
Behind You Is the Sea
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Rasha Zamamiri
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Ali Nasser
About this listen
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD
""A beautiful portrait of a family reaching for their dreams while holding on to their roots.""—Publishers Weekly
""Each chapter reads like a small masterpiece.""—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
An exciting debut novel that gives voice to the diverse residents of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore—from young activists in conflict with their traditional parents to the poor who clean for the rich—lives which intersect across divides of class, generation, and religion.
Funny and touching, Behind You Is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families—the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars—Palestinian immigrants who’ve all found a different welcome in America.
Their various fates and struggles cause their community dynamic to sizzle and sometimes explode: The wealthy Ammar family employs young Maysoon Baladi, whose own family struggles financially, to clean up after their spoiled teenagers. Meanwhile, Marcus Salameh confronts his father in an effort to protect his younger sister for “dishonoring” their name. Only a trip to Palestine, where Marcus experiences an unexpected and dramatic transformation, can bridge this seemingly unbridgeable divide between the two generations.
Behind You Is the Sea faces stereotypes about Palestinian culture head-on and, shifting perspectives to weave a complex social fabric replete with weddings, funerals, broken hearts, and devastating secrets.
©2024 Susan Muaddi Darraj (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Elena Rey
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Luciana is the baby of her large Colombian American family. And despite usually being relegated to the sidelines, she now finds herself the voice of reason in the middle of their unexpected crisis. Her older sister, Mari, is away at college and reduced to a mere listening ear on the other end of their many phone calls, so when South Florida residents are ordered to evacuate before a hurricane, it’s up to Luciana to deal with her eccentric grandmother, Abue, who’s refusing to leave. But the storm isn’t the only danger.
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A Captivating Listening Experience from Start to Finish
- By Kindle Customer on 05-08-25
By: Melissa Mogollon
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Sea Change
- A Novel
- By: Gina Chung
- Narrated by: Jeena Yi
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Ro is stuck. She's just entered her thirties, she's estranged from her mother, and her boyfriend has just left her to join a mission to Mars. Her days are spent dragging herself to her menial job at the aquarium, and her nights are spent drinking sharktinis (Mountain Dew and copious amounts of gin, plus a hint of jalapeño). With her best friend pulling away to focus on her upcoming wedding, Ro's only companion is Dolores, a giant Pacific octopus who also happens to be Ro's last remaining link to her father, a marine biologist who disappeared while on an expedition when Ro was a teenager.
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Finding oneself
- By Jelena on 05-11-25
By: Gina Chung
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The Ocean Above Me
- A Novel
- By: Kevin Sites
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Former war correspondent Lukas Landon is alone, trapped under 150-feet of water in an overturned shrimp trawler at the bottom of the ocean. The only thing keeping him alive is an air bubble in the ship’s bow. But the water level is rising, and time is running out. Landon doesn’t know if he will survive . . . or if he even deserves to.
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Boring
- By Amazon Customer on 04-22-24
By: Kevin Sites
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Hope and Glory
- A Novel
- By: Jendella Benson
- Narrated by: Kelechi Okafor
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Glory Akindele returns to London from her seemingly glamorous life in LA to mourn the sudden death of her father, only to find her previously close family has fallen apart in her absence. Her brother, Victor, is in jail and won’t speak to her because she didn’t come home for his trial. Her older sister, Faith, once a busy career woman, appears to have lost her independence and ambition, and is instead channeling her energies into holding together a perfect suburban family.
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Great book, ending left me wanting more
- By Jessica Cofield on 08-05-22
By: Jendella Benson
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Lola in the Mirror
- A Novel
- By: Trent Dalton
- Narrated by: Victoria Graves
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A girl and her mother have been on the run for sixteen years, from the monster they left in their kitchen with a knife in his throat and the police who want to make them pay for his death. Home is now a van with four flat tires in a junkyard by the edge of the Brisbane River. The girl has no name, because names are dangerous when you're on the run. But she has a dream.
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Trent Dalton is a Titan of Literature
- By Brianna Blacet on 09-28-24
By: Trent Dalton
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Crow Talk
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Garvin
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Frankie O’Neill and Anne Ryan would seem to have nothing in common. Frankie is a lonely ornithologist struggling to salvage her dissertation on the spotted owl following a rift with her advisor. Anne is an Irish musician far from home and family, raising her five-year-old son, Aiden, who refuses to speak. When Frankie finds an injured baby crow in the forest, little does she realize that the charming bird will bring all three lost souls—Frankie, Anne, and Aiden—together on a journey toward hope, healing, and rediscovering joy.
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Good Read Based in the Columbia Gorge
- By flowermama on 11-09-24
By: Eileen Garvin
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Glory
- A Novel
- By: NoViolet Bulawayo
- Narrated by: Chipo Chung
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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NoViolet Bulawayo’s bold new novel follows the fall of the Old Horse, the long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the path to true liberation. Inspired by the unexpected fall by coup in November 2017 of Robert G. Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president of nearly four decades, Glory shows a country's imploding, narrated by a chorus of animal voices that unveil the ruthlessness required to uphold the illusion of absolute power and the imagination and bulletproof optimism to overthrow it completely.
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I am of two minds
- By B.A.B. on 03-27-22
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Shit Cassandra Saw
- Stories
- By: Gwen E. Kirby
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Sura Siu, Rob Shapiro, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In this ebullient collection, virgins escape from being sacrificed, witches refuse to be burned, whores aren't ashamed, and every woman gets a chance to be a radioactive cockroach warrior who snaps back at catcallers.
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Delightful collection of feminist short stories
- By SB on 01-13-22
By: Gwen E. Kirby
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The Great Reclamation
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Heng
- Narrated by: Windson Liong
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility—something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love.
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Fantastic historic fiction, and a change of pace
- By Geonn Cannon on 04-12-23
By: Rachel Heng
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All That's Left Unsaid
- A Novel
- By: Tracey Lien
- Narrated by: Aileen Huynh, Yen Nguyen, Amelia Nguyen
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Just let him go. These are the words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother Denny out to celebrate his high school graduation with friends. That night, Denny—optimistic, guileless, brilliant Denny—is brutally murdered inside a busy restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, a refugee enclave facing violent crime, an indifferent police force, and the worst heroin epidemic in Australian history.
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Author is obsessed with going #2
- By LS on 09-14-22
By: Tracey Lien
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Berlin
- A Novel
- By: Bea Setton
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
When Daphne arrives in Berlin, the last thing she expects is to run into more drama than she left behind. Of course, she knew she'd need to do the usual: make friends, acquire lovers, grapple with German and a whole new way of life. She even expected the long nights gorging alone on family-sized jars of Nutella, and the pitfalls of online dating in another language. The paranoia, the second-guessing of her every choice, the covert behaviors? Probably come with the territory. But one night, when Daphne is alone in her apartment, something strange, unnerving and entirely unexpected intervenes.
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A modern day Bell Jar!!
- By elizabeth houser on 06-27-24
By: Bea Setton
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Play the Fool
- A Mystery
- By: Lina Chern
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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For Katie True, a keen gut and quick wit are just tools of the trade. After a failed attempt at adulting in Chicago, she’s back in the suburbs living a bit too close to her overbearing parents, jumping from one dead-end job to the next, and flipping through her tarot deck for guidance. Then along comes Marley. Katie thinks that with their friendship, she just might make it through this rough patch after all. Until the day when Katie, encouraged by Marley to practice soothsaying, reads the cards for someone who stumbles into her shop—and finds more than intel for her clairvoyance.
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5 stars
- By Beatrice on 03-31-23
By: Lina Chern
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Our Narrow Hiding Places
- A Novel
- By: Kristopher Jansma
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Eighty-year-old Mieke Geborn’s life is one of quiet routine. Widowed for many years, she enjoys the view from her home on the New Jersey shore, visits with friends, and tai chi at the local retirement community. But when her beloved grandson, Will, and his wife, Teru, show up for a visit, things are soon upended. Their marriage is threatening to unravel, and Will has questions for his grandmother—questions about family secrets that have been lost for decades and are now finally rising to the surface.
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Imagination +History
- By lana on 09-08-24
The humanity of the characters
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The richness of the story and Marcus and his father
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Realistic
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 describes life in exile perfectly
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Poignant vignettes
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Family and tradition woven throughout
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Wonderful
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Beautiful
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Poetic short stories.
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I really enjoyed seeing the world from their different viewpoint as well as the similarities that is just a part of life. Very heartfelt and well written.
Beautiful
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