Pretend I'm Dead

By: Jen Beagin

Narrated by: Candace Thaxton

Miranda July meets Mary Karr in this brilliant debut novel from Jen Beagin, Whiting Award winner and "one of the freshest voices […] in years - funny, wise, whip-smart, and compassionate" (Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins), about a cleaning lady on a quest for self-acceptance after her relationship with a loveable junkie goes awry.

Jen Beagin's quirky, moving, "frank and unflinching" (Josh Ferris) debut novel introduces an unforgettable character, Mona - almost 24, emotionally adrift, and cleaning houses to get by. Handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a recipient she calls Mr. Disgusting, who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways.

In search of healing, Mona decamps to Taos, New Mexico, for a fresh start, where she finds a community of seekers and cast-offs, all of whom have one or two things to teach her - the pajama-wearing, blissed-out New Agers, the slightly creepy client with peculiar tastes in controlled substances, the psychic who might really be psychic. But always lurking just beneath the surface are her memories of growing up in a chaotic, destructive family from which she's trying to disentangle herself, and the larger legacy of the past she left behind.

The story of Mona's journey to find her place in this working-class American world is at once hilarious and wonderfully strange, true to life and boldly human, and introduces a stunningly one-of-a-kind new voice in American fiction.

©2018 Jen Beagin (P)2018 Simon & Schuster

A lightened taste of reality

Corky, dark humor. A addicting storyline and can’t wait to read the sequel. One of my favorite audiobooks ever.

Enjoyable but not a home run for me.

I love Jen Beagin and I liked this book. It was an easy listening but didn’t knock it out of the park like Big Swiss, for me. Still worth a lesson. Didn’t totally love the narrator either. Some of the time female narrators doing male voices just makes the characters sound as if they are dumb or at least unbelievable. Just a personal preference.

Love love love

Loved this book & the audio book narrator, if you like to laugh, and can handle difficult subject matter & a complicated protagonist I can’t recommend it enough. I don’t think I don’t think I could t
hang out w anyone who doesn’t love this book.

story makes up for bad narration

I don't normally review, but I think it's worth mentioning that in my opinion the narrator doesn't do the story justice. The tone was completely off and she would often go for long stretches without taking a breath which was distracting. The character voices were decent but the narration almost ruined it. Awesome, complex, dark, comedic story saved the day. Would like to read the book myself now.

I laughed, I cried, it was better than cats!

Loved the descriptive detail. The characters were captivating- I felt like I knew them.
Can’t wait to read Jens next book.

Gritty and funny

Beautifully written while pulling on the heart strings . Feels like an honest peek into a real life through a real job. Loved it through and through

luster meets on all fours

I listened to this on a road trip and enjoyed it. The protagonist is a kind of fleabag don't care if I love or die person, numb out to avoid thinking about trauma, feelings, and somehow even with the dark themes- she seems unbothered. She makes it funny somehow. the characters are strange and interesting. I'm a fan.

best writer

another perfect book. i listened to big swiss last week, which is also perfection. pretend i’m dead is a portrait of an artist. beagin uses literature to weave story with perception and self awareness. these are the kind of books i like best. beagin is a genius and a true freak and palpably inventively honest.

SA warning

This book is well written and read. Author has talent but no plot. Lots of masturbation. There was only 1 likable character in the last 50 minutes. It's about a self-destructive SA survivor. Every character except the aforementioned was either an abuser or abused. It's depressing and TMI on random characters kinks. It's more like a confession than a story. I'd return it if I could but it was on sale. BTW, Not being able to return a book you didn't use a credit on is next level BS.

The realistic storyline

I absolutely loved this book! It was stunningly real and heartfelt. The subject matter was sometimes hard to listen to, but that’s because it was so real and human.