-
Drowning Ruth
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $13.46
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
All the Best People
- By: Sonja Yoerg
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family's auto shop, and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else. But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won't reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn't the television.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Samantha on 05-20-17
By: Sonja Yoerg
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
The Invention of Wings
- A Novel
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Adepero Oduye, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
-
-
If it Weren't True, I Wouldn't Have Believed it
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Sue Monk Kidd
-
Hello Beautiful
- A Novel
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Maura Tierney
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all.
-
-
Book was great, performance terrible
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-23
By: Ann Napolitano
-
Mad Honey
- A Novel
- By: Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan
- Narrated by: Carrie Coon, Key Taw, Jodi Picoult, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.
-
-
Good writing but...
- By Suzanna on 10-08-22
By: Jodi Picoult, and others
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
All the Best People
- By: Sonja Yoerg
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family's auto shop, and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else. But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won't reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn't the television.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Samantha on 05-20-17
By: Sonja Yoerg
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
The Invention of Wings
- A Novel
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Adepero Oduye, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
-
-
If it Weren't True, I Wouldn't Have Believed it
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Sue Monk Kidd
-
Hello Beautiful
- A Novel
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Maura Tierney
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all.
-
-
Book was great, performance terrible
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-23
By: Ann Napolitano
-
Mad Honey
- A Novel
- By: Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan
- Narrated by: Carrie Coon, Key Taw, Jodi Picoult, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.
-
-
Good writing but...
- By Suzanna on 10-08-22
By: Jodi Picoult, and others
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
White Oleander
- By: Janet Fitch
- Narrated by: Oprah Winfrey
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this gripping first novel, a young girl, orphaned when her mother murders an ex-lover, endures the shuffle of a foster child's life. Oprah enjoyed her book club pick so much that she narrates the audiobook edition!
Browse more Oprah Picks.
-
-
White Oleander
- By Tracy on 04-09-04
By: Janet Fitch
-
Tara Road
- A Novel
- By: Maeve Binchy
- Narrated by: Katherine Borowitz
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ria lived on Tara Road in Dublin with her dashing husband, Danny, and their two children. She fully believed she was happily married, right up until the day Danny told her he was leaving her to be with his young, pregnant girlfriend. By a chance phone call, Ria meets Marilyn, a woman from New England unable to come to terms with her only son's death and now separated from her husband. The two women exchange houses for the summer with extraordinary consequences, each learning that the other has a deep secret that can never be revealed.
-
-
Material good - quality, not-so-much
- By B. W. on 09-05-08
By: Maeve Binchy
-
The Book of Ruth
- By: Jane Hamilton
- Narrated by: Angela Jayne Rogers
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in a world of physical and emotional poverty, Ruth believes her shrewish mother's assessment of her - that she is dimwitted and worthless. When she marries an emotionally unstable ne'er-do-well, her troubles only multiply. Her job at the dry cleaners can't afford her little family the luxury of moving out of her mother's house. As the incessant bickering between her troubled husband and her abusive mother reaches a violent climax, Ruth must find a way to survive.
-
-
It Enters Your Soul
- By C. Byrnes on 03-30-09
By: Jane Hamilton
-
The Winter People
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer McMahon
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Kathe Mazur
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, 19-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary....
-
-
Get past the narration of the first chapter
- By Brook on 04-19-14
By: Jennifer McMahon
-
The Witch's Kind
- By: Louisa Morgan
- Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barrie Anne Blythe and her aunt Charlotte have always known that the other residents of their small coastal community find them peculiar - two women living alone on the outskirts of town. It is the price of concealing their strange and dangerous family secret. But two events threaten to upend their lives forever. The first is the arrival of a mysterious abandoned baby with a hint of power like their own. The second is the sudden reappearance of Barrie Anne's long-lost husband - who is not quite the man she thought she married.
-
-
Weakly entertaining.
- By T Muel on 08-14-19
By: Louisa Morgan
-
Cane River
- By: Lalita Tademy
- Narrated by: Shari Belafonte, Jo Marie Payton, Edwina Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were women whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the 20th century. Through it all, they fought to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.
-
-
Cane River
- By Betty on 06-06-04
By: Lalita Tademy
-
The Book Eaters
- By: Sunyi Dean
- Narrated by: Katie Erich
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
-
-
Book worth a college course on it's own.
- By SW;MDA on 10-08-22
By: Sunyi Dean
-
The Husband's Secret
- By: Liane Moriarty
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret - something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive....
-
-
Soap Opera Digest
- By FanB14 on 02-06-14
By: Liane Moriarty
-
The Secret Life of Bees
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.
-
-
Awesome narrator
- By Joey on 05-17-10
By: Sue Monk Kidd
-
Truly Madly Guilty
- By: Liane Moriarty
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit, busy life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other. Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate.
-
-
seriously, stop analyzing and enjoy the ride
- By patty mastracco on 08-01-16
By: Liane Moriarty
-
Cephrael's Hand
- A Pattern of Shadow and Light, Book 1
- By: Melissa McPhail
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 32 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Alorin...300 years after the genocidal Adept Wars, the realm is dying, and the blessed Adept race dies with it. One man holds the secret to reverting this decline: Bjorn van Gelderan, a dangerous and enigmatic man whose shocking betrayal three centuries past earned him a traitor's brand. It is the Adept Vestal Raine D'Lacourte's mission to learn what Bjorn knows in the hope of salvaging his race. But first he'll have to find him....
-
-
This is a great book!!!
- By Dason on 07-30-16
By: Melissa McPhail
-
Carolina Moon
- By: Nora Roberts
- Narrated by: Dean Robertson
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tory Bodeen grew up in a run-down house where her father ruled with an iron fist and a leather belt - and where her dreams and talents had no room to flourish. Her one escape was her neighbor Hope, who lived in the big house just a short skip away, and whose friendship allowed Tory to be something she wasn’t allowed to be at home: a child. Then Hope was brutally murdered, and everything fell apart.
-
-
Good and Bad
- By paula lewis on 06-07-09
By: Nora Roberts
Publisher's summary
Deftly written and emotionally powerful, Drowning Ruth is a stunning portrait of the ties that bind sisters together and the forces that tear them apart, of the dangers of keeping secrets and the explosive repercussions when they are exposed. A mesmerizing and achingly beautiful debut.
Winter, 1919. Amanda Starkey spends her days nursing soldiers wounded in the Great War. Finding herself suddenly overwhelmed, she flees Milwaukee and retreats to her family's farm on Nagawaukee Lake, seeking comfort with her younger sister, Mathilda, and three-year-old niece, Ruth. But very soon, Amanda comes to see that her old home is no refuge—she has carried her troubles with her. On one terrible night almost a year later, Amanda loses nearly everything that is dearest to her when her sister mysteriously disappears and is later found drowned beneath the ice that covers the lake. When Mathilda's husband comes home from the war, wounded and troubled himself, he finds that Amanda has taken charge of Ruth and the farm, assuming her responsibility with a frightening intensity. Wry and guarded, Amanda tells the story of her family in careful doses, as anxious to hide from herself as from us the secrets of her own past and of that night.
Ruth, haunted by her own memory of that fateful night, grows up under the watchful eye of her prickly and possessive aunt and gradually becomes aware of the odd events of her childhood. As she tells her own story with increasing clarity, she reveals the mounting toll that her aunt's secrets exact from her family and everyone around her, until the heartrending truth is uncovered.
Guiding us through the lives of the Starkey women, Christina Schwarz's first novel shows her compassion and a unique understanding of the American landscape and the people who live on it.
(P)2000 Random House, Inc.
Critic reviews
"A remarkable debut: surprising, unsettling and sure." --The New York Times Book Review
"A strong sense of portent and unusually vivid characters distinguish this mesmerizing first novel about horrifying family secrets and nearly annihilating guilt. Drowning Ruth is a complex and rewarding debut." --Anita Shreve, author of Fortune's Rocks and The Pilot's Wife
More from the same
Narrator
Related to this topic
-
The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
-
-
Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
-
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
- By: Tiffany Baker
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Truly Plaice, an overly large and ungainly girl, is the polar opposite of her sister, Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. With their parents dead, Truly and Serena Jane are separated: Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation.
-
-
meh...
- By Victoria on 02-25-09
By: Tiffany Baker
-
Promise
- A Novel
- By: Minrose Gwin
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel.
-
-
Mostly Disappointing
- By Anjoli on 06-15-19
By: Minrose Gwin
-
I Will Send Rain
- A Novel
- By: Rae Meadows
- Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie Bell can't escape the dust. It's in her hair, covering the windowsills, coating the animals in the barn, and in the corners of her children's dry, cracked lips. It's 1934, and the Bell farm in Mulehead, Oklahoma, is struggling as the earliest storms of the Dust Bowl descend. The wheat harvests are drying out, and people are packing up their belongings as storms lay waste to the Great Plains.
-
-
We've seen pictures of the Dust Bowl
- By Henwhisperer on 10-12-16
By: Rae Meadows
-
The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
-
-
Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
-
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
- By: Tiffany Baker
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Truly Plaice, an overly large and ungainly girl, is the polar opposite of her sister, Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. With their parents dead, Truly and Serena Jane are separated: Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation.
-
-
meh...
- By Victoria on 02-25-09
By: Tiffany Baker
-
Promise
- A Novel
- By: Minrose Gwin
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel.
-
-
Mostly Disappointing
- By Anjoli on 06-15-19
By: Minrose Gwin
-
I Will Send Rain
- A Novel
- By: Rae Meadows
- Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie Bell can't escape the dust. It's in her hair, covering the windowsills, coating the animals in the barn, and in the corners of her children's dry, cracked lips. It's 1934, and the Bell farm in Mulehead, Oklahoma, is struggling as the earliest storms of the Dust Bowl descend. The wheat harvests are drying out, and people are packing up their belongings as storms lay waste to the Great Plains.
-
-
We've seen pictures of the Dust Bowl
- By Henwhisperer on 10-12-16
By: Rae Meadows
-
The Sound of Glass
- By: Karen White
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer, Susan Bennett
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward's husband, Cal, when she receives unexpected news - Cal's family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by Cal's reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt. Charting the course of an uncertain life - and feeling guilt from her husband's tragic death - Merritt travels from her home in Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal's unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff.
-
-
You'll LAUGH, LOVE, and maybe CRY a little
- By Jennifer on 08-08-15
By: Karen White
-
The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove
- A Novel
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bezellia Grove was born into the most prominent of Nashville families, but that didn’t stop her from having an alcoholic mother and a distant, adulterous father. Her nanny, Maizelle, and Nathaniel, the handyman, are the people who have taken care of her since she can remember. She considers them family, but her parents just consider them servants because they are Black. When Bezellia has a clandestine romance with Nathaniel's son, Whites and Blacks unite in fury at the young couple.
-
-
light southern fiction
- By suzanne on 02-08-13
-
Falling Home
- By: Karen White
- Narrated by: Lyssa Browne
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cassie Madison has it all: A high-powered advertising career; a stylish Manhattan apartment; and a sophisticated, rich, and gorgeous fiancé. It's a far cry from her childhood in Walton, Georgia, home of the annual Kudzu Festival and hot, sticky summers. And then there are all the bad memories, the heartache. When Cassie's estranged sister calls to say that her father is dying, Cassie knows it's time to set aside her feelings and go home and face the sister she hasn't seen in 15 years.
-
-
Could not finish
- By G. Moore on 06-08-11
By: Karen White
-
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
-
-
Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
-
The Secrets She Carried
- By: Barbara Davis
- Narrated by: Tiffany Morgan
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though Peak Plantation has been in her family for generations, Leslie Nichols can't wait to rid herself of the farm left to her by her estranged grandmother Maggie. But Leslie isn't the only one with a claim to Peak. Jay Davenport, Peak's reclusive caretaker, has his own reasons for holding onto the land bequeathed to him by Leslie's grandmother. Before she died, Maggie hinted at a terrible secret surrounding Adele Laveau, a lady's maid who came to Peak during the 1930s and died under mysterious circumstances.
-
-
Best book of the year
- By Joanne Tailele on 10-08-18
By: Barbara Davis
-
This Side of the Sky
- By: Elyse Singleton
- Narrated by: Myra Taylor, Sharon Washington, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning journalist Elyse Singleton delivers what Essence calls “a gem - the perfect book to curl up with.”
Best friends Lilian and Myraleen, two African American women from rural Mississippi, travel to Europe during World War II to act as members of the Women’s Army Corps. During this time of segregation and destruction, both women discover love and heartbreak, triumph and defeat.
-
-
A Breath of Fresh Air
- By Adina Andreu on 07-19-12
By: Elyse Singleton
-
The Promise
- By: Ann Weisgarber
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1900. Young pianist Catherine Wainwright flees the fashionable town of Dayton, Ohio in the wake of a terrible scandal. Heartbroken and facing destitution, she finds herself striking up correspondence with a childhood admirer, the recently widowed Oscar Williams. In desperation she agrees to marry him, but when Catherine travels to Oscar's farm on Galveston Island, Texas—a thousand miles from home—she finds she is little prepared for the life that awaits her.
-
-
Beautifully written and read
- By RueRue on 04-21-14
By: Ann Weisgarber
-
Evergreen Falls
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A long-forgotten secret, a scandalous attraction and a place where two women's lives are changed forever. 1926: Violet Armstrong is one of the few remaining members of staff working at the grand Evergreen Spa Hotel as it closes down over winter. Only a handful of guests are left, including the heir to a rich grazing family, his sister and her suave suitor. When a snowstorm moves in, the hotel is cut off and they are all trapped. No-one could have predicted what would unfold.
-
-
Soooo Boring
- By Merford on 10-09-19
-
Orphan Number Eight
- A Novel
- By: Kim van Alkemade
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt, Ginny Auer
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City's Lower East Side. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother, Sam, and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans.
-
-
Don't understand the negative reviews
- By P. L. Forrington on 11-25-17
By: Kim van Alkemade
-
Among the Lesser Gods
- By: Margo Catts
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child to her mother's abandonment and now an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Yet when her grandmother calls and asks her to watch over the children of a recent widower in a small, isolated town in Colorado, she takes it as a chance to finally organize her life.
-
-
Without a doubt...
- By RueRue on 10-07-19
By: Margo Catts
-
Angel of Harlem
- By: Kuwanna Haulsey
- Narrated by: Brenda Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by the extraordinary events of Dr. May Chinn’s life, Angel of Harlem is a deeply affecting story of love and transcendence. Weaving seamlessly scenes from the battlefields of the Civil War, during which her father escaped from slavery, to the Harlem living rooms and kitchen tables where May is sometimes forced to operate on her patients, this fascinating novel lays bare the heart of a woman who changed the face of medicine.
-
-
Really Enjoyed!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-08-19
By: Kuwanna Haulsey
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Cane River
- By: Lalita Tademy
- Narrated by: Shari Belafonte, Jo Marie Payton, Edwina Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were women whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the 20th century. Through it all, they fought to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.
-
-
Cane River
- By Betty on 06-06-04
By: Lalita Tademy
-
Icy Sparks
- By: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
- Narrated by: Kate Miller
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A funny, sad, and transcendent story of a young girl growing up in Appalachia. The New York Times Book Review called this Oprah Book Club selection "vivid and unforgettable."
-
-
Icy made me warm.
- By Alene on 03-28-03
By: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
-
While I Was Gone
- By: Sue Miller
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 5 hrs
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1968, Jo Becker ran out on the marriage and the life her parents wanted for her, and escaped - for one beautiful, idyllic year - into a life that was bohemian and romantic, living under an assumed name in a rambling group house in Cambridge. It was a time of limitless possibility, but it ended in a single instant when Jo returned home one night to find her best friend lying dead in a pool of blood on the living room floor. Now Jo has everything she's ever wanted. But when an old housemate settles in her small town, the fabric of Jo's life begins to unravel.
-
-
ABRIDGED VERISION
- By Kimberly Hansen on 09-24-19
By: Sue Miller
-
Black and Blue
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Ruth Ann Phimister
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When 19-year-old Fran married Bobby Benedetto, she never dreamed that she would find herself in an abusive relationship. Every time her New York City policeman husband hit her, she would think of convincing reasons to stay. Now, with her 10-year-old son in tow, she is running for her life.
-
-
Another Quindlen Jewel
- By Carol T. Carr on 09-11-12
By: Anna Quindlen
-
The Deep End of the Ocean
- By: Jacquelyn Mitchard
- Narrated by: Dana Ivey
- Length: 3 hrs and 7 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Both highly suspenseful and deeply moving, The Deep End of the Ocean imagines every mother's worst nightmare - the disappearance of a child - as it explores a family's struggle to endure, even against extraordinary odds. Filled with compassion, humor, and brilliant observations about the texture of real life, here is a story of rare power, one that will touch listeners' hearts and make them celebrate the emotions that make us all one.
-
-
Great reading, but way too much cut out
- By Peter Darling on 03-09-17
-
The Book of Ruth
- By: Jane Hamilton
- Narrated by: Angela Jayne Rogers
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in a world of physical and emotional poverty, Ruth believes her shrewish mother's assessment of her - that she is dimwitted and worthless. When she marries an emotionally unstable ne'er-do-well, her troubles only multiply. Her job at the dry cleaners can't afford her little family the luxury of moving out of her mother's house. As the incessant bickering between her troubled husband and her abusive mother reaches a violent climax, Ruth must find a way to survive.
-
-
It Enters Your Soul
- By C. Byrnes on 03-30-09
By: Jane Hamilton
-
Cane River
- By: Lalita Tademy
- Narrated by: Shari Belafonte, Jo Marie Payton, Edwina Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were women whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the 20th century. Through it all, they fought to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.
-
-
Cane River
- By Betty on 06-06-04
By: Lalita Tademy
-
Icy Sparks
- By: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
- Narrated by: Kate Miller
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A funny, sad, and transcendent story of a young girl growing up in Appalachia. The New York Times Book Review called this Oprah Book Club selection "vivid and unforgettable."
-
-
Icy made me warm.
- By Alene on 03-28-03
By: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
-
While I Was Gone
- By: Sue Miller
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 5 hrs
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1968, Jo Becker ran out on the marriage and the life her parents wanted for her, and escaped - for one beautiful, idyllic year - into a life that was bohemian and romantic, living under an assumed name in a rambling group house in Cambridge. It was a time of limitless possibility, but it ended in a single instant when Jo returned home one night to find her best friend lying dead in a pool of blood on the living room floor. Now Jo has everything she's ever wanted. But when an old housemate settles in her small town, the fabric of Jo's life begins to unravel.
-
-
ABRIDGED VERISION
- By Kimberly Hansen on 09-24-19
By: Sue Miller
-
Black and Blue
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Ruth Ann Phimister
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When 19-year-old Fran married Bobby Benedetto, she never dreamed that she would find herself in an abusive relationship. Every time her New York City policeman husband hit her, she would think of convincing reasons to stay. Now, with her 10-year-old son in tow, she is running for her life.
-
-
Another Quindlen Jewel
- By Carol T. Carr on 09-11-12
By: Anna Quindlen
-
The Deep End of the Ocean
- By: Jacquelyn Mitchard
- Narrated by: Dana Ivey
- Length: 3 hrs and 7 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Both highly suspenseful and deeply moving, The Deep End of the Ocean imagines every mother's worst nightmare - the disappearance of a child - as it explores a family's struggle to endure, even against extraordinary odds. Filled with compassion, humor, and brilliant observations about the texture of real life, here is a story of rare power, one that will touch listeners' hearts and make them celebrate the emotions that make us all one.
-
-
Great reading, but way too much cut out
- By Peter Darling on 03-09-17
-
The Book of Ruth
- By: Jane Hamilton
- Narrated by: Angela Jayne Rogers
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in a world of physical and emotional poverty, Ruth believes her shrewish mother's assessment of her - that she is dimwitted and worthless. When she marries an emotionally unstable ne'er-do-well, her troubles only multiply. Her job at the dry cleaners can't afford her little family the luxury of moving out of her mother's house. As the incessant bickering between her troubled husband and her abusive mother reaches a violent climax, Ruth must find a way to survive.
-
-
It Enters Your Soul
- By C. Byrnes on 03-30-09
By: Jane Hamilton
-
Bonnie
- A Novel
- By: Christina Schwarz
- Narrated by: Candace Thaxton
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in a small town in the desolate reaches of Western Texas and shaped by her girlhood in an industrial wasteland on the outskirts of Dallas, Bonnie Parker was a natural performer and a star student. She dreamed of being a movie star or a singer or a poet. But her dramatic nature, contorted by her limited opportunities and her overwhelming love for Clyde Barrow, pushed her into a course from which there was no escape but death.
-
-
Authentic and beautiful writing
- By Eugenia Luck on 10-07-20
-
We Were the Mulvaneys
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Scott Shina
- Length: 22 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Judd is the youngest of the four Mulvaney children - three boys and a girl - on their parents’ lush farm in upstate New York. In his childhood, Judd is swept along by the sheer energy of the Mulvaneys and their wealth of beloved family stories. But now, 30 years old, Judd looks back through his memories to tell the secrets that eventually ripped apart the fabric of his storybook family.
-
-
Overlooked Masterpiece
- By Jason on 10-26-12
-
Midwives
- A Novel
- By: Chris Bohjalian
- Narrated by: Kate Burton
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The time is 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a dedicated midwife in the rural community of Reddington, Vermont, for 15 years. But one treacherous winter night, in a house isolated by icy roads and failed telephone lines, Sibyl takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She performs an emergency Caesarean section on its mother, who appears to have died in labor.
-
-
Why Abridged
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 11-06-13
By: Chris Bohjalian
-
The Invention of Wings
- A Novel
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Adepero Oduye, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
-
-
If it Weren't True, I Wouldn't Have Believed it
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Sue Monk Kidd
-
Here on Earth
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
March Murray, along with her 15-year-old daughter, Gwen, returns to the small Massachusetts town where she grew up to attend the funeral of Judith Dale, the beloved housekeeper who raised her. After nearly 20 years of living in California, March is thrust into the world of her past.
-
-
The magical realm of Alice Hoffman
- By Brendolynne on 07-09-12
By: Alice Hoffman
-
Ellen Foster
- By: Kaye Gibbons
- Narrated by: Ruth Ann Phimister
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy." So begins the tale of Ellen Foster, the brave and engaging heroine of Kaye Gibbons's first novel, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Wise, funny, affectionate and true, Ellen Foster is, as Walker Percy called it, "The real thing. Which is to say, a lovely, sometimes heart/wrenching novel...."
-
-
Great!!
- By Jo on 04-06-18
By: Kaye Gibbons
-
Freedom
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: David LeDoux
- Length: 24 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul - the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter - environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man - she was doing her small part to build a better world.
-
-
Believe the Hype
- By L. Kerr on 09-07-10
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
Jewel
- By: Bret Lott
- Narrated by: Celia Weston
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Brenda Kay is born in 1943, Jewel gives thanks for a healthy baby, last-born and most welcome. Jewel is the story of how quickly a life can change; how, like lightning, an unforeseen event can set us on a course without reason or compass. In this story of a woman's devotion to the child who is both her burden and God's singular way of smiling on her, Bret Lott has created a mother-daughter relationship of matchless intensity and beauty, and one of the finest, most indomitable heroines in contemporary American fiction.
-
-
Unnesesary & overuse of the phrase 'Nigga Women'
- By Ashley N. Wilkins on 04-18-18
By: Bret Lott
-
Open House
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Becky Baker
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this superb novel - an Oprah Book Club selection - a woman re-creates her life after divorce by opening up her house to strangers and her heart to the simple miracle of possibility.
-
-
Open House
- By Iris on 11-11-03
By: Elizabeth Berg
-
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
- By: David Wroblewski
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Filled with breathtaking scenes, the elemental north woods, the sweep of seasons, an iconic American barn, a fateful vision rendered in the falling rain. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a meditation on the limits of language and what lies beyond, a brilliantly inventive retelling of an ancient story, and an epic tale of devotion, betrayal, and courage in the American heartland.
-
-
Devastatingly Dark Story
- By Knitme23 on 02-07-15
By: David Wroblewski
-
That Bird Has My Wings
- The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row
- By: Jarvis Jay Masters
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1990, while serving a sentence in San Quentin for armed robbery, Jarvis Jay Masters was implicated as an accessory in the murder of a prison guard. A 23-year-old Black man, Jarvis was sentenced to death in the gas chamber. While in the maximum security section of Death Row, using the only instrument available to him—a ball-point pen filler—Masters's astounding memoir is a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit and the talent of a fine writer.
-
-
Amazing books !
- By HD on 12-12-22
-
The Edge of the Earth
- A Novel
- By: Christina Schwarz
- Narrated by: Candace Thaxton
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1898, a woman forsakes the comfort of home and family for a love that takes her to a remote lighthouse on the wild coast of California. What she finds at the edge of the earth, hidden between the sea and the fog, will change her life irrevocably. Trudy, who can argue Kant over dinner and play a respectable portion of Mozart's Serenade in G major, has been raised to marry her childhood friend and assume a life of bourgeois comfort in Milwaukee. She knows she should be pleased, but she's restless instead, yearning for something she lacks even the vocabulary to articulate.
-
-
Not worth the time!
- By Millie on 08-04-13
What listeners say about Drowning Ruth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Rio
- 04-27-04
A book worth keeping
I listened to this book some time ago, burned it to cd, and filed it away. A few days ago, during a search for something to listen to on a long drive, I pulled it out and loaded it into the cd player of the car. I loved it as much the second time as I did the first, and was able to pay more attention and actually got more out of it. It is a marvelous story, and well worth burning, keeping and reading over and over again. I know I will.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Patricia B Tripoli
- 11-21-03
Great Listen!
I really did enjoy this story! At first, I wasn't sure where it was going. But the author ended up revealing all the pieces of the puzzle in a fascinating progression. This way was much more interesting than a "straight timeline" from most novels. Definitely a woman's story and not surprising that it was an Oprahs pick.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tina
- 05-30-14
It wasn't so bad that I didn't get through it...
Is there anything you would change about this book?
The plot is a "supermarket mystery," but the author's style is trying too hard to be artistic and literary...pick one and stick with it.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
the end was good. the beginning was very tedious.
What three words best describe Blair Brown’s voice?
raspy, lacks tone, lacks inflection
Do you think Drowning Ruth needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
no
Any additional comments?
Christina Schwarz is not a bad writer. She has a knack for vivid description, but I feel as if she's been wronged by a few too many men, and likes to vilify them in a way that is predictable and stereotypical.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- JLH
- 09-24-05
Depressing
Ms. Schwarz told the story from the viewpoint of several characters at different times during their lives. She jumped around too quickly from character-to-character. I found it difficult to concentrate and follow. The story itself was fairly ordinary and predictable. However, I think her portrayal of farm life, a farm community and morals during and after WWI are fairly accurate. Ms. Schwarz makes a couple of points in her book: 'you are only as sick as the secrets you keep' and 'oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to conceive'. She made the points early in the book and just kept grinding it into the reader/listener. Ms. Brown's narration was extremely irritating. I listened to the entire book and find this is not a book worth re-visiting.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Tiffany
- 12-11-04
Wonderful
Sometimes a little difficult to follow quickly with sudden changes from first person to third person, but brilliantly read. The narrator is gifted and her tone and inflection leads you to feel love, hate, and disgust for the complex characters the author has created. Read it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Julie
- 04-28-04
Wonderful!!
I really enjoyed this book and couldnt stop listening.I loved the suspense leading to the conclusion.the author was masterful at unfolding the plot. I would highly recommend this book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Simone
- 05-29-15
Confusing
I found the story a little confusing because I had a hard time following the jumps back and forth in time. The “scenes” themselves were interesting, but I felt like I needed a minute to mentally process how they all related to each other when the time line would shift again.
The recording quality was poor, like listening to a story told over the phone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- Mindee J. Plugues
- 07-11-06
Couldn't stop listening!
This book kept me intriqued all the way through. At first I thought it was slow, but then found myself thinking about the characters after I turned it off. It is a little bit of a mystery but more than that it is a story about real people - people you could touch and feel and understand. I highly recommend it. Parts dragged a little, but I found later that even those parts added to the overall story and made the book complete.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- Marian Paulina
- 08-09-05
Wonderful!
I really enjoyed this book - so much so that I bought the paperback as a gift. I can honestly say the book has been thoroughly enjoyed by all who have since read it. An unexpected pleasure and certainly worth a listen!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- Llc
- 06-12-05
A well-written historical novel
Slow to begin but excellent character development and the narration is exceptionally elegant and distinctive. Ideal for this style of book. A very well written historical novel
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful