Cecilia
- 5
- reviews
- 18
- helpful votes
- 10
- ratings
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What I Lived For
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 28 hrs
- Unabridged
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Jerome "Corky" Corcorn. A money-juggling wheeler dealer, rising politico, popular man's man, and successful womanizer. It is a Memorial Day weekend, and we are about to live with him, breathe with him, and sweat with him in a nonstop marathon of mounting desperation as he tries to keep his financial empire from unraveling, his love life from shredding, and his rebellious daughter from destroying both herself and him. Seldom in fiction has a man been brought so vividly to life in all his strength and weakness, hunger and ambition, carnality and corruption.
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A challenge to get through..
- By Notsokeen on 04-13-20
- What I Lived For
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
Stream-of-consciousness peak into someone's head
Reviewed: 03-22-21
A reflective almost real-time account of a few days' thought processes and culmination of events in the life of narrator. Flawless narration!
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Amnesty
- A Novel
- By: Aravind Adiga
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Danny - formerly Dhananjaya Rajaratnam - is an illegal immigrant in Sydney, Australia, denied refugee status after he fled from Sri Lanka. Working as a cleaner, living out of a grocery storeroom, for three years he’s been trying to create a new identity for himself. And now, with his beloved vegan girlfriend, Sonja, with his hidden accent and highlights in his hair, he is as close as he has ever come to living a normal life. But then one morning, Danny learns a female client of his has been murdered.
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Excellent narration and immersive story
- By Cecilia on 06-11-20
- Amnesty
- A Novel
- By: Aravind Adiga
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
Excellent narration and immersive story
Reviewed: 06-11-20
The narrator was so good, switching seamlessly not only between the main character but many diverse others I had to check to see if he was the sole narrator. Well done where many have failed in the audible roster. I was immersed in the almost stream-of-consciousness tale of the experience of a student over staying his visa in Australia.
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1 person found this helpful
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The Other Americans
- A Novel
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, P.J. Ochlan, Adenrele Ojo, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
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Don't bother - there are so many better stories
- By Robin Davis on 10-22-19
- The Other Americans
- A Novel
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, P.J. Ochlan, Adenrele Ojo, Ozzie Rodriguez, Susan Nezami, Ali Nasser, Mark Bramhall, Max Adler, Meera Simhan
A drag
Reviewed: 11-13-19
There were many narrators and except for Ephraim each had a singsong quality. They were all full of self-pity and boring.
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4 people found this helpful
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In the Darkroom
- By: Susan Faludi
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author of Backlash comes In the Darkroom, an astonishing confrontation with the enigma of her father, and the larger riddle of identity consuming our age. When the feminist writer learned her 76-year-old father - long estranged and living in Hungary - had undergone sex reassignment surgery, that investigation would turn personal and urgent. How was this new parent who identified as "a complete woman now" connected to the silent, explosive, and ultimately violent father she had known?
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Terrible narration
- By Dr. Karen Zager on 01-23-17
- In the Darkroom
- By: Susan Faludi
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
Too much dialogue
Reviewed: 02-05-17
Would you try another book from Susan Faludi and/or Laurel Lefkow?
This is a memoir that advances by dialogue and I think that there is way too much of it. As a reader, I came by the author's point of view indirectly, as she receded as a character in the narrative with very little exposition of herself and her view of her relationship with her father. Her father has a rather abrasive personality and refuses to discuss his motivations and much of what he says is superficial, repetitive and annoying. The narrator compounds this irritation by giving the father a comically exaggerated Hungarian accent with verbal tics such as constantly repeating Well at the start of speaking as a drawn out "Veeeeeel"
which put me in mind of Dracula speaking. It seems like he says this at least 100 times. The author, more than once, begs her father to please stop talking, stop yelling. Yes, please stop. Being that the father lived in America for many years and spoke other languages, there was no justification for this very heavy accent.
Maybe the structure of this memoir was a way of drawing the reader into Ms Faludi's experience of getting to know her father, and also a commentary on the fact that he didn't really know himself. The problem is I didn't think he was interesting enough to give this level of attention to, after all, we all have our own annoying relatives. I was much more interested in the author's ideas about her family in the context of the war and its aftermath. I only wish there was more of Susan Faludi in the book.
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2 people found this helpful
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The Harder They Come
- A Novel
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: Graham Hamilton
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in contemporary Northern California, The Harder They Come explores the volatile connections between three damaged people - an aging ex-marine and Vietnam veteran, his psychologically unstable son, and the son's paranoid, much older lover - as they careen toward an explosive confrontation.
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Based on a true story
- By Sharon on 05-25-15
- The Harder They Come
- A Novel
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: Graham Hamilton
Great with a motley group of characters
Reviewed: 01-10-16
Would you listen to The Harder They Come again? Why?
Yes, to enjoy the underlying themes without as much attention to the outcome. It was suspenseful at times.
What did you like best about this story?
It explored the streak of American exceptionalism that has been part of the country from the start through characters who enacted this without really understanding their own motivations.
Any additional comments?
This was well acted narration with the ability to convincingly voice many different age groups and personalities.
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7 people found this helpful