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Welfare
- Narrated by: Don Moretti
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
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Welfare
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A Web of Despair and Desperation
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Publisher's Summary
Welfare is wholly made up of four-line paragraphs and has a cadence that is uniquely its own. A high school student leaves his parents’ home to live on his own with friends and with the help of government aid. The narrator becomes your best friend on the first chapter.
I walk down the slight slope of their driveway. A backpack full of t-shirts and socks and underwear and books on my back. I have 50 dollars and two packs of cigarettes in the pocket of my army surplus jacket. But no lighter. You can’t have everything I tell myself.
Steve Anwyll lives in Canada.
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about Welfare
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kris
- 11-25-19
Don't Sleep On This!
Surprise shot to the gut. Steve Anwyll is a secret badass, and Don Moretti pulls it off. Killer!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 11-25-19
This was great!
I don't know why, but I thought this was going to be much more depressing. It was but in a good way. It was funny. The narrator's voice is fitting to the story. Good pace and will probably listen again. Hidden gem!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Brian Richman
- 11-25-19
A solid listen with great narrator
I grabbed this book because I was a fan of some other titles from Talking Book. Welfare is in the same vein. It was dark, funny, entertaining and a fun listen. I would definitely recommend to a friend. Don Moretti knocked it out of the park. Two thumbs up.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Gordy
- 08-07-19
Excellent Listen
Incredible narration and fully entertaining throughout. Dismal and gritty and funny and cool. Don’t sleep on Steve Anwyll.
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 83
Jack Veeder is dying. Soon. And that impending event brings his son Jimmy back to the Imperial Valley of southern California just north of the Calexico/Mexicali border. Jimmy hopes he can spend what time his father has left laughing and reminiscing. But Jack’s got one dying request. He needs Jimmy to find a Mexican prostitute named Yolanda. Enlisting the help of his boyhood friend Bobby Maves, the pair stumbles through the violent, the exploited, and the corrupted of Mexicali.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Really weird, but endearing, suspense thriller
- By Wayne on 07-01-16
By: Johnny Shaw
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We Live in Water
- Stories
- By: Jess Walter
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jess Walter
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 214
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 186
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Story4 out of 5 stars 188
These 12 stories - published over the last five years in Harper's, The Best American Short Stories, McSweeney's, Playboy, and other publications - veer from comic tales of love to social satire to suspenseful crime fiction, from hip Portland to once-hip Seattle to never-hip Spokane, from a condemned casino in Las Vegas to a bottomless lake in the dark woods of Idaho. This is a world of lost fathers and redemptive conmen, of meth tweakers on desperate odysseys and men committing suicide by fishing.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Outrageously funny and inventive.
- By Richard Delman on 02-25-13
By: Jess Walter
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Lawn Boy
- By: Jonathan Evison
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 254
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 228
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 228
For Mike Muñoz, a young Chicano living in Washington State, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work - and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew - he knows that he's got to be the one to shake things up if he's ever going to change his life. But how?
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2 out of 5 stars
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CATEGORY AND SUMMARY MISLEADING
- By Gretchen on 05-01-18
By: Jonathan Evison
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Don't Skip Out on Me
- A Novel
- By: Willy Vlautin
- Narrated by: Willy Vlautin
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 67
Horace Hopper is a half-Paiute, half-Irish ranch hand who wants to be somebody. He's spent most of his life on the ranch of his kindly guardians, Mr. and Mrs. Reese, herding sheep alone in the mountains. But while the Reeses treat him like a son, Horace can't shake the shame he feels from being abandoned by his parents. He decides to leave the only loving home he's known to prove his worth by training to become a boxer.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best book I have ever heard!
- By Mark on 03-03-18
By: Willy Vlautin
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I Am the Messenger
- By: Markus Zusak
- Narrated by: Marc Aden Gray
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,489
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,233
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,231
Ed Kennedy is an underage cabdriver without much of a future. He's pathetic at playing cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey, and utterly devoted to his coffee-drinking dog, the Doorman. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Clever read
- By Tony B on 05-14-07
By: Markus Zusak
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Only the Rain
- A Novel
- By: Randall Silvis
- Narrated by: Eric G. Dove
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 132
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 101
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Story4 out of 5 stars 102
When family man and war veteran Russell loses his job as a quarry worker, his life suddenly seems more like a waking nightmare than a chance to finally live the American dream. Facing bills, a new baby, and a bone-dry bank account, he's got nothing left to lose. Russell comes to the rescue of a naked stranger dancing in the rain, and what was supposed to be a straightforward good deed turns into a spiral of danger.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Pretty Good Book!!
- By shelley on 01-28-18
By: Randall Silvis
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I Swear I'll Make It Up to You
- A Life on the Low Road
- By: Mishka Shubaly
- Narrated by: Mishka Shubaly
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 563
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 511
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 510
A misfit kid at the best of times, Mishka Shubaly had his world shattered when, in a 24-hour span in 1992, he survived a mass shooting on his school's campus then learned that his parents were getting divorced. His father, a prominent rocket scientist, abandoned the family, and their home was lost to foreclosure. Shubaly swore to avenge the wrongs against his mother but instead plunged into a magnificently toxic love affair with alcohol.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Blah, blah, blah...
- By B Hart on 08-29-16
By: Mishka Shubaly
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A Good and Useful Hurt
- By: Aric Davis
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 290
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 253
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Story4 out of 5 stars 253
Mike is a tattoo artist running his own shop, and Deb is the piercing artist he hires to round out his studio’s motley crew of four. The last either expects is romance, but that’s what they get as they follow their off-kilter careers and love lives into complete and total disaster. When Mike follows a growing trend and tattoos the ashes of deceased loved ones into several customers’ tattoos, he has no idea that it will one day provide the solution - and solace - he will sorely need.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A New and Different Horror Story/Mystery
- By Jan on 12-15-14
By: Aric Davis
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Pay It Forward
- By: Catherine Ryan Hyde
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 445
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 389
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 389
Pay It Forward, is the moving story of Trevor McKinney, a 12-year-old boy who accepts his social studies teacher’s challenge to come up with a plan to change the world. Trevor’s idea is simple: Do a good deed for three people and ask them to "pay it forward" to three others who need help. He envisions a vast movement of kindness and goodwill spreading beyond his small California town and across the world.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I haven't read a book by this author I didn't like
- By Maggie on 04-26-16
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We'll Fly Away
- By: Bryan Bliss
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
Best friends since childhood, Luke and Toby have dreamed of one thing: getting out of their dead-end town. Soon they finally will, riding the tails of Luke's wrestling scholarship, never looking back. If they don't drift apart first. If Toby's abusive dad, or Luke's unreliable mom, or anything else their complicated lives throw at them doesn't get in the way. In a format that alternates between Luke's letters to Toby from death row and the events of their senior year, Bryan Bliss expertly unfolds the circumstances that led to Luke's incarceration.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great Story Except....
- By Willizz on 05-18-18
By: Bryan Bliss
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Ask the Passengers
- By: A. S. King
- Narrated by: Devon Sorvari
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4 out of 5 stars 123
Astrid Jones desperately wants to confide in someone, but her mother's pushiness and her father's lack of interest tell her they're the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours lying on the backyard picnic table watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn't know the passengers inside, but they're the only people who won't judge her when she asks them her most personal questions...like what it means that she's falling in love with a girl.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Ask yourself why you must read this book, NOW!!!
- By Nancy aka Ravenousreader on 10-25-12
By: A. S. King
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Driftwood
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Dutton
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Dutton
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
Los Angeles, California: Clem Jasper is a trust fund kid with a world famous rock musician for a father. When he dies suddenly (playing ping pong) she discovers he's left her a strange legacy: a series of letters that take her on a mysterious road trip around California. Ignoring her aunt's suggestion that she pitch the trip as a reality show, she embarks on her own to discover just what it was that her father meant her to find. What secret could be so powerful that he had to die before telling her?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Light listening
- By KDS on 11-23-22
By: Elizabeth Dutton
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Find Layla
- A Novel
- By: Meg Elison
- Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 170
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 153
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 152
Underprivileged and keenly self-aware, SoCal fourteen-year-old Layla Bailey isn't used to being noticed. Except by mean girls who tweet about her ragged appearance. All she wants to do is indulge in her love of science, protect her vulnerable younger brother, and steer clear of her unstable mother. Then a school competition calls for a biome. Layla chooses her own home, a hostile ecosystem of indoor fungi and secret shame.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hidden Gem
- By Jules on 01-06-22
By: Meg Elison
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Everything Matters!
- A Novel
- By: Ron Currie Jr.
- Narrated by: Abby Craden, Hillary Huber, Mark Deakins, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 330
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Story4 out of 5 stars 217
In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophesy: A comet will obliterate life on Earth in 36 years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: Does anything I do matter? While the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices, Junior's loved ones emerge with parallel stories - his anxious mother.