Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
To Throw Away Unopened  By  cover art

To Throw Away Unopened

By: Viv Albertine
Narrated by: Jasmine Blackborow
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $33.66

Buy for $33.66

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

What was I fighting for? Even now I'm not sure. Something so old and so deep, it has no words, no shape, no logic.

Every memoir is a battle between reality and invention - but in her follow up to Clothes, Music, Boys, Viv Albertine has reinvented the genre with her unflinching honesty.

To Throw Away Unopened is a fearless dissection of one woman's obsession with the truth - the truth about family, power, and her identity as a rebel and outsider. It is a gaping wound of a book, both an exercise in blood-letting and psychological archaeology, excavating what lies beneath: the fear, the loneliness, the anger. It is a brutal expose of human dysfunctionality, the impossibility of true intimacy, and the damage wrought upon us by secrets and revelations, siblings and parents.

Yet it is also a testament to how we can rebuild ourselves and come to face the world again. It is a portrait of the love stories that constitute a life, often bringing as much pain as joy. With the inimitable blend of humour, vulnerability, and intelligence that makes Viv Albertine one of our finest authors working today, To Throw Away Unopened smashes through layers of propriety and leads us into a new place of savage self-discovery.

©2018 Viv Albertine (P)2018 Faber Audio

Critic reviews

"Fierce, direct, unashamed. She masks nothing... Scythes through the myths, the distortions, the adornments and finds the rich, distinctive stories underneath." (The Sunday Times)

"A chronicle of outsiderness... Searingly honest.... A painstaking and painful dissection of familial fallout." (The Observer)

What listeners say about To Throw Away Unopened

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    17
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

The narrator was incredible, as if she were the writer, with all the sensitivity I imagine only the writer would have. And the author, pulling back the curtains on her and her family’s life, telling with an exceptional honesty, truth telling. She has fresh writing, vivid descriptions, rare details from her broad reading, and courageous clarity. So very much to take in, reflect on, and absorb. This one will get a second listen for sure!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!