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Back Talk
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Feel Free
- Essays
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Nikki Amuka-Bird
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.
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5 out of 5 stars
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great material, thoroughly brilliant narration
- By Mary E. Magin on 03-09-18
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Florida
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Lauren Groff
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 256
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 235
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 231
Over a decade ago, Groff moved to her adopted home state of Florida. The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida - its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind - becomes its gravitational center. Storms, snakes, and sinkholes lurk at the edge of everyday life, but the greater threats and mysteries are of a human, emotional, and psychological nature. Groff's evocative storytelling and knife-sharp intelligence first transport the listener, then jolt us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Listening to this again
- By mommyof2 on 08-06-18
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Severance
- A Novel
- By: Ling Ma
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 242
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 221
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 219
Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York.
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5 out of 5 stars
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entirely original, beautifully crafted
- By Zoe on 08-24-18
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You Know You Want This
- By: Kristen Roupenian
- Narrated by: Aubrey Plaza, Jayme Mattler, Molly Pope, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 67
You Know You Want This brilliantly explores the ways in which women are horrifying, as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them. Spanning a range of genres and topics - from the mundane to the murderous and supernatural - these are stories about sex and punishment, guilt and anger, the pleasure and terror of inflicting and experiencing pain. These stories fascinate and repel, revolt and arouse, scare and delight in equal measure. And, as a collection, they point a finger at you, daring you to feel uncomfortable.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Enthralling
- By jason short on 01-19-19
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You Think It, I'll Say It
- Stories
- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Mark Deakins
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 623
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 543
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 545
Throughout the 10 stories in You Think It, I'll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided. With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. Indeed, she writes what we're all thinking - if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Like Potato Chips, You Can’t Read Just One
- By Gretchen SLP on 08-04-18
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French Exit
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 109
Frances Price - tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature - is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts. Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mixed bag
- By J. J. Denison on 08-31-18
-
Feel Free
- Essays
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Nikki Amuka-Bird
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 108
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
great material, thoroughly brilliant narration
- By Mary E. Magin on 03-09-18
-
Florida
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Lauren Groff
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 256
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 235
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 231
Over a decade ago, Groff moved to her adopted home state of Florida. The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida - its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind - becomes its gravitational center. Storms, snakes, and sinkholes lurk at the edge of everyday life, but the greater threats and mysteries are of a human, emotional, and psychological nature. Groff's evocative storytelling and knife-sharp intelligence first transport the listener, then jolt us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Listening to this again
- By mommyof2 on 08-06-18
-
Severance
- A Novel
- By: Ling Ma
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 242
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 221
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 219
Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
entirely original, beautifully crafted
- By Zoe on 08-24-18
-
You Know You Want This
- By: Kristen Roupenian
- Narrated by: Aubrey Plaza, Jayme Mattler, Molly Pope, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 67
You Know You Want This brilliantly explores the ways in which women are horrifying, as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them. Spanning a range of genres and topics - from the mundane to the murderous and supernatural - these are stories about sex and punishment, guilt and anger, the pleasure and terror of inflicting and experiencing pain. These stories fascinate and repel, revolt and arouse, scare and delight in equal measure. And, as a collection, they point a finger at you, daring you to feel uncomfortable.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Enthralling
- By jason short on 01-19-19
-
You Think It, I'll Say It
- Stories
- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Mark Deakins
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 623
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 543
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 545
Throughout the 10 stories in You Think It, I'll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided. With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. Indeed, she writes what we're all thinking - if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Like Potato Chips, You Can’t Read Just One
- By Gretchen SLP on 08-04-18
-
French Exit
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 109
Frances Price - tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature - is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts. Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Mixed bag
- By J. J. Denison on 08-31-18
-
The Mars Room
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Kushner
- Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 664
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 609
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 607
Featuring original music by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon! It's 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility, deep in California's Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: the San Francisco of her youth and her young son, Jackson. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the absurdities of institutional living, which Kushner evokes with great humor and precision.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing novel !
- By Amazon Customer on 06-08-18
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Friday Black
- By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
- Narrated by: Corey Allen, Carra Patterson
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
A piercingly raw debut story collection from a young writer with an explosive voice; a treacherously surreal and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it's like to be young and black in America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Authentic Magical Realist Masterpiece
- By Scott C. Alexander on 12-07-18
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Your Duck Is My Duck
- Stories
- By: Deborah Eisenberg
- Narrated by: Deborah Eisenberg, Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4 out of 5 stars 30
At times raucously hilarious, at times charming and delightful, at times as solemn and mysterious as a pond at midnight, Deborah Eisenberg’s stories gently compel us to confront the most disturbing truths about ourselves - from our intimate lives as lovers, parents, and children, to our equally troubling roles as citizens on a violent, terrifying planet.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Dazzling
- By Terry Pirate on 10-15-18
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Conversations with Friends
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 286
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 262
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Story4 out of 5 stars 262
Frances is a cool-headed and darkly observant young woman vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. Her best friend and comrade-in-arms is the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi. At a local poetry performance one night, Frances and Bobbi catch the eye of Melissa, a well-known photographer, and as the girls are then gradually drawn into Melissa's world, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband, Nick.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting point of view; glad I listened!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-23-17
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My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,240
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,160
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 1,160
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate; she works an easy job at a hip art gallery and lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
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5 out of 5 stars
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I love it...
- By Claudia Gallegos on 07-12-18
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The Pisces
- A Novel
- By: Melissa Broder
- Narrated by: Melissa Broder
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 133
Lucy has been writing her dissertation on Sappho for nine years when she and her boyfriend break up in a dramatic flameout. After she bottoms out in Phoenix, her sister in Los Angeles insists Lucy dog-sit for the summer. Annika's home is a gorgeous glass cube on Venice Beach, but Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety - not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the foxhound's easy affection.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What just happened?
- By Tammy on 05-06-18
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Look Alive Out There
- Essays
- By: Sloane Crosley
- Narrated by: Sloane Crosley
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 128
From the New York Times-best-selling author Sloane Crosley comes Look Alive Out There - a brand-new collection of essays filled with her trademark hilarity, wit, and charm. The characteristic heart and punch-packing observations are back, but with a newfound coat of maturity. A thin coat. More of a blazer, really. Fans of I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number know Sloane Crosley's life as a series of relatable but madcap misadventures.
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5 out of 5 stars
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terrific
- By Debra on 06-10-18
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An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden, Eisa Davis
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12,855
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11,705
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11,667
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Loved the Story, but...
- By Lisa N. Haynes on 03-01-18
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Evidence of the Affair
- By: Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, George Newbern, James Daniels, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 319
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 292
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 295
The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here. Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great
- By Pavlina on 01-16-19
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Bowlaway
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth McCracken
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 27
From the day she is discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery at the turn of the 20th century - nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin, and 15 pounds of gold on her person - Bertha Truitt is an enigma to everyone in Salford, Massachusetts. She has no past to speak of, and her mysterious origin scandalizes and intrigues the townspeople, as does her choice to marry and start a family with Leviticus Sprague, the doctor who revived her. But the bowling alley she opens quickly becomes Salford’s most defining landmark - with Bertha its most notable resident.
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5 out of 5 stars
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best novel of 2019 /best reading by Kate Reading!
- By reader on 02-23-19
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The Female Persuasion
- A Novel
- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,219
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,130
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,124
Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at sixty-three, has been a central pillar of the women's movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer--madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can't quite place--feels her inner world light up. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she'd always imagined.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Preachy
- By D. Miller on 05-03-18
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The Idiot
- By: Elif Batuman
- Narrated by: Elif Batuman
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 304
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 278
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 281
The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating point of view
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-17
Publisher's Summary
In "Floor Plans", a woman at the end of her marriage tests her power when she inadvertently befriends the neighbor trying to buy her apartment. In "Appetite," a 16-year old grieving her mother's death experiences first love and questions how much more heartbreak she and her family can endure.
In "Dinosaurs", a recent widower and a young babysitter help each other navigate how much they have to give-and how much they can take-from the people around them.
Through stories that are at once empathetic and unexpected, these women and girls defiantly push the boundaries between selfishness and self-possession. With a fresh voice and bold honesty, Back Talk examines how narrowly our culture allows women to express their desires.
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