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Heavy
- Narrated by: Kiese Laymon
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
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Interview: Listen in as Kiese Laymon, whose emotionally compelling and nuanced narrative, Heavy, became the first memoir to win our Audiobook of the Year, talks about what it meant to voice his own story — both to him and the mother to whom he wrote it.
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Publisher's Summary
2018 Audible Audiobook of the Year!
Winner of the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction!
Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and Kirkus Prize Finalist!
Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, Buzzfeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs), The Washington Post (Nonfiction), Southern Living (Southern), Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times Critics
In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a Black body, a Black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse.
Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion, and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been.
In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed Black son to a complicated and brilliant Black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence to his suspension from college to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood - and continues through 25 years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.
Featured Article: The Best Memoirs to Make You Laugh, Cry, and Think
The memoir, as an art form, is one of the most difficult and complex to pull off. That’s why these titles are so impressive: not only are they excellent works in their own right, but they’ve achieved cultural acclaim, resonating with listeners of different ages, genders, races, religions, and identities. Often narrated by the authors themselves, these audiobooks allow listeners to be immersed in each story and feel all of the raw and unfiltered emotion that comes with them.
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What listeners say about Heavy
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amy Eberle
- 10-30-18
Be prepared
Where to begin.......
This book was written in a style so unique, so mesmerizing, so enticing.... the authors voice was easy to listen to, easy to believe, easy to empathize with. I loved it for disturbing me do much.
Being a white girl born on the completely opposite end of the Mississippi River, who recently fell in love with a poor (financially) white man born and raised in Jackson, MS I couldn’t put this book down. I was angry at the Mother’s I know from MS, the hatred, the angst, the truth.... angry that the adjustment to loving someone from there is hard for so many reasons I don’t understand, that this book brought a bit more light too. I currently live 40 mins from Bloomington, IN and the parallels in the book made me shiver. Damn.... good job at bringing it all to life and making my head swirl.
I was also sad....I want to find this author, hug him, tell him I live my entire life in numbers on a scale....tell him that my 37 year old body is just now learning to love itself. Tell him that i believe it is possible to love and hate at the same time.... tell him that words are power and also poison.... tell him that he is a gift! Maybe, not tell him anything just look at him and smile, a genuine, caring, compassionate smile that will sink into him that not all white people are bad.... tell him that I hate the hatred too. Tell him thank you.
this book..... it was gut wrenching, difficult to listen too, frustrating, infuriating, insightful, dynamic.
I love it, but not sure if I like it yet, but DAMN, it moved me.
209 people found this helpful
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- Michele Carroll
- 10-23-18
This will be a classic!
I listened to the audible version read by the author. I found it to be beautiful and profound. It was like listening to a beautiful long poem. It was honest, painful, and intimate. I heard so much that I could feel in my bones, about addiction, loss, abuse, survival, recovery, and redemption. It called to mind my relationships, with myself, my family, my friends. It speaks of responsibility and insight. It especially speaks to White America and the damage we have doled and continue to inflict.I will listen again as I think there may be much I've missed and I really enjoyed the ride. This is a book that paid out from beginning to end. I'm sorry it ended. I still have so much to learn.
67 people found this helpful
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- Lois Sumser
- 02-03-19
A must read
I'm a 75 yr old white woman- probably not a target reader for Kiese Laymon. This book reached right down to the bottom of my soul. It's hard to find words to explain why! Just read this book and tell everyone you can to read it. I will never forget this experience. Thank you Kiese
62 people found this helpful
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- Jessica H.
- 10-23-18
Heavy
This memoir is accurately named because it deals with all the heavy topics: sex, weight, race, gambling, abuse, anorexia . It is incredibly well written, thought provoking and can even leave you feeling uncomfortable. The author, Kiese Laymon, provides an intimate glimpse into his life in the form of a brutally honest letter written to his mother. If you want to read/listen to a book that is change of pace from all others, this is the one.
44 people found this helpful
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- Sharey
- 12-05-18
Mediocre
I am genuinely surprised this won Audio Book of the Year. The book and narration were "okay" but hardly on a level that elevated. I listen to hundreds of audio books a year, from all cultures and viewpoints, so it's not for lack of comparison that I say this.
Be prepared for a lot of victimization, resentment, bad choices, anger, and lack of self reflection. Frankly, the author is not that likable and imparts little wisdom or inspiration from his travails.
33 people found this helpful
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- Aspen D
- 01-09-19
I feel
I was feeling angry and miss understood until I realized, it was not a judgement on me, it was not mine at all. This book is so striking and honest that my emotions, and opinions flip flopped at every connection to the humanity. This author has inspired so much. Thank you
28 people found this helpful
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- Michgal1
- 12-09-18
Must read for ALL in schools
I’m very excited about this book. I am a white woman married to a black man. His struggle in his childhood is something I’m learning more and more about as we continue to be married well into 30 years. And this story adds to that struggle. I want every white yellow brown child to read this book. To hear these words. Bless you Kiese for having the courage to write this book. Please know that there’s those of us out there that understand the struggle even though we’re not the same color. And it makes me weep. Again everyone needs to read this book…
28 people found this helpful
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- L. Michael Gipson
- 12-08-18
Stunning, Brutal, Loving, and Ruthlessly Honest
The best works are those that are relentlessly vulnerable and more vulnerable still, vulnerable to the point of raw, unadulterated hurt. Baldwin said if the writer is not willing to be honest about the ugly, the writer shouldn’t bother to write. Laymon is willing to go into that place inside and excavate and reveal and in doing so reveal us all. Loving in account but also unflinching in its gaze of the ugly, Laymon’s catharsis here makes me hope and pray that from all this there is a healing. The American in me conditioned to desire against what I know a happy ending cannot help but want it for him, his mother, our nation and me.
18 people found this helpful
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- Maximus
- 01-12-19
Book of the Year?
When I saw this as the Audible Book of the Year, I bit. Generally speaking, I enjoy a good memoir, and also enjoy listening to others who grew up in a much different environment than myself. As such, "Heavy" hit a lot of marks of something I would enjoy.
All in all, I was amazed at Kiese's upbringing, the challenges he experienced, and even cringed at the power-play elements at work in such a low-income culture. The expectations placed on Kiese by his mother and grandmother were so vastly different than the family culture in which I was raised. As such, it was an excellent reminder that my life experiences may not be normal for everybody, which provides me opportunities to practice listening, understanding, reflecting, and empathizing in new ways.
But I felt a little lost towards the end of the book. I really felt like I was going to finish and have a clear, "The one thing this book communicated was..." moment, but that moment never came for me. Perhaps that's more a reflection on myself than the book. And admittedly, I'm planning to listen to it again in order to take in his story and reflect on his life experiences a bit more. And I'm hopeful to have a clearer picture of his story, and the one thing he most wanted to share through this memoir.
All in all, it's a good memoir, and one that deserves some of the publicity it's received. But it isn't a "Book of the Year" for me.
16 people found this helpful
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- d salem
- 12-08-18
Incredible. Truly magnificent book.
Laymon's powerful work drew me in from the very first sentence. I could not stop listening and weeping and being overwhelmed in the best way possible. About to start listening again. Thank you sharing all this vulnerability, honesty, tenderness, and black abundance.
15 people found this helpful
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Overall

- Nirali Peter
- 04-29-19
Heavy
This book deals with a lot of different emotions and circumstances that the author faces. An interesting listen that is well presented
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Story
Author and essayist Kiese Laymon is one of the most unique, stirring, and powerful new voices in American social and cultural commentary. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America is a collection of Laymon's essays, touching on subjects ranging from family, race, violence, and celebrity to music, writing, and coming of age in the rural Mississippi Gulf Coast. Laymon's writing is unflinchingly honest, while also being smart, lacerating, and unexpectedly funny.
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I'm Stunned By This Collection
- By Rachel - Audible on 10-17-17
By: Kiese Laymon
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Mental
- Lithium, Love, and Losing My Mind
- By: Jaime Lowe
- Narrated by: Jaime Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It began in Los Angeles in 1993, when Jaime Lowe was just 16. She stopped sleeping and eating and began to hallucinate - demonically cackling Muppets, faces lurking in windows, Michael Jackson delivering messages from the Neverland Underground. Lowe wrote manifestos and math equations in her diary and drew infographics on her bedroom wall. Eventually hospitalized and diagnosed as bipolar, she was prescribed a medication that came in the form of three pink pills - lithium.
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Recommend for Healthcare Providers, and anyone else
- By M.E. on 04-03-18
By: Jaime Lowe
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Long Division
- By: Kiese Laymon
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Long Division contains two interwoven stories. In the first, it's 2013: After an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen "City" Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he's sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared.
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Like someone telling you a long crazy dream
- By Mark on 01-25-14
By: Kiese Laymon
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Loud in the House of Myself
- Memoir of a Strange Girl
- By: Stacy Pershall
- Narrated by: Stacy Pershall
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Stacy Pershall grew up as an overly intelligent, depressed, deeply strange girl in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, population 1,000. From her days as a 13-year-old Jesus freak through her eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, this spirited memoir chronicles Pershall's journey through hell and her struggle with the mental health care system.
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Short, but Intense Memoir
- By Lindsay on 06-19-13
By: Stacy Pershall
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Birdgirl
- Looking to the Skies in Search of a Better Future
- By: Mya-Rose Craig
- Narrated by: Mya-Rose Craig
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Meet Mya-Rose—otherwise known as “Birdgirl.” In her words: “Birdwatching has never felt like a hobby, or a pastime I can pick up and put down, but a thread running through the pattern of my life, so tightly woven in that there’s no way of pulling it free and leaving the rest of my life intact.” Birdgirl follows Mya-Rose and her family as they travel the world in search of rare birds and astonishing landscapes. But a shadow moves with them, too—her mother's deepening mental health crisis. In the face of this struggle, the Craigs turn to nature again and again for comfort and meaning.
By: Mya-Rose Craig
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The Body Papers
- By: Grace Talusan
- Narrated by: Grace Talusan
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather's nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Later, she learns that her family history is threaded with violence and abuse. Despite all this, she finds love, and success as a teacher.
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Woe is me
- By Gio Caballero on 03-29-23
By: Grace Talusan
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How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
- Essays
- By: Kiese Laymon
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 3 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Author and essayist Kiese Laymon is one of the most unique, stirring, and powerful new voices in American social and cultural commentary. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America is a collection of Laymon's essays, touching on subjects ranging from family, race, violence, and celebrity to music, writing, and coming of age in the rural Mississippi Gulf Coast. Laymon's writing is unflinchingly honest, while also being smart, lacerating, and unexpectedly funny.
-
-
I'm Stunned By This Collection
- By Rachel - Audible on 10-17-17
By: Kiese Laymon
-
Mental
- Lithium, Love, and Losing My Mind
- By: Jaime Lowe
- Narrated by: Jaime Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It began in Los Angeles in 1993, when Jaime Lowe was just 16. She stopped sleeping and eating and began to hallucinate - demonically cackling Muppets, faces lurking in windows, Michael Jackson delivering messages from the Neverland Underground. Lowe wrote manifestos and math equations in her diary and drew infographics on her bedroom wall. Eventually hospitalized and diagnosed as bipolar, she was prescribed a medication that came in the form of three pink pills - lithium.
-
-
Recommend for Healthcare Providers, and anyone else
- By M.E. on 04-03-18
By: Jaime Lowe
-
Long Division
- By: Kiese Laymon
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long Division contains two interwoven stories. In the first, it's 2013: After an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen "City" Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he's sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared.
-
-
Like someone telling you a long crazy dream
- By Mark on 01-25-14
By: Kiese Laymon
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Loud in the House of Myself
- Memoir of a Strange Girl
- By: Stacy Pershall
- Narrated by: Stacy Pershall
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stacy Pershall grew up as an overly intelligent, depressed, deeply strange girl in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, population 1,000. From her days as a 13-year-old Jesus freak through her eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, this spirited memoir chronicles Pershall's journey through hell and her struggle with the mental health care system.
-
-
Short, but Intense Memoir
- By Lindsay on 06-19-13
By: Stacy Pershall
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Birdgirl
- Looking to the Skies in Search of a Better Future
- By: Mya-Rose Craig
- Narrated by: Mya-Rose Craig
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Mya-Rose—otherwise known as “Birdgirl.” In her words: “Birdwatching has never felt like a hobby, or a pastime I can pick up and put down, but a thread running through the pattern of my life, so tightly woven in that there’s no way of pulling it free and leaving the rest of my life intact.” Birdgirl follows Mya-Rose and her family as they travel the world in search of rare birds and astonishing landscapes. But a shadow moves with them, too—her mother's deepening mental health crisis. In the face of this struggle, the Craigs turn to nature again and again for comfort and meaning.
By: Mya-Rose Craig
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The Sellout
- A Novel
- By: Paul Beatty
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.
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Appreciated it, but didn't like it
- By Eugenia on 04-14-16
By: Paul Beatty
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Heart Berries
- A Memoir
- By: Terese Marie Mailhot, Sherman Alexie, Joan Naviyuk Kane
- Narrated by: Rainy Fields
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father - an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist - who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.
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Heart Berries, what a gift!
- By PureTouchMassageTherapy on 03-28-19
By: Terese Marie Mailhot, and others
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Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
- By: Yiyun Li
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In her first memoir, award-winning novelist Yiyun Li offers a journey of recovery through literature. Startlingly original and shining with quiet wisdom, this is a luminous account of a life lived with books. Written over two years while the author battled suicidal depression, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life is a painful and yet richly affirming examination of what makes life worth living.
By: Yiyun Li
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Girl in Need of a Tourniquet
- Memoir of a Borderline Personality
- By: Merri Lisa Johnson
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
An honest and compelling memoir, Girl in Need of a Tourniquet is Merri Lisa Johnson’s account of her borderline personality disorder and how it has affected her life and relationships. Johnson describes the feeling of "bleeding out" unable to tell where she stopped and where her partner began. A self-confessed "psycho girlfriend," she was influenced by many emotional factors from her past. She recalls her path through a dysfunctional, destructive relationship, while recounting the experiences that brought her to her breaking point.
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Chaotic, disturbing, meaningless
- By BRB on 04-02-14
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Feeding the Dragon
- By: Sharon Washington
- Narrated by: Sharon Washington
- Length: 1 hr and 17 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For a book-obsessed kid with a big imagination and a flair for drama, could anything be luckier than living in a library? Capturing her remarkable childhood and its impact, Sharon Washington's autobiographical Off-Broadway show brings its sense of wonder and bittersweet realism into your home and heart as an enthralling audio experience. Only from Audible, Feeding the Dragon celebrates the role of books in opening Washington's mind to worlds of possibilities - including a career in acting.
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Excellent story!
- By Imara Walker on 09-07-18