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You Are One of Them  By  cover art

You Are One of Them

By: Elliott Holt
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
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Publisher's summary

Sarah Zuckerman and Jennifer Jones are best friends in an upscale part of Washington, DC, in the politically charged 1980s. Sarah is the shy, wary product of an unhappy home: her father abandoned the family to return to his native England; her agoraphobic mother is obsessed with fears of nuclear war. Jenny is an all-American girl who has seemingly perfect parents. With Cold War rhetoric reaching a fever pitch in 1982, the 10-year-old girls write letters to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov asking for peace. But only Jenny's letter receives a response, and Sarah is left behind when her friend accepts the Kremlin's invitation to visit the USSR and becomes an international media sensation. The girls' icy relationship still hasn’t thawed when Jenny and her parents die tragically in a plane crash in 1985.

10 years later, Sarah is about to graduate from college when she receives a mysterious letter from Moscow suggesting that Jenny's death might have been a hoax. She sets off to the former Soviet Union in search of the truth, but the more she delves into her personal Cold War history, the harder it is to separate fact from propaganda.

You Are One of Them is a taut, moving debut about the ways in which we define ourselves against others and the secrets we keep from those who are closest to us. In this insightful forensic of a mourned friendship, Holt illuminates the long-lasting sting of abandonment and the measures we take to bring back those we have lost.

©2013 Elliott Holt (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about You Are One of Them

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You Are One of Them

Any additional comments?

You Are One of Them is 8.5 hours of listening, read by Cassandra Campbell. There is considerable creative license taken with this book but it is based on a true story. Do a Google search for Samantha Reed Smith for the facts. I know there are many authors who do this type of historical fiction, but personally I’d rather the author presented the facts. They are equally interesting. When a novel includes historical detail that is true and integrates it with fictitious characters, that’s one thing . But when the history of a character is distorted for the sake of a book … it’s quite another, and that isn’t doing justice to the real-life character, the reader, nor the author.

The reading by Cassandra Campbell was fine, a nice production. The topic and history, not so much.

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7 people found this helpful

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Yawn. Get on with it, will ya?!

This book had what was a great premise - 2 best friends in Cold War DC send letters to Gorbachev telling him they love their parents & country & please end the Cold War & don't blow up the U.S. However, he only received one of them, it appears, & Jenny, the girl whose letter "made it", is feted around both the Soviet Union & the U.S., basking in her fame & new spot as a "popular girl" in a school where once she was mediocre. Sarah, the one whose idea it was to write him in the first place, is ignored, given no credit, & pretty much thrown away by her once-best friend. Then Jenny & her parents are killed in a plane crash, & even though the last year Jenny was alive they weren't friends at all, Sarah spends the rest of her life through college moping & missing her friend & wondering what could have been & why her friend betrayed her by never mentioning that the letter was Sarah's idea to begin with, & blah, & blah, & blah. After college, she gets a few messages hinting that Jenny might be alive, so flies to Moscow to find out. The set-up to this point was so long, I thought there would have to be a payoff coming, but I thought wrong. "Drawn out" doesn't come close to explaining what that part of the book was. When I got close to the end (about the "reveal", all I can say is, "well, duh!), I kept holding out for something with a punch, but I'm the eternal optimist. This book tried its darnedest to kill that in me.

I never liked either of the main characters; Jenny is a manipulative user from moment one, & though you can forgive Sarah as a child for doing anything to have a friend, after being left by her narcissistic dad with her wacko, screwed-up mom, Sarah as an adult is so inept & beyond naive - truly stupid - refusing to to help herself or defend herself or make a good life for herself, or...ACT, do SOMEthing, ANYthing, that I came to despise her for her self-victimization. As an adult, she should have been able to look back & see what a manipulator Jenny was, but no, she still mopes after the friend she lost. Her life is wrapped-up in that, & nothing else

The author spends an inordinate amount of time name-dropping (I didn't know you could actually DO that, in a book, but she has!!), & also canNOT stop belaboring points. Any point. All points. Each point is strung out so long I felt beat up at the end (I've GOT it already, lady!). She refuses to just tell the story, but continues on & on & on & on & on & on with more details & details & details, none of which move the story an inch. "Show, don't tell" is a writing rule she either didn't learn or thought it couldn't possibly apply to her. Phew. I need a looooong nap ... after a big glass of wine, finishing this book! ) Wow! Listening was physically tiring. (See what I did there? I belabored the point myself.😛) Too bad, because the author actually can write well. She needs to learn to be ruthless and slash any explanations she writes by about 8/10s.

The WHOLE book is read in the same gloomy, dispirited, almost monosyllabic manner, with no emphases or anything positive (even when speaking of good, happy things, the narrator reads them with such a flat affect that it sounds as if she truly should be in therapy & on psychotropic meds), but only reads with drudgery, dullness, & depression. The narrator also should have researched a bit about the greater DC area, as she mispronounced so many places.. I wish I'd written them down, but all I can hear is her "Mac-Clean" for McLean, Va (pronounced "m'clane") ringing (grating) in my ears. First time I've ever heard of Benetton from "The United Colors of Benetton" pronounced as "benna-TEN" (emphasis on last - mispronounced - syllable), either. If you've never said a word out loud before, narrators, ASK SOMEONE WHO KNOWS! A peeve of mine...can ya tell? Ahem.

So disappointing. This was one I wanted to like, but I did not. It's not a 1-star book because it's too well-written & the story is plausible, but I just couldn't stretch it to 3 stars. I was too tired.

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7 people found this helpful

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What was the point?

This was a completely pointless book full of boring characters and dreary whining. I'd review the plot but there wasn't any plot to review... the only reason I finished it is that I was expecting there MUST be some kind of amazing plot twist at the end but alas, this was not the case.

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5 people found this helpful

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  • YM
  • 05-26-15

I could not put it down

Where does You Are One of Them rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It ranks at the top third of the books I've read the last few months.

Which character – as performed by Cassandra Campbell – was your favorite?

Sarah, the heroine.

If you could rename You Are One of Them, what would you call it?

The title didn't give me any clue as to the plot and that's a good thing as not to give it away. I think it was well named.

Any additional comments?

It was a very captivating story line. Cassandra is an excellent narrator; especially given the accents that are integral to the story line. It was one of the greatest advantages of listening to the book.

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4 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Not something I would recommend

The main character is a pathetic, not well defined character that flip flops in her values (and not intentionally written to be that way). Underwhelming ending that seems to be completely opposite in tone from the rest of the book. From an incomprehensible obsession of a friend from 20 years ago to indifference. The main character is a pathetic underdeveloped woman with unnatural thoughts and feelings, making it hard to sympathize with her and, therefore, be enveloped by the story.

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Great background book

Always looking for something to listen to when I'm doing house work or computer work. This book is engaging and kept my attention. Bought it in a daily deal and it was worth it!

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3 people found this helpful

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Marvelous!

Well written amazing story! Superbly performed, too!

Very interesting take on the perception of a very interesting young woman and her devotion to her friend and her need to know more about, of all things, the USSR and later, modern day Russia. There is much to be learned from this book.

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Excellent Book

I loved this book even more than I thought I would! The narrator was magnificent. I know I will listen to it again, plus I put it on my Kindle for when I want to actually read.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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death by a thousand adjectival phrases

if you can stand the ridiculously descriptive writing style - which I almost couldn't a dozen times - the basis of the story is a good one.

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Good

Having some Russian heritage, a little knowledge of Russian, and grown up during the cold war, I enjoyed the book.

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