The Other's Gold

A Novel

By: Elizabeth Ames

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

"The perfect book to read with your friends." (Bustle)

"The debut novel of the season, The Other's Gold reads like an origin story for the women of Big Little Lies." (Elle)

An insightful and sparkling novel that opens on a college campus and follows the friendship of four women across life-defining turning points

Assigned to the same suite during their freshman year at Quincy-Hawthorn College, Lainey, Ji Sun, Alice, and Margaret quickly become inseparable. The leafy green campus they move through together, the idyllic window seat they share in their suite, and the passion and ferocity that school and independence awakens in them ignites an all-encompassing love with one another. But they soon find their bonds - forged in joy, and fused by fear - must weather threats that originate from beyond the dark forests of their childhoods, and come at them from institutions, from one another, and ultimately, from within themselves.

The Other's Gold follows the four friends as each makes a terrible mistake, moving from their wild college days to their more feral days as new parents. With one part devoted to each mistake - the Accident, the Accusation, the Kiss, and the Bite - this complex yet compulsively listenable debut interrogates the way that growing up forces our friendships to evolve as the women discover what they and their loved ones are capable of, and capable of forgiving. A joyful, big-hearted audiobook that perfectly evokes the bittersweet experience of falling in love with friendship, the experiences of Lainey, Ji Sun, Alice, and Margaret are at once achingly familiar and yet shine with a brilliance and depth all their own.

©2019 Elizabeth Ames (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

A Real Simple “Five Books That Won’t Disappoint”
A Bustle “28 New Books Out In August 2019 To Add To Your End-Of-Summer Reading List”
A Refinery29 “Put These New August Books On Your TBR List & Stat”

“Elizabeth Ames’s addictive debut, The Other’s Gold, is in some ways a conventional book, a campus novel, centered on the friendship of four women who fall into categories that seem a bit too predictable (the pretty one, the sporty one, etc.). But, just as collegiate first impressions can mutate and evolve, the book - along with its characters - grows increasingly complex, charting the way that the bonds forged in those heady moments when people are permitted to reinvent themselves can become the defining ties of adult life.... This novel will resonate with anyone who guards an inner circle forged in dorm rooms and dining halls, but it is also, in the end, more than that.” (Vogue)

“As first-year students at the prestigious Quincy-Hawthorn College, four suitemates are thrown together and enter into an intensely close friendship... Written in a deft omniscient narration...the novel sharpens when the women come into independent adulthood, and though the structure emphasizes the sameness of their transgressions - the way all of us will cross lines for morally complicated reasons - the characters finally bloom into vibrant individuality.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“The Other’s Gold is as beautifully written and epic in scope as A Little Life, but featuring women characters.” (Refinery29)

Great reading voice, relatable story.

The voice actor’s performance was great! The story was very relatable and entertaining. I recommend it!

Full Invested in These Characters

I was blown away by the story and kept looking for reasons to sneak away from daily responsibilities and continue listening. I felt that I was friends with the main characters, loved them as I do my closest friends, cared about their well-being and future. This book also forced me to confront truths about myself, my friends, and society as a whole. It’s easy to acknowledge right from wrong while we’re judging distant stories much disconnected from our own lives. But when it’s you or a loved one and you know them in greater context than just this single incident, the lines become blurred. While I could place myself in some of these situations or could accept some of these incidents due to prior knowledge, some of the “mistakes” made by the main characters I could not fathom - they made me angry, disgusted, enraged, and disappointed in this fictional people. But I also could acknowledge that their personalities and their souls went deeper than their greatest fault, and seeing them more well rounded helped me to forgive these characters and continue to care about their stories. This compassion and acceptance found itself tumbling out of the book and into my own personal life; I’ve been able to see wrongdoers from my past in a more sympathetic light, and have been able to forgive rather than hold the belief that they are just a horrible human with no ability to turn towards goodness and light. This book does not shy away from tough subject matter, but it makes you think of issues in several viewpoints and gives you different perspectives. I absolutely adore this book and cannot wait to read more by this author.

Very moving

Keen insights into women, friendship & motherhood. Loved following the characters through the years. Different from my own experiences but still felt a heartfelt connection to the women. Couldn’t stop listening. Excellent narrator!

Missed the mark for me

Interesting concept but the stories were bizarre and I never got into any of the characters.

Narrator is great!

The only thing gold about this listen is the narrator Julia Whelan. Her cadence and voices are fantastic.

A pointless story of entirely unlikable women

I listened all the way to the end, hoping that the characters would grow up from immature college kids into decent humans, but I was sorely disappointed. Though they aged, they were still vapid, self-centered and mean, with the exception of Margaret (who although shallow, was the only character with heart and kindness). The author tried to give them depth of emotion, but it just came across as an author's love of deep concepts rather than authentic. Waste of a credit.