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Dollbaby
- A Novel
- Narrated by: January Lavoy
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
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Publisher's summary
A big-hearted coming-of-age debut set in civil rights-era New Orleans - a novel of Southern eccentricity and secrets.
When Ibby Bell's father dies unexpectedly in the summer of 1964, her mother unceremoniously deposits Ibby with her eccentric grandmother Fannie and throws in her father's urn for good measure. Fannie's New Orleans house is like no place Ibby has ever been - and Fannie, who has a tendency to end up in the local asylum - is like no one she has ever met. Fortunately, Fannie's black cook, Queenie, and her smart-mouthed daughter, Dollbaby, take it upon themselves to initiate Ibby into the ways of the South, both its grand traditions and its darkest secrets.
For Fannie's own family history is fraught with tragedy, hidden behind the closed rooms in her ornate Uptown mansion. It will take Ibby's arrival to begin to unlock the mysteries there. And it will take Queenie and Dollbaby's hard-won wisdom to show Ibby that family can sometimes be found in the least expected places.
For fans of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt and The Help, Dollbaby brings to life the charm and unrest of 1960s New Orleans through the eyes of a young girl learning to understand race for the first time.
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In 1961, two years after the Communist revolution, Lucía Álvarez still leads a carefree life, dreaming of parties and her first crush. But when the soldiers come to her sleepy Cuban town, everything begins to change. Freedoms are stripped away. Neighbors disappear. And soon, Lucía's parents make the heart-wrenching decision to send her and her little brother to the United States - on their own. Suddenly plunked down in Nebraska with well-meaning strangers, Lucía struggles to adapt to a new country, a new language, a new way of life. But what of her old life?
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NOOOOOO
- By Anonymous User on 01-30-24
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The Hollow Ground
- By: Natalie S. Harnett
- Narrated by: Luci Christian
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The underground mine fires ravaging Pennsylvania coal country have forced 11-year-old Brigid Howley and her family to seek refuge with her estranged grandparents, the formidable Gram and the black lung-stricken Gramp. Tragedy is no stranger to the Howleys, a proud Irish-American clan who takes strange pleasure in the "curse" laid upon them generations earlier by a priest who ran afoul of the Molly Maguires. The weight of this legacy rests heavily on a new generation, when Brigid, already struggling to keep her family together, makes a grisly discovery in a long-abandoned bootleg mine shaft.
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Disfunction makes a good read
- By NHull on 05-30-14
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Georgia Bottoms
- A Novel
- By: Mark Childress
- Narrated by: Debra Monk
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A best-selling author of books for adults and children, Mark Childress pens his most outrageous work yet with Georgia Bottoms. The titular heroine is the epitome of the church-going Southern belle, except for one teeny-tiny aspect of her life. Georgia’s family inheritance has long since evaporated, and to maintain her genteel lifestyle, Miss Bottoms has taken six affluent lovers—the fly in the ointment being that one is a married preacher who’s about to reveal their infidelity to the whole congregation.
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Fun Listen
- By Sue on 04-08-11
By: Mark Childress
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Memphis
- A Novel
- By: Tara M. Stringfellow
- Narrated by: Karen Murray, Adenrele Ojo, Tara Stringfellow
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.
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Awful narrator
- By Rachael edwards on 06-07-22
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Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
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When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
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filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
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Trading Dreams at Midnight
- By: Diane McKinney-Whetstone
- Narrated by: Shari Peele
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Diane McKinney-Whetstone, the award-winning and best-selling author of Tumbling, presents Trading Dreams at Midnight - - an Essence Book Club Recommended Read. Back in 1984, 15-year-old Neena's mother left and never came back. And now Neena is following in her footsteps.
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Hard to follow
- By Nevada on 08-13-10
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A Cup of Dust: A Novel of the Dust Bowl
- Pearl Spence Novels, Book 1
- By: Susie Finkbeiner
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Ten-year-old Pearl Spence is a daydreamer, playing make-believe to escape life in Oklahoma's Dust Bowl in 1935. The Spences have their share of misfortune, but as the sheriff's family, they've got more than most in this dry, desolate place. They're who the town turns to when there's a crisis or a need. Pearl is proud of her loving, strong family, though she often wearies of tracking down her mentally impaired older sister or wrestling with her grandmother's unshakable belief in a God. Then a mysterious man bent on revenge tramps into her town of Red River.
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Intense
- By VickyJ on 02-07-21
By: Susie Finkbeiner
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The Sweet By and By
- A Novel
- By: Todd Johnson
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- Unabridged
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Story
Among the longleaf pines and family farms of eastern North Carolina, days seem to pass without incident for Margaret Clayton and Bernice Stokes until they discover each other in a friendship that will take them on the most important journey of their lives. Margaret, droll and whip smart, has a will of iron that never fails her even when her body does, while Bernice, an avid country-music fan, is rarely lucid.
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Great 2/3 of a book.
- By Tracy on 07-09-12
By: Todd Johnson
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Gathering of Waters
- By: Bernice L. McFadden
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Gathering of Waters is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi - a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families. Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit
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Loved it!!
- By Naima on 07-26-16
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Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
- By: Rebecca Wells
- Narrated by: Judith Ivey
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
When Vivi and Siddalee Walker, an unforgettable mother-daughter team, get into a savage fight over a New York Times article that refers to Vivi as a "tap-dancing child abuser", the fallout is felt from Louisiana to New York to Seattle. Siddalee, a successful theater director with a huge hit on her hands, panics and postpones her upcoming wedding to her lover and friend, Connor McGill. Vivi's intrepid gang of lifelong girlfriends, the Ya-Yas, sashay in and conspire to bring everyone back together.
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As usual the book is better than the movie
- By Denzil and Judy's Account on 03-25-10
By: Rebecca Wells
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Fallen Angels
- By: Patricia Hickman
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Story
During the Great Depression, Jeb Nubey is running from the law when he meets three abandoned children. With nowhere else to go the group passes a stormy night in a comforting church. When they are discovered, a case of mistaken identity ensues. It seems the congregation has been waiting for their new pastor, a widower with three kids. Looks like more trouble for Jeb. Yet the chance for a steady job and three squares a day is too good to turn down.
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Touching
- By Christina on 11-11-04
By: Patricia Hickman
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The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a "softheaded goose" by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
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Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
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Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café. It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about.
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When Ava Harrison receives a letter containing an unusual job listing one month after the sudden death of her ex-boyfriend, she thinks she’s being haunted. The listing—a job as a live-in caretaker for a peculiar old man and his cranky cat in Driftwood, Alabama—is the perfect chance to start a new life. A normal life. Ava has always been too fearful to even travel, so no one’s more surprised than she is when she throws caution to the wind and drives to the distant beachside town.
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What listeners say about Dollbaby
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- WMF
- 10-08-14
Disappointing
After reading the reviews and description I had hopes for this book but sadly it didn’t make it. The story isn’t new. Orphaned/unwanted/abandoned/mistreated child is delivered into the hands of an eccentric Southern relative(s) where love grows and the child comes of age under the quiet oversight of the kindly, loyal black house help. It has been told by more skilled word crafters and in the voices of much more developed and memorable characters. That is but one of many issues I have. The book overflows with clichés, the most annoying of which is the ridiculous collection of names. We in the south do, on occasion name people things like Anne and Joe and Elizabeth. You wouldn’t know that from this book. Nor would you know that every African American does not have a colorful (and borderline racist) nickname. There were plot lines that initially caught my interest but they were never developed or were given quick treatment they became irrelevant (Apparently had Atticus Finch given Mayella Ewell a good stern talking to he could have resolved the whole false rape accusation thing in a matter of a chapter) And speaking of Atticus, I wonder how this book sits with African American readers. There are scenes of sit-ins and lip service to the civil rights movement but no evidence any of it---even taking part in it--- impacted of any of the central black characters or changed the way they relate to the whites. Stereotypes are everywhere and the take away lesson is that while we are "family" we still eat in the kitchen. Even the book’s big final reveal manages to evoke a subtle, uncomfortable racism while never actually addressing the racial issues it attempts to challenge. Some of this is bad writing, some bad editing and some just bad ideas. It’s too bad, it could have been an okay book, probably better tailored to a young adult audience. As it is the story has been told many times with a lot more skill.
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- Debbie De
- 08-15-14
Ibby Bell & The Big House
This a coming of age sothern tale about Ibby Bell a 12yr old simply dropped off by her mothers to live with Ms. Fanny. Southern life is nothing like the North and that summer Ibby learns a lesson she will never forget. 5 🌟 performance & storyline. The perfect southern story for a quiet rainy day. Narration 5 🌟 by January Lavoy. Well worth your credit.
Official DeAnn DeVille Review: Narrator, Writer, Audiobook Review Blogger , Mom
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23 people found this helpful
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- Linda
- 08-12-14
Don't miss this one!
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
This is a powerful story, well-written. I couldn't stop listening!
What other book might you compare Dollbaby to and why?
It reminds me of THE HELP and Sue Monk Kidd's THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES. Totally engaging, a sense of being in the world the author portrays.
What about January Lavoy’s performance did you like?
She's a good narrator, with a nice voice and a real talent for accents and inflections.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It touched me very deeply.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Sudi
- 09-11-14
Tale of Old-New Orleans Well Paced
First off, Doll-Baby is superbly narrated. January LaVoy masterfully adapts her reading to her characters' personalities and origins. This definitely gives the story depth and adds flesh to the bones of the individuals in the tale.
The story itself is good… it holds your interest, but Ms. McNeal often stunts her tale by a too simplistic sentence structure, which leaves the listener hoping for slightly more depth in the thought and personalities of her characters. Ms. LaVoy helps to add gradations of personal qualities which Ms. McNeal often neglects. Hence the three stars for the story itself and the five stars given the performance.
Some listeners may find the characters somewhat stereotyped. But in Ms. McNeal's defense, this seems to be a matter of the depths to which she wished to mine her players' inner life. Also, all of her characters are treated to the same level of development, which does give the story an even literary treatment. In other words, there isn't a lack of development in only some of the characters, there seems to be an overall reliance by Ms. McNeal to have the reader fill in the undefined gaps on all of her characters, while mainly giving a surface development to them all. That said, you do actually get enough grit in the story to get to know the players and to care what happens to them.
If you are interested in a (non-intellectually-taxing,) solid story of a young girl's coming-of-age in unexpected circumstances, you will enjoy Doll-Baby overall, at about that four-star level.
Just don't expect to discover the next Great American Novel.
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14 people found this helpful
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- Susan
- 08-14-14
A decent story badly told
What disappointed you about Dollbaby?
I couldn't get past the first 45 minutes. It's full of canned personalities and paper thin plot lines lifted from better novels.
What do you think your next listen will be?
I'm not sure I trust Audible suggestions after this one.
Would you be willing to try another one of January Lavoy’s performances?
No. Her voice is pleasing but her style is too dramatic and commercial. I don't enjoy the baby voice treatment for the younger character. It's distracting and irritating.
The characters of Queenie and Baby Doll are poorly written and not the narrator's fault but her reading amplifies the stereotyped dialogue.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
It might appeal to a book club for ladies in the 80+ age range who want to read about New Orleans and want an easy read. It is sweet, unchallenging and predictable.
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12 people found this helpful
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- RueRue
- 11-30-14
Trite story, stereotyped characters
Good narration but a terrible, trite, melodramatic plot and stereotypical characters. A waste of time unless you like Southern soap opera. Yuck !
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11 people found this helpful
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- Stacy
- 08-08-14
Great Story
What made the experience of listening to Dollbaby the most enjoyable?
Loved it.
What other book might you compare Dollbaby to and why?
It really puts you in the Old South.
What does January Lavoy bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I always enjoy January Lavoy's narration.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It's relatable for anyone who has trouble with her mother.
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- Danielle
- 04-21-15
A joy to listen to
Enter a doorway to another time and place, you'll be sorry when it is over! Wonderful story and fantastic narration, loved this gem!
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- AJ
- 09-17-14
I Want to Meet All of Them!
Would you listen to Dollbaby again? Why?
Again...and again...and again! In fact, one i reached the end i wanted to start over. The characters were each so unique and the narration was perfect.
What did you like best about this story?
The story itself. It kept giving little surprises. Like each room of the house, each chapter brought a new secret and discovery of it's own.
What about January Lavoy’s performance did you like?
Subtle differences in her pitch and accent made it easy to recognize which character was speaking. I enjoyed her narration very much.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
I don't want to give anything away, but Queenie's reaction to her loss was incredibly moving.
Any additional comments?
This kind of story makes me want to write a book. It makes me want to travel back to my hometown, wander around... in... and through the little house i grew up in, and write MY story. Maybe i will.....:) Thank you Laura McNeal for a story i will never forget.
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- tooonce72
- 08-08-14
A Big-Hearted Coming-of-Age Novel
Excellent southern coming of age story spanning the 40's through to the early 70's, though the majority of the story takes place in the 60's. A window to the history of civil rights in New Orleans. The story takes a hold of you from the beginning with rich colorful characters and holds you throughout the book. Besides numerous story lines, there are a number of little cultural awakenings and interesting tidbits of life in the past that add to this book. I most enjoyed reading about the meals of regional foods or foods that just are not made any more.
For a first work, this is just such a pleasant read. It could have used additional editing to pull in the dangling plots to make it a more cohesive novel. I also wish there was a clear protagonist throughout. The theme of the entire household being a united front was refreshing. What a satisfying ending!
January LaVoy narration was a perfect choice. She enhanced the work.
I'll be watching for Laura Lane McNeal's future works.
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