-
Exciting Times
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction
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 $21.81
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Conversations with Friends
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Interesting point of view; glad I listened!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-23-17
By: Sally Rooney
-
Luster
- A Novel
- By: Raven Leilani
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edie is stumbling her way through her 20s - sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage - with rules.
-
-
Spellbinding
- By Nana on 08-07-20
By: Raven Leilani
-
The Margot Affair
- A Novel
- By: Sanaë Lemoine
- Narrated by: Hope Newhouse
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margot Louve is a secret: the child of a longstanding affair between an influential French politician with presidential ambitions and a prominent stage actress. This hidden family exists in stolen moments in a small Parisian apartment on the Left Bank. It is a house of cards that Margot - fueled by a longing to be seen and heard - decides to tumble. The summer of her 17th birthday, she meets the man who will set her plan in motion: a well-regarded journalist whose trust seems surprisingly easy to gain.
-
-
Bad narration
- By Pandora Johns on 08-01-20
By: Sanaë Lemoine
-
Friends and Strangers
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Kate Rudd
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elisabeth, an accomplished journalist and new mother, is struggling to adjust to life in a small town after nearly 20 years in New York City. Alone in the house with her infant son all day (and awake with him much of the night), she feels uneasy, adrift. She neglects her work, losing untold hours to her Brooklyn moms' Facebook group, her "influencer" sister's Instagram feed, and text messages with the best friend she never sees anymore. Enter Sam, a senior at the local women's college, whom Elisabeth hires to babysit.
-
-
thought provoking story
- By Barbara S on 07-26-20
-
Normal People
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life changing begins. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another.
-
-
Redundant to the nth degree
- By CurlyRoots on 11-12-19
By: Sally Rooney
-
Milk Fed
- By: Melissa Broder
- Narrated by: Melissa Broder
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rachel is 24, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, by way of obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting - until her therapist encourages her to take a 90-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting. Early in the detox, Rachel meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman....
-
-
Funny and uncomfortable
- By Anonymous User on 04-01-21
By: Melissa Broder
-
Conversations with Friends
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Interesting point of view; glad I listened!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-23-17
By: Sally Rooney
-
Luster
- A Novel
- By: Raven Leilani
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edie is stumbling her way through her 20s - sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage - with rules.
-
-
Spellbinding
- By Nana on 08-07-20
By: Raven Leilani
-
The Margot Affair
- A Novel
- By: Sanaë Lemoine
- Narrated by: Hope Newhouse
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margot Louve is a secret: the child of a longstanding affair between an influential French politician with presidential ambitions and a prominent stage actress. This hidden family exists in stolen moments in a small Parisian apartment on the Left Bank. It is a house of cards that Margot - fueled by a longing to be seen and heard - decides to tumble. The summer of her 17th birthday, she meets the man who will set her plan in motion: a well-regarded journalist whose trust seems surprisingly easy to gain.
-
-
Bad narration
- By Pandora Johns on 08-01-20
By: Sanaë Lemoine
-
Friends and Strangers
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Kate Rudd
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elisabeth, an accomplished journalist and new mother, is struggling to adjust to life in a small town after nearly 20 years in New York City. Alone in the house with her infant son all day (and awake with him much of the night), she feels uneasy, adrift. She neglects her work, losing untold hours to her Brooklyn moms' Facebook group, her "influencer" sister's Instagram feed, and text messages with the best friend she never sees anymore. Enter Sam, a senior at the local women's college, whom Elisabeth hires to babysit.
-
-
thought provoking story
- By Barbara S on 07-26-20
-
Normal People
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life changing begins. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another.
-
-
Redundant to the nth degree
- By CurlyRoots on 11-12-19
By: Sally Rooney
-
Milk Fed
- By: Melissa Broder
- Narrated by: Melissa Broder
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rachel is 24, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, by way of obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting - until her therapist encourages her to take a 90-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting. Early in the detox, Rachel meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman....
-
-
Funny and uncomfortable
- By Anonymous User on 04-01-21
By: Melissa Broder
-
The Vanishing Half
- A Novel
- By: Brit Bennett
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern Black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: Their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her Black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for White, and her White husband knows nothing of her past.
-
-
Soap opera material
- By Sheila S on 06-06-20
By: Brit Bennett
-
A Burning
- A Novel
- By: Megha Majumdar
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Priya Ayyar, Deepti Gupta, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely — an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor — has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.
-
-
Heartbreaking and Brilliantly Performed
- By Steve M on 07-28-20
By: Megha Majumdar
-
Pizza Girl
- A Novel
- By: Jean Kyoung Frazier
- Narrated by: Jeena Yi
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighteen years old, pregnant, and working as a pizza delivery girl in suburban Los Angeles, our charmingly dysfunctional heroine is deeply lost and in complete denial about it all. She's grieving the death of her father (whom she has more in common with than she'd like to admit), avoiding her supportive mom and loving boyfriend, and flagrantly ignoring her future. Her world is further upended when she becomes obsessed with Jenny, a stay-at-home mother new to the neighborhood, who comes to depend on weekly deliveries of pickled-covered pizzas for her son's happiness.
-
-
Poorly cast narrator :(
- By J. Case on 06-11-20
-
Writers & Lovers
- A Novel
- By: Lily King
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she has been writing for six years. At 31, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life.
-
-
An absorbing listen
- By Barbara S on 03-08-20
By: Lily King
-
Fake Accounts
- By: Lauren Oyler
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone and makes a startling discovery: He's an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, and a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony, and outrage, she's not exactly shocked by the revelation. Actually, she's relieved - he was always a little distant - and she plots to end their floundering relationship while on a trip to the Women's March in DC. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies.
-
-
Self-absorbed drivel
- By Allison C. Gates on 02-10-21
By: Lauren Oyler
-
You Exist Too Much
- A Novel
- By: Zaina Arafat
- Narrated by: Zehra Jane Naqvi
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: "You exist too much," she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the US and the Middle East, we trace her progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer.
-
-
Narrator is distractingly bad
- By K. Tannous on 09-11-20
By: Zaina Arafat
-
Self Care
- A Novel
- By: Leigh Stein
- Narrated by: Kristen DiMercurio, Karissa Vacker, Nicole Lewis
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maren Gelb is on a company-imposed digital detox. She tweeted something terrible about the president's daughter, and as the COO of Richual, "the most inclusive online community platform for women to cultivate the practice of self-care and change the world by changing ourselves", it's a PR nightmare.
-
-
Shallow
- By Fredyne P. on 07-31-20
By: Leigh Stein
-
Daddy
- Stories
- By: Emma Cline
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An absentee father collects his son from boarding school after a shocking act of violence. A nanny to a celebrity family hides out in Laurel Canyon in the aftermath of a tabloid scandal. A young woman sells her underwear to strangers. A notorious guest arrives at a placid, not-quite rehab in the Southwest. In 10 remarkable stories, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence pulsing under the surface.
-
-
BRILLIANT Writing, BRILLIANT narration
- By Annie Armstrong on 09-28-20
By: Emma Cline
-
The Lightness
- A Novel
- By: Emily Temple
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat in the mountains and never returned. Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother - a woman as grounded as her father is mercurial - Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center. Once there, she enrolls in their summer program for troubled teens, which Olivia refers to as “Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls”.
-
-
Perfect combination
- By Lauren yett on 06-22-20
By: Emily Temple
-
Acts of Desperation
- By: Megan Nolan
- Narrated by: Lauren Coe
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the first scene of this provocative gut-punch of a novel, our unnamed narrator meets a magnetic writer named Ciaran and falls, against her better judgment, completely in his power. After a brief, all-consuming romance, he abruptly rejects her, sending her into a tailspin of jealous obsession and longing. If he ever comes back to her, she resolves to hang onto him and his love at all costs, even if it destroys her.
By: Megan Nolan
-
Leave the World Behind
- A Novel
- By: Rumaan Alam
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: A quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older couple - it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural area - with the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone service - it’s hard to know what to believe.
-
-
I knew people wouldn’t like it
- By BookLover on 10-15-20
By: Rumaan Alam
-
Weather
- A Novel
- By: Jenny Offill
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practice her other calling: she is a fake shrink. For years, she has tended to her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but Lizzie has little chance to spend her new free time with husband and son before her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. She's become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives.
-
-
Read This Article Before Listening to Weather
- By MOR Denver on 04-28-20
By: Jenny Offill
Publisher's Summary
Ava, newly arrived in Hong Kong from Dublin, spends her days teaching English to rich children.
Julian is a banker. A banker who likes to spend money on Ava, to have sex and discuss fluctuating currencies with her. But when she asks whether he loves her, he cannot say more than 'I like you a great deal'.
Enter Edith, a lawyer. Refreshingly enthusiastic and unapologetically earnest, Edith takes Ava to the theatre when Julian leaves Hong Kong for work. Quickly, she becomes something Ava looks forward to.
And then Julian writes to tell Ava he is coming back to Hong Kong....
More from the same
What listeners say about Exciting Times
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- AD
- 10-20-20
Exhausted by Ava’s tedious self-absorption
I initially found Ava’s self-critique of her slightly dirtbag personality refreshing and entertaining, but after hours of the stuff, compounded by her apparent inability to combine her self-reflection with any actionable change to address those aspects of her character, life, or choices with which she was dissatisfied, this book became a tiresome egotistical mope from a deeply unlikable character.
Her relationship with Edith entirely lacked substance: it felt sappy, two-dimensional and appeared to be founded entirely on Ava’s insecurities, obsessions and borderline pathological inability to tell the truth. As soon as her secret about Julian was out, so too was her flame for Edith.
Her relationship with Julian at least had chemistry, some edge and complexity of dialogue.
Can the author not write romantic relationships between women or was than intentional?
Besides the poorly crafted relationships, I found the portrayal of Ava’s queerness utterly bizarre. The only time that she, a woman who does a lot of reflecting, reflects on her queerness is at the time that she is actually with a woman. As soon as she’s back to sleeping with a man, this aspect of her vanishes entirely from the narrative. Are you only gay when you’re actively with a woman, when you’re back with a man you’re straight again, and the concept of bisexuality doesn’t exist…? For a book that has a fair amount to say on deconstructing stereotypes and heteronormativity, it sure did fall straight (pun intended) into that one.
As for the ending, given the character development up to that point, it just felt really implausible.
I greatly enjoyed the nuggets on language with which the book is peppered, and the narration is just lovely.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 05-25-20
Don't.
50+ lesbian fiction books, this is the first I just can't finish. It's just vacuous of everything. Awful.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Sally
- 04-28-20
Loved listening, so beautifully written
Felt like listening in to someone's mind. loved the thoughts on English and Irish language throughout.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 12-06-20
What was the point?
Only finished it to see if there was any point or plot. Donut waste your time.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Deirdre Motherway
- 06-04-20
Well worth a read.
Really enjoyed this. Unsentimental, honest account of a young girl trying to figure her shit out, away from the pressures of home and family.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Fiona
- 05-09-20
Dull and overrated.
Had to read for book club. The only reason I didn't ditch after a few chapters. Unremarkable
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Rachel Winters
- 04-30-20
Smart, witty, contemporary
Ava is a young woman who minces no words, brooks no fools. While sadly under-appreciative of her own talents, she impresses others enough with her acerbic charms to become engaged in a complex sexual and emotional triangle with a British banker and a wealthy young lawyer. Set in the bustle of Hong Kong where ex-pats on high salaries dispute Brexit and lowly TEFL teachers (of which Ava is one) struggle to pay the rent, the book sizzles along. Irish people - not to mention TEFL teachers - will get a kick out of Ava’s take on the English language. Also enjoyable are those scathing ripostes that Ava so deftly fires at her lovers, which will make the reader wistful they never came up with similar gems in their romantic adventures. All is not quite as hard-assed as Ava would wish it, however, as she finds out when she really falls in love. A stylish and refreshing debut. Recommended.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Kindle Customer
- 04-08-21
A book that plays beautifully with language
A book about politics and class but the main character is the language we call English.
It is a book I plan to re read as the story has many layers. Next however I will read it without audible narration. This is in no way meant to criticise the narration as it is very good and helped get an understanding of the overarching narrative in a way I don't think I would have fully appreciated fully had I read text alone on a first read.
However to fully appreciate the genius of this novel I feel you may also need to read it slowly, carefully and marvel at how it is put together linguistically.
Speaking personally I like how the narrator in the novel (not to be confused with audible narration necessarily) is also a proud socialist!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Claudia Ashton
- 03-15-21
Brilliant
From the blurb I was worried this book would be a bit fluffy and simple (trying to avoid the phrase chick-lit but you know what I’m getting at).
It isn’t at all! It is so clever, analytical, reflective, the characterisation so real, I absolutely loved it. It is a very thoughtful book with many lines to go over again and contemplate. The performance is also beautiful. Highly highly recommend, loved it.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- P Irving
- 02-02-21
Dull
Cannot understand any of the hype this book received it has got to be one of the most dull self-indulgent audiobooks I have listened too in a long while. I rarely leave negative reviews but would advise not wasting a credit on this.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 02-25-21
Quite unique
Challenging not to lose heart and give up early on. Such frustrating characters. It all came together beautifully in the final chapters.
1 person found this helpful