapphic fiction is set. Craden is an experienced narrator in this space with a fluency in Avery's voice that makes 8 hours feel like a natural reading rather than a formal performance. Reviewers describe the book as well-written specifically rather than just engaging, which reflects Noyes's track record as a careful producer of emotionally precise sapphic fiction across her full catalog.
A Few Reservations
One reviewer describes the book as "predictable" and another calls it "a little silly" with "a lot of heart" - both accurate descriptions from different angles of the same reading experience. Noyes is working within the second-chance romance's conventions rather than subverting them, and the satisfaction the book provides is genre satisfaction: the specific pleasure of watching two people who belong together work through the specific obstacle that kept them apart, in a world that is recognizable and a relationship that feels inhabited. The closed-secret element - the fact that Elise's former relationship has never been disclosed publicly, adding a layer of stakes around what reconciliation would mean for Elise's public persona - runs under the surface throughout without becoming a crisis. It is a complicating factor rather than a source of external drama. Listeners who want high plot-level conflict or significant narrative subversion should look elsewhere in Noyes's catalog or in the broader sapphic fiction space. For listeners who want emotionally precise, character-driven second-chance romance that earns its resolution, this is the book.
Who Should Listen to Go Around
This audiobook is for listeners who enjoy sapphic second-chance romance with a professional-world backdrop and a protagonist whose emotional realism is the primary attraction. E.J. Noyes readers will find it consistent with the quality of her catalog. Newcomers to sapphic romance who want an accessible and emotionally grounded entry point will find Go Around a comfortable and satisfying fit. Listeners who prefer high external conflict, plot-heavy narratives, or significant genre subversion should look at other parts of the sapphic fiction space - this is character-driven, emotionally precise, and deliberately quiet in the way that a specific kind of romance reader specifically seeks out. Craden's narration is not incidental to the recommendation; it is a component of the full experience that makes the 8-hour runtime feel like exactly the right investment.
Is Go Around a standalone audiobook or part of an E.J. Noyes series?
Go Around is a standalone novel. No prior familiarity with Noyes's other books is needed, though readers who enjoy it will find her catalog offers similar emotional registers across varied professional settings.
Does Abby Craden's narration capture Avery's emotional restraint effectively in the Go Around audiobook?
Yes. Craden's experience in sapphic fiction narration is evident, and her delivery of Avery's containment - guarded but not flat - is precisely the interpretive judgment the character requires. It is one of the audiobook's strongest assets.
How explicit is Go Around as a sapphic romance audiobook?
It is a contemporary sapphic romance in the moderate-to-warm range. The emotional relationship is the book's primary focus, and explicit content is present but not dominant. Listeners who prefer sweeter romance will find this accessible.
Does the stalker subplot in Go Around audiobook function as a thriller element or just a plot mechanism?
Primarily a plot mechanism. The threat is credible and present but not developed as a thriller subplot. Noyes uses it to engineer the close-quarters living situation that forces Avery and Elise to deal with their unresolved dynamic rather than as an independent source of tension.
