-
The Woman Upstairs
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 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 $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
A Dream Life
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Claire Messud
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Armstrong family moves from New York at the dawn of the 1970s, Australia feels, to Alice Armstrong, like the end of the earth. Residing in a grand manor on the glittering Sydney Harbour, her family finds their life has turned upside down. As she navigates this strange new world, Alice must weave an existence from its shimmering mirage. Lies and self-deception are at the heart of this keenly observed story. This is a sharp, biting, and playful tale with a cast of unscrupulous characters adrift in a dream life of their own making.
By: Claire Messud
-
The Iliad & The Odyssey
- By: Homer
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 28 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.
-
-
Worth the price, worth the time
- By Sam on 12-31-04
By: Homer
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
All My Puny Sorrows
- By: Miriam Toews
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elf and Yoli are sisters. While on the surface Elfrieda's life is enviable (she's a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, and happily married,) and Yolandi's a mess (she's divorced and broke, with two teenagers growing up too quickly), they are fiercely close - raised in a Mennonite household and sharing the hardship of Elf's desire to end her life.
-
-
Brilliant and beautiful
- By Mira on 03-17-16
By: Miriam Toews
-
Fates and Furies
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Julia Whelan
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Florida and Matrix, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception. Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation. Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives.
-
-
Paean to Marriage, Mythology and Theatre
- By W Perry Hall on 09-20-15
By: Lauren Groff
-
Great Artists
- Part 1
- By: Phil Grabsky, Tim Marlow, Philip Rance
- Narrated by: Janet Lawrence
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A perfect introduction for anyone interested in the rich history of Western Art. Great Artists takes its listeners on a comprehensive journey through the history of art. This book, part one, provides a dedicated chapter on each of the following artists: Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and Bruegel. These major painters of Western art are considered, placed in their social context, and discussed in terms of the most recent scholarship.
By: Phil Grabsky, and others
-
A Dream Life
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Claire Messud
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Armstrong family moves from New York at the dawn of the 1970s, Australia feels, to Alice Armstrong, like the end of the earth. Residing in a grand manor on the glittering Sydney Harbour, her family finds their life has turned upside down. As she navigates this strange new world, Alice must weave an existence from its shimmering mirage. Lies and self-deception are at the heart of this keenly observed story. This is a sharp, biting, and playful tale with a cast of unscrupulous characters adrift in a dream life of their own making.
By: Claire Messud
-
The Iliad & The Odyssey
- By: Homer
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 28 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.
-
-
Worth the price, worth the time
- By Sam on 12-31-04
By: Homer
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
All My Puny Sorrows
- By: Miriam Toews
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elf and Yoli are sisters. While on the surface Elfrieda's life is enviable (she's a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, and happily married,) and Yolandi's a mess (she's divorced and broke, with two teenagers growing up too quickly), they are fiercely close - raised in a Mennonite household and sharing the hardship of Elf's desire to end her life.
-
-
Brilliant and beautiful
- By Mira on 03-17-16
By: Miriam Toews
-
Fates and Furies
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Julia Whelan
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Florida and Matrix, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception. Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation. Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives.
-
-
Paean to Marriage, Mythology and Theatre
- By W Perry Hall on 09-20-15
By: Lauren Groff
-
Great Artists
- Part 1
- By: Phil Grabsky, Tim Marlow, Philip Rance
- Narrated by: Janet Lawrence
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A perfect introduction for anyone interested in the rich history of Western Art. Great Artists takes its listeners on a comprehensive journey through the history of art. This book, part one, provides a dedicated chapter on each of the following artists: Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and Bruegel. These major painters of Western art are considered, placed in their social context, and discussed in terms of the most recent scholarship.
By: Phil Grabsky, and others
-
Wellness
- A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
- By: Nathan Hill
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 18 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty '90s Chicago art scene, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria.
-
-
you have to believe it'll work
- By Alex halladay on 09-22-23
By: Nathan Hill
-
State of Wonder
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
-
-
Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
-
Foster
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas' house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end.
-
-
A story that will stay with me a long time
- By CTKG on 11-01-22
By: Claire Keegan
-
The Help
- By: Kathryn Stockett
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.
-
-
What a great surprise!
- By Jan on 12-02-09
By: Kathryn Stockett
-
Yellowface
- A Novel
- By: R. F. Kuang
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.
-
-
I've never hated a character harder
- By ashelyn downs on 07-26-23
By: R. F. Kuang
-
Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
-
-
Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
-
Magpie
- By: Elizabeth Day
- Narrated by: Tanya Reynolds
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marisa and Jake are a perfect couple. And Kate, their new lodger, is the perfect roommate—and not just because her rent payments will give them the income they need to start trying for the baby of their dreams. Except—no one is truly perfect. Sure, Kate doesn’t seem to care much about personal boundaries and can occasionally seem overly familiar with Jake. But Marisa doesn’t let it concern her, knowing that soon Kate will be gone, and it will just be her, Jake, and their future baby.
-
-
Good performance, bad story
- By Clarissa Laws on 05-27-22
By: Elizabeth Day
-
The Light of Paris
- By: Eleanor Brown
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Madeleine is trapped - by her family's expectations, by her controlling husband, and by her own fears - in an unhappy marriage and a life she never wanted. From the outside it looks like she has everything, but on the inside she fears she has nothing that matters. In Madeleine's memories, her grandmother, Margie, is the kind of woman she should have been - elegant, reserved, perfect. bold, romantic trip to Jazz Age Paris, she meets the grandmother she never knew: a dreamer who defied her strict, staid family and spent an exhilarating summer writing in cafés.
-
-
Repetitive Whinefest!
- By Knitme23 on 08-24-16
By: Eleanor Brown
-
East of Eden
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 25 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
-
-
Why have I avoided this Beautiful Book???
- By Kelly on 03-25-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
-
-
Boy, am I in the minority on this one.
- By Bonny on 11-04-13
By: Donna Tartt
-
The End of the Affair
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Colin Firth
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Graham Greene’s evocative analysis of the love of self, the love of another, and the love of God is an English classic that has been translated for the stage, the screen, and even the opera house. Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, A Single Man) turns in an authentic and stirring performance for this distinguished audio release.
-
-
Colin Firth Kills It
- By Em on 05-09-12
By: Graham Greene
-
Wicked
- The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
- By: Gregory Maguire
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heralded as an instant classic of fantasy literature, Maguire has written a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view. More than just a fairy tale for adults, Wicked is a meditation on the nature of good and evil.
-
-
It's not easy being green
- By PangaeaReads on 07-30-08
By: Gregory Maguire
Publisher's summary
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Emperor's Children, a brilliant new novel: the riveting confession of a woman awakened, transformed, and betrayed by passion and desire for a world beyond her own.
Nora Eldridge, a 37-year-old elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who long ago abandoned her ambition to be a successful artist, has become the "woman upstairs", a reliable friend and tidy neighbor always on the fringe of others' achievements. Then into her classroom walks Reza Shahid, a child who enchants as if from a fairy tale. He and his parents - dashing Skandar, a Lebanese scholar and professor at the École Normale Supérleure; and Sirena, an effortlessly glamorous Italian artist - have come to Boston for Skandar to take up a fellowship at Harvard. When Reza is attacked by schoolyard bullies who call him a "terrorist" Nora is drawn into the complex world of the Shahid family: She finds herself falling in love with them, separately and together. Nora's happiness explodes her boundaries, until Sirena's careless ambition leads to a shattering betrayal. Told with urgency, intimacy, and piercing emotion, this story of obsession and artistic fulfillment explores the thrill - and the devastating cost - of giving in to one's passions.
Critic reviews
"Fantastic - one of those seemingly small stories that so burst with rage and desire that they barely squeeze between hard covers. The prose is impeccable.... Messud writes about happiness, and about infatuation - about love - more convincingly than any author I’ve encountered in years. She fills [her] protagonist with an inner life so rich and furious that you will never again nod hello in the hall to ‘the woman upstairs’ without thinking twice.... Is Nora’s entrancement erotic, or bigger and stranger than sex? I’m not telling. Read the book." (Lionel Shriver, National Public Radio, "All Things Considered")
"Bracing...not so much the story of the road not taken as that of the longed-for road that never appeared.... Nora’s anger electrifies the narrative, and Messud masterfully controls the tension and pace. In this fierce, feminist novel, the reader serves as Nora’s confessor, and it’s a pleasure to listen to someone so eloquent, whose insights about how women are valued in society and art are sharp." (Jenny Shank, Dallas News)
"An elegant winner of a novel...quietly, tensely unfolding.... Remarkably, Messud lets us experience Nora’s betrayal as if it were our own, and what finally happens really is a punch in the stomach. Highly recommended." (Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal)
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
-
-
Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
-
Late in the Day
- A Novel
- By: Tessa Hadley
- Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
-
-
It's all in the performance
- By RueRue on 02-08-19
By: Tessa Hadley
-
Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
-
-
A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
-
-
Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
-
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
-
I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
-
-
Aweful
- By Haley Abreu Kling on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
-
Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
-
-
Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
-
Late in the Day
- A Novel
- By: Tessa Hadley
- Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
-
-
It's all in the performance
- By RueRue on 02-08-19
By: Tessa Hadley
-
Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
-
-
A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
-
-
Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
-
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
-
I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
-
-
Aweful
- By Haley Abreu Kling on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
-
Us: A Novel
- By: David Nicholls
- Narrated by: David Haig
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that seduces beautiful Connie into a second date...and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades later, they live more or less happily in the London suburbs with their moody seventeen year-old son, Albie. Then Connie tells him she thinks she wants a divorce. The timing couldn’t be worse. Connie has planned a month-long tour of European capitals, a chance to experience the world’s greatest works of art as a family, and she can’t bring herself to cancel. And maybe going ahead is for the best anyway? Douglas is privately convinced that this landmark trip will rekindle the romance in the marriage, and might even help him to bond with Albie. Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest, slyly witty, and at times achingly optimistic point of view, Us is the story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves, and learning how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.
-
-
Great novel - my favorite in years
- By Mark on 07-21-15
By: David Nicholls
-
A Narrow Door
- By: Joanne Harris
- Narrated by: Alex Kingston, Steven Pacey
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rebecca Buckfast has spilled blood to reach this position. Barely 40, she is just starting to reap the harvest of her ambition. As the new regime takes on the old guard, the ground shifts. And with it, the remains of a body are discovered.
-
-
Optional heading
- By TanyaB on 01-17-22
By: Joanne Harris
-
The Wife
- A Novel
- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The moment Joan Castleman decides to leave her husband, they are 35,000 feet above the ocean on a flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph, is one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award, and Joan, who has spent 40 years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop.
-
-
A bit of a downer
- By Jody Cox on 08-01-18
By: Meg Wolitzer
-
Boy, Snow, Bird
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett, Carra Patterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white.
-
-
For Literary Lovers
- By M. Shipe on 04-25-14
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
Language Arts
- By: Stephanie Kallos
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Marlow is a Seattle English teacher who instructs his students to expand their worlds through language. Lately, however, with one child off to college and the pressure from his ex-wife to make plans for their severely autistic son who's about to age out of the system, he prefers the company of the ghosts he turns up in the storage boxes in his crawl space.
-
-
The beauty of the broken
- By SJ Evans on 04-27-18
By: Stephanie Kallos
-
Gold Dust
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three women linked by their blood, their dreams...and their sins. From Leningrad in the '70s to America and London in the present day, Kimberley Freeman's new novel follows the lives of two sisters, Lena and Natalia, and their cousin, Sofi, as they move away from Russia and all they have known. Despite promising to always take care of each other, a pact to meet every winter is shattered as their lives change and long-held resentments begin to surface. Can that resentment turn to hatred? To murder?
-
-
It's just not the same without Caroline Lee
- By Maria on 12-04-17
-
In Malice, Quite Close
- By: Brandi Lynn Ryder
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
French ex-pat Tristan Mourault is the wealthy, urbane heir to a world-renowned collection of art - and an insatiable voyeur enamored with Karen Miller, a 15-year-old from a working-class family in San Francisco. Deciding he must 'rescue' Karen from her unhappy circumstances, Tristan kidnaps her and stages her death to mask his true crime.
-
-
In malice,Quite close
- By Wendy on 09-06-11
-
One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
-
-
An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
-
Russian Winter
- A Novel
- By: Daphne Kalotay
- Narrated by: Kathleen Gati
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Russian Winter, the beautiful debut novel by critically acclaimed writer Daphne Kalotay, a famed ballerina’s jewelry auction in Boston reveals long-held secrets of love and family, friendship and rivalry, harkening back to Stalinist Russia. Called “tender, passionate, and moving” by Jenna Blum, the New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us, Russian Winter is a perfect choice for fans of the novels of Debra Dean (The Madonnas of Leningrad), Ann Patchett (Bel Canto), and Ian McEwan (Atonement).
-
-
Read this review; Sophisticated and wonderful!
- By Cookie on 01-15-12
By: Daphne Kalotay
-
An Available Man
- A Novel
- By: Hilma Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Fred Sullivan
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Edward Schuyler - a modest and bookish 62-year-old science teacher - is widowed, he finds himself ambushed by female attention. There are plenty of unattached women around, but a healthy, handsome, available man is a rare and desirable creature. Edward receives phone calls from widows seeking love, or at least lunch, while well-meaning friends try to set him up at dinner parties. The problem is that Edward doesn’t feel available. He’s still mourning his beloved wife, Bee, and prefers solitude and the familiar routine of work, gardening, and bird-watching.
-
-
Lovely book, easy read, wonderful characters
- By Molly-o on 02-17-12
By: Hilma Wolitzer
-
The Finishing School
- A Novel
- By: Joanna Goodman
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One spring night in 1998, the beautiful Cressida Strauss plunges from a fourth-floor balcony at the Lycée Internationale Suisse with catastrophic consequences. Loath to draw negative publicity to the school, a bastion of European wealth and glamour, officials quickly dismiss the incident as an accident, but questions remain. Was it a suicide attempt? Or was Cressida pushed? It was no secret that she had a selfish streak and had earned as many enemies as allies in her tenure at the school.
-
-
this book was just ok
- By Josh Fields on 02-26-20
By: Joanna Goodman
-
Losing the Light
- A Novel
- By: Andrea Dunlop
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When 30-year-old Brooke Thompson unexpectedly runs into a man from her past, she's plunged headlong into memories she's long tried to forget about the year she spent in France following a disastrous affair with a professor.
-
-
Right book for right time
- By Pamela G. on 08-06-18
By: Andrea Dunlop
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
This Strange, Eventful History
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family's strangeness; of François's union with Barbara; of Chloe, the result of that union.
By: Claire Messud
-
The Burning Girl
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bracing, hypnotic, coming-of-age story about the bond of best friends, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Emperor's Children. Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship.
-
-
Notable more for the ideas an insights than story.
- By Edward J Bridge on 11-05-17
By: Claire Messud
-
The Emperor's Children
- A Novel
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Friends at Brown University, Marina, Danielle, and Julius are still looking to make their marks as they approach their 30s. Marina lives with her celebrated parents on the Upper West Side while trying to complete her book. TV producer Danielle's success is due to the puff pieces she churns out. Freelance critic Julius can barely make ends meet. Into this mix comes Bootie, Marina's college dropout cousin, who is just the catalyst the three friends need to start making significant changes in their lives.
-
-
This is a best seller?
- By Amazon Customer on 03-21-07
By: Claire Messud
-
A Dream Life
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Claire Messud
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Armstrong family moves from New York at the dawn of the 1970s, Australia feels, to Alice Armstrong, like the end of the earth. Residing in a grand manor on the glittering Sydney Harbour, her family finds their life has turned upside down. As she navigates this strange new world, Alice must weave an existence from its shimmering mirage. Lies and self-deception are at the heart of this keenly observed story. This is a sharp, biting, and playful tale with a cast of unscrupulous characters adrift in a dream life of their own making.
By: Claire Messud
-
The Last Life
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Narrated by a 15-year-old girl with a ruthless regard for truth, The Last Life is a beautifully told novel of lies and ghosts, love and honor. Set in colonial Algeria, and in the south of France and New England, it is the tale of the LaBasse family, whose quiet integrity is shattered by the shots from a grandfather's rifle. As their world suddenly begins to crumble, long-hidden shame emerges: a son abandoned by the family before he was even born, a mother whose identity is not what she has claimed, a father whose act of defiance brings Hotel Bellevue - the family business - to its knees.
By: Claire Messud
-
When the World Was Steady
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Shiromi Arserio
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1994, When the World Was Steady is award-winning author Claire Messud's first novel.
By: Claire Messud
-
This Strange, Eventful History
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family's strangeness; of François's union with Barbara; of Chloe, the result of that union.
By: Claire Messud
-
The Burning Girl
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bracing, hypnotic, coming-of-age story about the bond of best friends, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Emperor's Children. Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship.
-
-
Notable more for the ideas an insights than story.
- By Edward J Bridge on 11-05-17
By: Claire Messud
-
The Emperor's Children
- A Novel
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Friends at Brown University, Marina, Danielle, and Julius are still looking to make their marks as they approach their 30s. Marina lives with her celebrated parents on the Upper West Side while trying to complete her book. TV producer Danielle's success is due to the puff pieces she churns out. Freelance critic Julius can barely make ends meet. Into this mix comes Bootie, Marina's college dropout cousin, who is just the catalyst the three friends need to start making significant changes in their lives.
-
-
This is a best seller?
- By Amazon Customer on 03-21-07
By: Claire Messud
-
A Dream Life
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Claire Messud
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Armstrong family moves from New York at the dawn of the 1970s, Australia feels, to Alice Armstrong, like the end of the earth. Residing in a grand manor on the glittering Sydney Harbour, her family finds their life has turned upside down. As she navigates this strange new world, Alice must weave an existence from its shimmering mirage. Lies and self-deception are at the heart of this keenly observed story. This is a sharp, biting, and playful tale with a cast of unscrupulous characters adrift in a dream life of their own making.
By: Claire Messud
-
The Last Life
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Narrated by a 15-year-old girl with a ruthless regard for truth, The Last Life is a beautifully told novel of lies and ghosts, love and honor. Set in colonial Algeria, and in the south of France and New England, it is the tale of the LaBasse family, whose quiet integrity is shattered by the shots from a grandfather's rifle. As their world suddenly begins to crumble, long-hidden shame emerges: a son abandoned by the family before he was even born, a mother whose identity is not what she has claimed, a father whose act of defiance brings Hotel Bellevue - the family business - to its knees.
By: Claire Messud
-
When the World Was Steady
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Shiromi Arserio
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1994, When the World Was Steady is award-winning author Claire Messud's first novel.
By: Claire Messud
-
Indian Horse
- A Novel
- By: Richard Wagamese
- Narrated by: Jason Ryll
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Saul Indian Horse is in critical condition. Sitting feeble in an alcoholism treatment facility, he is told that sharing his story will help relieve his agony. Though skeptical, he embarks on a heartbreaking journey from the present - and into the woods of Northern Ontario, where his life began in a snowy Ojibway camp. The tale that follows is one of great pain and great determination from Richard Wagamese, an author who "never seems to waste a shot" ( New York Times).
-
-
Important Read
- By ruthemily on 10-07-19
By: Richard Wagamese
-
The Hunters
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Simple Tale is the moving account of Maria Poniatowski, an aging Ukrainian woman who was taken by the Germans for slave labor and eventually relocated to Canada as a displaced person. She struggles to provide her son, Radek, with every opportunity, but his eventual success increases the gulf between him and his mother. The Hunters, the second novella, is narrated by an American academic spending a summer in London who grows obsessed with the neighbors downstairs.
By: Claire Messud
-
Dept. of Speculation
- By: Jenny Offill
- Narrated by: Jenny Offill
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jenny Offill’s heroine, referred to in these pages as simply “the wife”, once exchanged love letters with her husband postmarked Dept. of Speculation, their code name for all the uncertainty that inheres in life and in the strangely fluid confines of a long relationship. As they confront an array of common catastrophes - a colicky baby, a faltering marriage, stalled ambitions - the wife analyzes her predicament, invoking everything from Keats and Kafka to the thought experiments of the Stoics to the lessons of doomed Russian cosmonauts.
-
-
Bourgeois whining
- By electricfool on 06-17-23
By: Jenny Offill
-
The Buddha in the Attic
- By: Julie Otsuka
- Narrated by: Samantha Quan, Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the extraordinary lives of young Japanese brides, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers....
-
-
Fascinating topic, irritating writing style
- By Lydia on 08-26-11
By: Julie Otsuka
-
Solar Bones
- By: Mike McCormack
- Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is All Souls Day, and the spirit of Marcus Conway sits at his kitchen table and remembers. In flowing, relentless prose, Conway recalls his life in rural Ireland: as a boy and man, father, husband, citizen. His ruminations move from childhood memories of his father's deftness with machines to his own work as a civil engineer, from transformations in the local economy to the tidal wave of global financial collapse. Conway's thoughts go still further, outward to the vast systems of time and history that hold us all.
-
-
Life
- By Nicole Del Sesto on 09-19-17
By: Mike McCormack
-
Asymmetry
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Halliday
- Narrated by: Candace Thaxton, Arthur Morey, Fiona Hardingham, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, "Folly", tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. A tender and exquisite account of an unexpected romance that takes place in New York during the early years of the Iraq War.
-
-
This is not a fair review. Doesn’t work in audio format.
- By Elizabeth on 02-16-18
By: Lisa Halliday
-
Nothing Special
- By: Nicole Flattery
- Narrated by: Becca Stewart
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother’s sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol.
-
-
This could have been better
- By codacraft on 09-16-23
By: Nicole Flattery
-
The Book of Ayn
- A Novel
- By: Lexi Freiman
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After writing a satirical novel that The New York Times calls classist, Anna is shunned by the literary establishment and, in her hurt, radicalized by the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Determined to follow Rand’s theory of rational selfishness, Anna alienates herself from the scene and eventually her friends and family. Finally, in true Randian style, she abandons everyone for the boundless horizons of Los Angeles, hoping to make a TV show about her beloved muse.
-
-
Boring, Childish, Pointless
- By MB on 01-11-24
By: Lexi Freiman
-
The Sellout
- A Novel
- By: Paul Beatty
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.
-
-
Appreciated it, but didn't like it
- By Eugenia on 04-14-16
By: Paul Beatty
-
Biography of X
- A Novel
- By: Catherine Lacey
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When X—an iconoclastic artist and shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow CM, wild with grief, hurls herself into writing X's biography. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. In CM's quest to unravel it, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification.
-
-
Worst book I’ve ever read
- By Rebecca on 11-09-23
By: Catherine Lacey
-
Killers of a Certain Age
- By: Deanna Raybourn
- Narrated by: Jane Oppenheimer, Christina Delaine
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for 40 years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills.
-
-
Insulting to “older” women
- By JWB35 on 02-26-23
By: Deanna Raybourn
-
The Wife Upstairs
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Hawkins
- Narrated by: Emily Shaffer, Kirby Heyborne, Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates—a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name. But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident.
-
-
Ugh🤦🏻♀️
- By Julian Flores on 01-06-21
By: Rachel Hawkins
What listeners say about The Woman Upstairs
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Beth Anne
- 05-24-13
Disturbing, Frustrating, Messed Up and AWESOME!
this book was amazing, freaky, scary, frustrating and totally totally F'ed up.
this is a story of obsession and insanity, yes. but it's also a story of friendship and love, unhealthy love. of dependence and self loathing. of how decisions can stunt and haunt someone. it's a story of race and intolerance. it's a story of art and literature and beauty and freedom.
nora, a teacher in cambridge, is psycho. i mean...seriously. she becomes obsessed with a family -- not as a family -- but as three separate units. she's in love with all three of them, mother, father, son -- in unhealthy and insane ways.i truly do think that nora is clinically psychotic. but god, what a fascinating narrator she makes for this story. so...i will say without any doubts, i did not like nora. i think for all she pats herself on the back for being such a great person, friend, woman, teacher...she's really kind of an asshole. but i guess it all goes back to the fact that shes INSANE. and so, as unlikeable as i find her, i couldn't stop reading her story. of course in a book like this, i know upfront that i cannot trust her as a narrator and so i found myself doubting everything she said. at times, she even said as much...that she was telling these events as SHE perceived them...maybe not how they actually occurred. but how well Claire Messud wrote her perceptions....it's amazing. i reveled in hearing each moment she spent with the three members of the Shahid family (reza, sirena and skandar). i was excited for every new development that progressed in each string of the story...and how they all wove and intertwined with each other.
i've listened to a few books read by Cassandra Campbell in the past. i'm the first to admit that she is not usually my favorite narrator. there is something about her that irks me. and in this book -- that only lent itself to making her voicing nora's insanity strong and true. it sounds strange, but the fact that i don't love her narration worked for me in this story -- because i didn't like nora either.
i was on the edge of my seat this entire book, waiting for the other shoe to drop...and was horrified and amazed when it did.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
23 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rebecca
- 09-17-13
Let me tell you about an Angry woman........
I read reviews of this book exclaiming what a powerful exploration of female anger it was. At the end of this book I think I was only marginally less angry than Nora the lead character. If you want to waste 11 hours and 1 minute of your life listening to endless descriptive passages about self obsessed, nacissistic, whining, whinging characters then this is the book for you. If you come across enough unlikeable people in your real life to keep you going and dont need to fill your spare time with even more then i suggest you dont purchase this title. This would have made a good short story but 11 hours!!....i might ask audible to refund my credit, too bad they cant refund my time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bonny
- 05-13-13
The woman should have been relegated to the cellar
If you're interested in a book with unlikeable, unreliable characters, hints of possible drama, obsession, and betrayal, melancholy and whining, endless run-on narrative from the main character, a plot that bogs down completely, and a rushed ending, then have I got the book for you! I decided to read The Woman Upstairs after hearing an interview with Claire Messud on NPR; the book was touted as a "saga of anger and thwarted ambition". While there was plenty of anger, I couldn't find the ambition part. Unmarried, childless, elementary school teacher Nora Eldridge thinks, “It was supposed to say ‘Great Artist’ on my tombstone, but if I died right now it would say ‘such a good teacher/daughter/friend’ instead.” She becomes infatuated with the whole Shahid family, and because of this association she resumes some of her own artistic endeavors, only to let them get crowded out due to her obsession.
There is a possibility that I didn't 'get' this book because I'm not terribly sophisticated and don't understand "Great Artists', but it seems to me that adjusting our aspirations is something every single one of us has to deal with as we grow older. I hope I'm dealing with it in a more mature, productive, and reasonable way than the deluded and angry Nora.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- KP
- 06-29-13
Loved It!
I loved this book! Messud writes about themes that many people, especially women, can relate to: the female artist who sublimates her art for a mundane life and career, the middle age woman who feels invisible, the envy and longing for an exciting life and a feeling of belonging, the loneliness that can plague a single woman. Her protagonist, Nora, deals with all these issues. In many reviews I’ve read, the book has been criticized because of Nora’s passivity, her negativity, her poor choices in life, and her unreliability as a narrator. Although I agree that these things do describe Nora, they actually are the reasons that I loved the book. Why should Massud write about a “perfect” character? It’s Nora’s flaws that make for an interesting plot development.
Others have criticized the book for not having much of a plot. I totally disagree here, too. The plot is her developing relationship with the Shahid family and the build up of tension about an event to which Nora has alluded to in the beginning that will eventually bring that relationship to a crashing halt. I was mesmerized and could hardly put the book down until I read about the event and finished the book. “The event” is mind-blowing, and it makes the reader re-think all that has come before in light of it.
I found the idea of using Nora’s best friend, Didi, as a foil to be interesting. It is Didi who lets the reader know, if we were in doubt, how far off the mark Nora has gone in her life. As Nora checks in with her periodically, it is Didi who tries to put her back on track. This goes on several times until Nora decides not to confide in Didi any more. This is when we know that Nora has gone “off the grid”, at least emotionally, in terms of a rational response to the Shahids. That’s when it gets really interesting. There’s a lot to talk about in this book!!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- VY
- 10-08-13
Pretentious story with extremely annoying narrator
Would you try another book from Claire Messud and/or Cassandra Campbell?
I would maybe try another book from this narrator in ten years or so. This felt like a writing program thesis project rather than a work from the soul. It reminded me a bit of Ian McEwan and not in a good way. I would emphatically avoid another book from this narrator because her delivery is painfully slow and deliberate and annoying. I found myself trying to think what would make a person linger so long on the last letter of every word instead of listening to the story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Elizabeth S Smith
- 04-12-14
Masterpiece!
Would you consider the audio edition of The Woman Upstairs to be better than the print version?
Cassandra Campbell, one of my favorite narrators, was perfection in bringing the characters to life.
What did you like best about this story?
The unvarnished truth of the protagonist's deepest feelings, exposed in a way that not only rang true, but as Messud so eloquently writes "there's that room inside your mind where you are most freely and unconcernedly yourself and then there are the many layers of masquerade by which you protect that skinless core." We got to see both the guarded and unguarded Nora and thus, live inside her skin - the gift of a brilliant storyteller.
What does Cassandra Campbell bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Perfectly expressed nuances for each character.
If you could take any character from The Woman Upstairs out to dinner, who would it be and why?
Nora, because, in the end, she was the most authentic.
Any additional comments?
I was almost turned away from choosing this book because of negative reviews, which is why I took the time to write this one. Don't miss this book it is well worth your credit!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dephress
- 02-28-17
Meh
Nora is crazy, yes, but not interesting crazy. She's crazy in the way your coworker might be crazy, or even you yourself: in boring, predictable, slightly sad ways. This does not make for a very compelling story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Diane
- 05-24-13
Study is simpering self absorbtion
Don't waste your credit. Cassandra Campbell is an excellent reader. She gives wonderful voice to the characters. The story itself is more than disappointing. Nora is unlikeable and vacuous. I kept waiting for something to give some point and meaning to the story but like the rest of the book, the ending was pointless and disappointing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Leigh
- 05-07-13
Absolutely AMAZING!
I LOVE this! Twisted, dark, honest, and so intimate. This is a must have! The end will shock you...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JillHen
- 05-30-14
A quiet, brave, cringey, fantastic listen
I'm astonished by the negative reviews--- have people not been affected by the plight of this character? No, she's not a likeable or entirely sympathetic character, but the story is incredibly empathic. I was deeply moved by it.
It does not have a fast-paced, ever twisting plot. It doesn't have lots of action. What this book offers is a gripping emotional tale of "friendship", delusion, hope and humiliation. It's one of those books you want to discuss after reading, to go back and read the beginning again. Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful