-
Amy Falls Down
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Amy McFadden
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $26.09
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
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.
-
-
We Are That Age!
- By Kris iwasaki on 09-11-22
By: Deanna Raybourn
-
Still Life
- Chief Inspector Gamache, Book 1
- By: Louise Penny
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.
-
-
A rare find
- By Alex on 01-16-15
By: Louise Penny
-
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
-
Lane
- A Case For Willows And Lane, Book 1
- By: Peter Grainger
- Narrated by: Henrietta Meire
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"So I thought I might take up paragliding. You know, buy one on eBay and just jump off the cliff one morning." Emily Willows is middle-aged, widowed, wealthy, and bored. When she makes those flippant remarks to her son over coffee one Friday, she has no inkling that within a few hours she will be facing the most terrifying situation of her life.
-
-
Good, and hopefully the series will improve
- By Jonathan Berger on 08-06-18
By: Peter Grainger
-
Murder in an English Village
- By: Jessica Ellicott
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1920: Flying in the face of convention, legendary American adventuress Beryl Helliwell never fails to surprise and shock. The last thing her adoring public would expect is that she craves some peace and quiet. The humdrum hamlet of Walmsley Parva in the English countryside seems just the ticket. And, honestly, until America comes to its senses and repeals Prohibition, Beryl has no intention of returning stateside and subjecting herself to bathtub gin.
-
-
Must read Historical Mystery
- By Victoria J. Mejia-Gewe on 02-20-18
By: Jessica Ellicott
-
Lucy by the Sea
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With her trademark spare, crystalline prose—a voice infused with “intimate, fragile, desperate humanness” (The Washington Post)—Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic.
-
-
Narrator
- By J. O'Connor on 09-22-22
By: Elizabeth Strout
-
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.
-
-
We Are That Age!
- By Kris iwasaki on 09-11-22
By: Deanna Raybourn
-
Still Life
- Chief Inspector Gamache, Book 1
- By: Louise Penny
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.
-
-
A rare find
- By Alex on 01-16-15
By: Louise Penny
-
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
-
Lane
- A Case For Willows And Lane, Book 1
- By: Peter Grainger
- Narrated by: Henrietta Meire
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"So I thought I might take up paragliding. You know, buy one on eBay and just jump off the cliff one morning." Emily Willows is middle-aged, widowed, wealthy, and bored. When she makes those flippant remarks to her son over coffee one Friday, she has no inkling that within a few hours she will be facing the most terrifying situation of her life.
-
-
Good, and hopefully the series will improve
- By Jonathan Berger on 08-06-18
By: Peter Grainger
-
Murder in an English Village
- By: Jessica Ellicott
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1920: Flying in the face of convention, legendary American adventuress Beryl Helliwell never fails to surprise and shock. The last thing her adoring public would expect is that she craves some peace and quiet. The humdrum hamlet of Walmsley Parva in the English countryside seems just the ticket. And, honestly, until America comes to its senses and repeals Prohibition, Beryl has no intention of returning stateside and subjecting herself to bathtub gin.
-
-
Must read Historical Mystery
- By Victoria J. Mejia-Gewe on 02-20-18
By: Jessica Ellicott
-
Lucy by the Sea
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With her trademark spare, crystalline prose—a voice infused with “intimate, fragile, desperate humanness” (The Washington Post)—Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic.
-
-
Narrator
- By J. O'Connor on 09-22-22
By: Elizabeth Strout
-
Acts of Violet
- A Novel
- By: Margarita Montimore
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Amy McFadden, Dan Bittner, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nearly a decade ago, iconic magician Violet Volk performed her greatest trick yet: vanishing mid-act. Though she hasn’t been seen since, her hold on the public imagination is stronger than ever. While Violet sought out the spotlight, her sister Sasha always had to be the responsible one, taking over their mother’s hair salon and building a quiet life for her beloved daughter, Quinn. But Sasha can never seem to escape her sister’s orbit or her memories of their unresolved, tumultuous relationship.
-
-
Plot Had Such Promise
- By Joelle Trayers on 07-10-22
-
The Thursday Murder Club
- A Novel
- By: Richard Osman
- Narrated by: Lesley Manville
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together, they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
-
-
Social Justice with your Crimes
- By Bill on 01-14-21
By: Richard Osman
-
People of the Book
- A Novel
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: Edwina Wren
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in 15th-century Spain.
When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding - an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair - only begin to unlock its deep mysteries.
-
-
Amazing, fabulous, wonderful!!!
- By Yvette on 03-13-09
By: Geraldine Brooks
-
Now Is Not the Time to Panic
- A Novel
- By: Kevin Wilson
- Narrated by: Ginnifer Goodwin, Kevin Wilson
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge—aspiring writer, indifferent student, offbeat loner—is determined to make it through yet another summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s house and who is as awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.
-
-
Premise didn’t speak to me
- By Marybeth on 12-01-22
By: Kevin Wilson
-
On Writing
- A Memoir of the Craft
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Joe Hill, Owen King
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King’s critically lauded, million-copy best seller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.
-
-
Who needs a print edition when King reads King?
- By Cather on 11-18-05
By: Stephen King
-
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
- A Novel
- By: Benjamin Stevenson
- Narrated by: Barton Welch
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate. I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
-
-
His best work yet, for "shure"
- By TBaer on 01-24-23
-
One More Thing
- Stories and Other Stories
- By: B. J. Novak
- Narrated by: B. J. Novak, Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
B.J. Novak's One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut that signals the arrival of a brilliant new voice in American fiction. A boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes - only to discover how claiming the winnings might unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins - turning for help to the famed motivator himself. A new arrival in Heaven, overwhelmed with options, procrastinates over a long-ago promise to visit his grandmother....
-
-
It gets better, and better, and better, and better
- By David Shear on 02-07-14
By: B. J. Novak
-
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- A Lisbeth Salander Novel
- By: Stieg Larsson, Reg Keeland - translator
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
-
-
A Classic Mystery with Wonderful Characters
- By Robert on 12-22-08
By: Stieg Larsson, and others
-
The Magicians
- A Novel
- By: Lev Grossman
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he's still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.
-
-
Not an average book
- By Kyle on 04-30-11
By: Lev Grossman
-
One for the Money
- A Stephanie Plum Novel, Book 1
- By: Janet Evanovich
- Narrated by: C. J. Critt
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You’ve lost your job as a department store lingerie buyer, your car’s been repossessed, and most of your furniture and small appliances have been sold off to pay last month’s rent. Now the rent is due again. And you live in New Jersey. What do you do? If you’re Stephanie Plum, you become a bounty hunter. But not just a nickel-and-dime bounty hunter; you go after the big money. That means a cop gone bad. And not just any cop. She goes after Joe Morelli, a disgraced former vice cop who is also the man that took her virginity....
-
-
I love reading Janet Evanovich because her....
- By Wayne on 04-06-16
By: Janet Evanovich
-
The Very First Damned Thing
- An Author-Read Audio Exclusive
- By: Jodi Taylor
- Narrated by: Jodi Taylor
- Length: 2 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jodi Taylor reads the long-awaited prequel in her Chronicles of St Mary’s series, as Dr Bairstow struggles to set up St Mary’s as we know it in a world still scarred by the ravages of civil war. Ever wondered how it all began? It’s two years since the final victory at the Battersea Barricades. The fighting might be finished, but for Dr Bairstow, just now setting up St Mary's, the struggle is only beginning. How will he assemble his team? From where will his funding come?
-
-
Wait for it on Kindle. Not the best on audio
- By Sheryl on 11-05-15
By: Jodi Taylor
-
Into the Wilderness
- A Novel
- By: Sara Donati
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 30 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weaving a vibrant tapestry of fact and fiction, Into the Wilderness sweeps us into another time and place...and into the heart of a forbidden, incandescent affair between a spinster Englishwoman and an American frontiersman. Here is an epic of romance and history that will captivate readers from the start.
-
-
So much for "if you like Gabaldon"
- By randomactsofpunctuation on 11-24-15
By: Sara Donati
Publisher's Summary
Audie Award Finalist, Literary Fiction, 2014
Amy Gallup is an aging novelist and writing instructor living in Escondido, California, with her dog, Alphonse. Since recent unsettling events, she has made some progress. While she still has writer's block, she doesn't suffer from it. She's still a hermit, but she has allowed some of her class members into her life. She is no longer numb, angry, and sardonic: she is merely numb and bemused, which is as close to happy as she plans to get. Amy is calm.
So, when on New Year's morning she shuffles out to her backyard garden to plant a Norfolk pine, she is wholly unprepared for what happens next. Amy falls down. A simple accident, as a result of which something happens, and then something else, and then a number of different things, all as unpredictable as an eight-ball break. At first the changes are small, but as these small events carom off one another, Amy's life changes in ways that range from ridiculous to frightening to profound. This most reluctant of adventurers is dragged and propelled by train, plane, and automobile through an outlandish series of antic media events on her way to becoming - to her horror - a kind of celebrity. And along the way, as the numbness begins to wear off, she comes up against something she has avoided all her life: her future, that "sleeping monster, not to be poked."
Amy Falls Down explores, through the experience of one character, the role that accident plays in all our lives. "You turn a corner and beasts break into arias, gunfire erupts, waking a hundred families, starting a hundred different conversations. You crack your head open and three thousand miles away a stranger with Asperger’s jump-starts your career." We are all like Amy. We are all wholly unprepared for what happens next. Also, there’s a basset hound.
More from the same
What listeners say about Amy Falls Down
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jessica Robertson
- 03-04-14
Not contemporary fluff
The author has a superb tone and style--wonderful command of language. Intelligent but also very accessible. The story steps outside of the same old plot-driven grinders--not that I don't like the old plot driven grinders. I do. But, if you are looking for something refreshing, honest and generous, this will do the trick.
This is not "chick lit." I'm sure this is a derogatory term... I'll rephrase: this is not a story of a twenty something girl living in Manhattan torn between a pair of lovers and a pair of shoes--nothing like that. I'm a man. I enjoyed this story. It's big on guts and skill.
The narrator does a great job matching the humor and tone.
Highly recommended.
29 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Daniel
- 04-07-14
Too much fun
This is not normally my cup of tea. I'm sort of a military fiction/science-fiction/thriller/mystery kind of guy. I like a lot of action in my books and I don't like a lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo or romance or sex. Philosophy? OK. I can handle some of that, and there is plenty of philosophy found in this work. It's dished out in un-subtle slaps to the mug too, though not unkindly.
Plus, it's a very funny book, sort of in a "Stephanie Plum" funny way. However the protagonist, Amy, isn't young and fit and beautiful. She's in her 60s and sort of dumpy; and very anti-social, especially at the start of the book. When we meet her she has a basset hound and a couple of friends and teaches writing on-line and has a very messy house which she rarely leaves and which is filled with books she hasn't read.
In chapter one, she falls down. She's hit on the head and suffers a mild concussion.
What happens from there... Well, listen to the book. You'll enjoy it. I did, and I was surprised. Honestly I never would have bought this book but it was one of those books recommended by the narrators.
And, speaking of the narrator, Amy McFadden did a wonderful job on this book, catching the character's voices just right; hitting the proper ironic notes and also deadpanning the slapstick in the funniest ways. I laughed out loud while in inappropriate places, such as the grocery store, the pet store, the gas pump and one or two other public places I can't think of right now.
For me, this book was sort of like falling down and being hit on the head and suffering a mild concussion, metaphorically, and... I suppose... philosophically speaking.
This book is laugh out loud funny, I recommend it highly.
23 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- lucy
- 08-11-13
Not Chick Lit!!
A comedy, A life study, A culture study, A yummy study of words, phrases and life in a delightful humorous and very sarcastic tale of an aging writer/author. Amy McFadden did an excellent job with the voices and pace, I especially loved her voice for Maxine!! I loved this book!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gina Jo
- 06-04-14
Not For Me
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
A plot
Has Amy Falls Down turned you off from other books in this genre?
Probably
What three words best describe Amy McFadden’s performance?
Good, expressive, clear
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Amy Falls Down?
Too many to list.
Any additional comments?
While this book was humorous in places, I was mostly bored. When I start "dreading" to listen to a book, instead of "can't wait to get back to it," then I know it's not for me. I didn't finish it.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David
- 11-28-14
All lovers of writing should love this
I love this book and I want to recommend it to everyone, especially those who are seriously wide-read, "bookish" people who have at least some familiarity with the literary scene, writers' workshops, and the angst of being an aspiring writer (or even a published one).
If this book puts you off because of the pink cover and all the people who have shelved it as "chick-lit" — ignore that nonsense. Jincy Willett only writes "chick-lit" if you think a book by a woman about a woman is by definition chick-lit. Amy Falls Down is "writer-lit."
You should also know that this book is a sequel to "The Writing Class," which is unfortunately not available on Audible. However, it's a sequel only in the sense that follows chronologically with the same main character. There are some references to the events in the previous book, but you don't have to read it first. Though you really should, because The Writing Class was also wonderful and the reason I discovered Jincy Willett.
Amy Gallup is a writer. A dumpy, sixty-something writer who had a brief moment when she was in her twenties, as a "writer to watch out for." She wrote several books that received critical acclaim but only modest sales, and then, for reasons that only slowly emerge in this book, reasons that she herself can't fully articulate, she stopped. She hasn't written much of anything for thirty years. When we first met her in The Writing Class, she was making a meager living teaching creative writing as adjunct faculty at a community college. That book was our introduction to Jincy Willett's scathing and hilarious (yet affectionate) send-up of the modern writing scene, and a cozy-ish murder mystery.
Then Willett comes along and writes Amy Falls Down, in which there is no murder, no mystery, and not even that much of a plot. Yet it's every bit as good as the first book — in fact, possibly better. It reads like something Willett wrote just because she felt like writing it. Which is perfectly congruent with her protagonist, Amy Gallup, who writes when she feels like it, which hasn't been for thirty years.
In the first chapter of this book, Amy falls down. And hits her head on a birdbath. Which gives her a concussion. By coincidence, she had an interview scheduled for that afternoon. A reporter, doing a story on "washed up writers - where are they now?" (not phrased quite that unkindly) was supposed to come to her house to talk to her. To her horror, Amy realizes that she gave the interview and can't even remember it. She goes to the hospital, meets a nice doctor who is, like apparently almost all doctors, a wannabe novelist himself, and then gets a call from her former agent, who informs her that she has suddenly generated "buzz" because of her interview.
As Amy suddenly finds herself attracting (unwanted) attention for the first time in years, she also finds herself writing stories again for the first time in years.
The story is ostensibly the resurrection of Amy's writing career, a resurrection she never dreamed about, cared about, or particularly wanted. Along the way, she attends writers' conferences, bookshop appearances, and radio talk shows in which, pushed once too often, she turns her rarely-deployed but devastating wit on a windbag host and generates more publicity for herself by taking him apart on the air.
You can also see thinly-disguised representations of prominent contemporary authors, bestsellers, in the fictitious authors Amy meets. I won't name names because Jincy Willett is a lot better-read than I am and probably was thinking of completely different names than the ones I thought she was satirizing, but the beauty of her characterization is that every one of these people is real, hilarious, sometimes likable and sometimes buffoonish, but no one is a cartoon. Much of the book is spent inside Amy's head and her interior monologue, which is maybe why people insist on calling this "chick lit" (it's not), but Amy's thought process is human and funny and real, and gives you a glimpse of what a real writer can do when writing about real people with messy, complicated lives even if they are, from the outside, perfectly mundane ones lacking any sort of novelistic drama and adventure.
I hesitate to identify Amy as an author stand-in, even though the similarities between her and her author are too obvious to be ignored. Because I can picture Jincy Willett reading my review and letting out an exasperated sigh about readers who think they're smarter than they are. Not that she'd say anything, because like Amy Gallup, I imagine that Jincy Willett may find people exasperating and annoying, but she doesn't have the cruel streak necessary to actively mock them even if they deserve it.
Since I listened to Amy Falls Down on audio, I can't easily type all the quotable passages I want to fill this review with. Just take my word for it that there is lots of quote material. Willett writes with wit and humor and warmth and sometimes just enough of a sharp edge to let you know that, like Amy, she could really cut you down if she wanted to. But she won't, because she's too nice.
The subplot, with some members of her writing class from the previous book setting up an "authors' retreat," is almost incidental, and for much of the middle section of this book I thought Willett had dropped it completely. It gets wrapped up at the every end, with enough humor to justify its inclusion, but it seems like mostly a bone thrown to readers of the first book. It does, however, continue to skewer the foibles and pretensions of writer wannabes, writer gurus, writers' workshops, and the entire industry that has grown around those who fancy themselves enamored of "the writing life."
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lisa
- 05-17-14
What a disappointment
What would have made Amy Falls Down better?
The reviews about this book led me to believe it was funny and enjoyable. It was very difficult to connect with the characters, to follow the narrator and to follow the story line. 5 chapters in and I'm calling it a day and returning this book.
What do you think your next listen will be?
Anything Fanny Flagg
How could the performance have been better?
The story telling could have been more dynamic and voices for characters could have been more distinct
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
Really...no
Any additional comments?
I will stick with authors I am familiar with or who come recommended by friends
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ronald Albury
- 04-12-14
A funny concept that sort of wandered in circles
I didn't dislike the book, but it didn't grab me either. It occupied my mind as I drove to and from work. Unlike some other books, it never grabbed me enough to sit in the driveway listening after I got home.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bodiccea
- 10-19-14
Just the kind of sardonic wit I love
Any additional comments?
I loved this book. I loved Amy. I loved her refusal to care about so many of the things our society worships. I loved her dog. I loved her ability and willingness to look at both herself and the absurdity of modern life, in particular the world of writers, with honesty.
If I was going to compare Willett's writing to anyone, it might be Fran Lebowitz, but not quite so cutting.
Highly recommended.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- deanna
- 04-06-14
Clever, funny & entertaining!
What did you like best about this story?
The sense of humor of the main character, and how it carried her through the trials and tribulations of her life.
Which character – as performed by Amy McFadden – was your favorite?
Amy, of course!
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Laugh, a lot.
Any additional comments?
The narration was perfect.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathleen Cronheim
- 07-19-17
Such a disappointment
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
I really don't know who would enjoy this book.
Has Amy Falls Down turned you off from other books in this genre?
I can't really tell what genre this book fits into.
What didn’t you like about Amy McFadden’s performance?
Her delivery seemed almost manic.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
i could not get far enough into this book to distinguish any redeeming qualities.
Any additional comments?
I have taken to reading reviews to better choose my books but I thought the reviews on this book were misleading. I love words but the writer seemed just throw as many words as possible into her writing, where less would have been better. I will be returning this book after many attempts to read it have failed.
1 person found this helpful
Related to this topic
-
The Echo Maker
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a winter night on a remote Nebraska road, 27-year-old Mark Schluter flips his truck in a near fatal accident. His older sister, Karin, returns to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. But when he emerges from a coma, Mark believes that this woman is really an impostor who looks just like his sister. Shattered, Karin contacts the cognitive neurologist Gerald Weber, who eagerly investigates. What he discovers in Mark slowly undermines even his own sense of being.
-
-
Too much time for a boring story
- By HannahMK on 08-06-20
By: Richard Powers
-
The Book of Illusions
- By: Paul Auster
- Narrated by: Paul Auster
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he sees a clip from a lost film by the silent comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to study the works of this mysterious figure who vanished from sight in 1929.
-
-
Hmmm....
- By Gene on 10-05-04
By: Paul Auster
-
Deadline
- By: Randy Alcorn
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Involved in a tragic accident under suspicious circumstances, award-winning journalist Jake Woods teams with detective Ollie Chandler to uncover the truth. This Randy Alcorn best seller finds Jake drawing upon all his resources in an ever-intensifying, dangerous murder investigation. Unaware of the imminent threat to his own life, Jake struggles for answers to the mystery at hand and is plunged into a deeper search for the meaning of his own existence.
-
-
weird sound effects
- By Leslie on 07-28-15
By: Randy Alcorn
-
Generosity
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Chicagoan Russell Stone finds himself teaching a Creative Nonfiction class, he encounters a young Algerian woman with a disturbingly luminous presence. Thassadit Amzwar's blissful exuberance both entrances and puzzles the melancholic Russell. How can this refugee from perpetual terror be so happy?
-
-
All About Fiction
- By James on 11-30-10
By: Richard Powers
-
The Opposite of Fate
- Memories of a Writing Life
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amy Tan has touched millions of people with haunting and sympathetic novels of cultural complexity and profound empathy. With the same spirit and humor that characterize her acclaimed novels, she now shares her insight into her own life and how she escaped the curses of her past to make a future of her own. She takes us on a journey from her childhood of tragedy and comedy to the present day and her arrival as one of the world's best-loved novelists.
-
-
My first Tan Book
- By JRT on 03-16-16
By: Amy Tan
-
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
- Stories
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon, Piter Marek, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In "Books and Roses", one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers' fates. In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?", an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" involves a "house of locks", where doors can be closed only with a key - with surprising unobservable developments. And in "If a Book Is Locked There's Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think", a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason).
-
-
clever
- By jared rogerson on 03-15-18
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
The Echo Maker
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a winter night on a remote Nebraska road, 27-year-old Mark Schluter flips his truck in a near fatal accident. His older sister, Karin, returns to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. But when he emerges from a coma, Mark believes that this woman is really an impostor who looks just like his sister. Shattered, Karin contacts the cognitive neurologist Gerald Weber, who eagerly investigates. What he discovers in Mark slowly undermines even his own sense of being.
-
-
Too much time for a boring story
- By HannahMK on 08-06-20
By: Richard Powers
-
The Book of Illusions
- By: Paul Auster
- Narrated by: Paul Auster
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he sees a clip from a lost film by the silent comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to study the works of this mysterious figure who vanished from sight in 1929.
-
-
Hmmm....
- By Gene on 10-05-04
By: Paul Auster
-
Deadline
- By: Randy Alcorn
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Involved in a tragic accident under suspicious circumstances, award-winning journalist Jake Woods teams with detective Ollie Chandler to uncover the truth. This Randy Alcorn best seller finds Jake drawing upon all his resources in an ever-intensifying, dangerous murder investigation. Unaware of the imminent threat to his own life, Jake struggles for answers to the mystery at hand and is plunged into a deeper search for the meaning of his own existence.
-
-
weird sound effects
- By Leslie on 07-28-15
By: Randy Alcorn
-
Generosity
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Chicagoan Russell Stone finds himself teaching a Creative Nonfiction class, he encounters a young Algerian woman with a disturbingly luminous presence. Thassadit Amzwar's blissful exuberance both entrances and puzzles the melancholic Russell. How can this refugee from perpetual terror be so happy?
-
-
All About Fiction
- By James on 11-30-10
By: Richard Powers
-
The Opposite of Fate
- Memories of a Writing Life
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amy Tan has touched millions of people with haunting and sympathetic novels of cultural complexity and profound empathy. With the same spirit and humor that characterize her acclaimed novels, she now shares her insight into her own life and how she escaped the curses of her past to make a future of her own. She takes us on a journey from her childhood of tragedy and comedy to the present day and her arrival as one of the world's best-loved novelists.
-
-
My first Tan Book
- By JRT on 03-16-16
By: Amy Tan
-
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
- Stories
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon, Piter Marek, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In "Books and Roses", one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers' fates. In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?", an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" involves a "house of locks", where doors can be closed only with a key - with surprising unobservable developments. And in "If a Book Is Locked There's Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think", a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason).
-
-
clever
- By jared rogerson on 03-15-18
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
Acts of Violet
- A Novel
- By: Margarita Montimore
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Amy McFadden, Dan Bittner, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nearly a decade ago, iconic magician Violet Volk performed her greatest trick yet: vanishing mid-act. Though she hasn’t been seen since, her hold on the public imagination is stronger than ever. While Violet sought out the spotlight, her sister Sasha always had to be the responsible one, taking over their mother’s hair salon and building a quiet life for her beloved daughter, Quinn. But Sasha can never seem to escape her sister’s orbit or her memories of their unresolved, tumultuous relationship.
-
-
Plot Had Such Promise
- By Joelle Trayers on 07-10-22
-
The Accidental Bestseller
- By: Wendy Wax
- Narrated by: Khristine Hvam
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once upon a time four aspiring authors met at their very first writers' conference. Ten years later they're still friends, survivors of the ultra-competitive New York publishing world. Mallory St. James is a workaholic whose best sellers support a lavish lifestyle. Tanya Mason is a single mother juggling two jobs, two kids, and too many deadlines. Faye Truett is the wife of a famous televangelist and the author of inspirational romances: No one would ever guess her explosive secret.
-
-
Meh....just okay.
- By S on 02-19-13
By: Wendy Wax
-
Ghost Radio
- By: Leopoldo Gout
- Narrated by: Pedro Pascal
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the cramped bowels of a dimly lit radio station, Ghost Radio is beamed onto the airwaves. More than a call-in show to tell scary stories, Ghost Radio is a sanctuary for those sleepless denizens of the night, lost halfway between this world and the next. Joaquin, the host, slowly he finds himself unable to distinguish between the real world and the world populated by the nightmares on Ghost Radio.
-
-
Great narration, mediocre story
- By Amazon Customer on 02-05-21
By: Leopoldo Gout
-
Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting
- A Novel
- By: Clare Pooley
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every day Iona, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu. Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Constant-Reader and Terribly-Lonely-Teenager. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do. Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver.
-
-
Woke suppository
- By Cesar Lara Gavino on 12-06-22
By: Clare Pooley
-
One More Thing
- Stories and Other Stories
- By: B. J. Novak
- Narrated by: B. J. Novak, Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
B.J. Novak's One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut that signals the arrival of a brilliant new voice in American fiction. A boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes - only to discover how claiming the winnings might unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins - turning for help to the famed motivator himself. A new arrival in Heaven, overwhelmed with options, procrastinates over a long-ago promise to visit his grandmother....
-
-
It gets better, and better, and better, and better
- By David Shear on 02-07-14
By: B. J. Novak
-
On Writing
- A Memoir of the Craft
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Joe Hill, Owen King
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King’s critically lauded, million-copy best seller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.