
Betty
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Dale Dickey
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By:
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Tiffany McDaniel
About this listen
A stunning, lyrical novel set in the rolling foothills of the Appalachians about a young girl and the family truths that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
“A girl comes of age against the knife.”
So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit in the rural town of Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and violence—both from outside the family and, devastatingly, from within. But despite the hardships she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father’s brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all to which she bears witness, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.
Inspired by generations of her family, Tiffany McDaniel sets out to free the past by delivering this heartbreaking yet magical story—a remarkable novel that establishes her as one of the most important voices in American fiction.
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Critic reviews
One of the Best Books of the Year: The Guardian, Glamour, Goop
An Entertainment Weekly Must-Read
An Indie Next "Great Read for September"
O Magazine's "Best Books to Pick Up Before Summer Ends"
Entertainment Weekly's "20 Late-Summer Must-Reads for August"
E! Online's "17 Books to Check Out Before the End of Summer"
Sheerluxe's "Six New Books to Read This August"
Salon's "Provocative Must-Reads for August"
NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD WINNER
THE SOCIETY OF MIDLAND AUTHORS AWARD WINNER
OHIOANA LIBRARY READERS CHOICE AWARDS WINNER
FRIENDS OF AMERICAN WRITERS CHICAGO WINNER
LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
“The book is rich with the texture of everyday living. It’s these details that sing Betty to life and bring readers fully into the Appalachian landscape and the social milieu of Breathed.” —The Los Angeles Times
“Breathtaking.” —Vogue
“Fierce, vividly realized . . . McDaniel doesn’t shy away from depicting horrors, especially those that breed within a family . . . Betty’s story is searingly hard to bear, but the rewards of getting to know her make up for her pain.” —The Columbus Dispatch
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Story
In this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and best-selling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are "routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied" for speaking out. Contributions include essays from established and up-and-coming writers, performers, and critics.
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definitely an important book
- By nikiverse on 05-25-18
By: Roxane Gay
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The Reformatory
- A Novel
- By: Tananarive Due
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
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Worth a listen
- By LadyLove on 11-07-23
By: Tananarive Due
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One of the Good Guys
- A Novel
- By: Araminta Hall
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick, Olivia Vinall, Helen Keeley
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Desperate to escape the ghosts of his failed marriage, Cole leaves London behind for a remote stretch of coast, relishing the respite from the noise, drama, and relentless careerism that curdled his relationship and mental health. Leonora has made the same move for similar reasons. Though Cole still can’t figure out what went wrong with his marriage, and Leonora is having trouble acclimating to the hostile landscape, the pair forges a connection on the eroding bluff they call home. Then, two young women activists raising awareness about gendered violence disappear while passing through.
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meh.
- By Amazon Customer on 09-17-24
By: Araminta Hall
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My Dark Vanessa
- A Novel
- By: Kate Elizabeth Russell
- Narrated by: Grace Gummer
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, 15-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful 42-year-old English teacher. 2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: Remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past.
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I apologize
- By Judy George on 03-13-20
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The Devil and Mrs. Davenport
- A Novel
- By: Paulette Kennedy
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Missouri, 1955. Loretta Davenport has led an isolated life as a young mother and a wife to Pete, an ambitious assistant professor at a Bible college. They’re the picture of domestic tranquility—until a local girl is murdered and Loretta begins receiving messages from beyond. Pete dismisses them as delusions of a fevered female imagination. Loretta knows they’re real—and frightening.
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I didn’t think I would Like this book
- By Bonnie on 01-14-25
By: Paulette Kennedy
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Nightwatching
- A Novel
- By: Tracy Sierra
- Narrated by: Emily Ellet
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle of the night. She hears a noise—old houses are always making some kind of noise. But this sound is disturbingly familiar: it’s the tread of footsteps, unusually heavy and slow, coming up the stairs. Shrouded in the shadows, she sees the figure of a man appear down the hallway. Terrified, she quietly wakes her children and hustles them into the oldest part of the house, a tiny, secret room concealed behind a wall.
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Opening was grabbing
- By Stephen R Smith on 03-05-24
By: Tracy Sierra
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My Husband
- A Novel
- By: Maud Ventura, Emma Ramadan - translator
- Narrated by: Kiiri Sandy
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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At forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband, whose wealthy background allows her to transcend her own social class. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she’s never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated.
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Mind numbingly boring and shallow.
- By GAYANE TOROSYAN on 10-27-23
By: Maud Ventura, and others
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Writers & Lovers
- A Novel
- By: Lily King
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she has been writing for six years. At 31, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life.
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An absorbing listen
- By Barbara S on 03-08-20
By: Lily King
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Upstream
- Selected Essays
- By: Mary Oliver
- Narrated by: Hala Alyan, Joy Sullivan, Kate Baer
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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“I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.” So begins Upstream, a collection of essays in which revered poet Mary Oliver reflects on her willingness to lose herself within the beauty and mysteries of the natural world and the world of literature. Emphasizing the significance of her childhood “friend” Walt Whitman, who inspired her to vanish into the world of her own writing, Oliver meditates on the forces that allowed her to create a life for herself out of work and love.
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Beautiful essays
- By jessica on 10-17-23
By: Mary Oliver
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Wilder Girls
- By: Rory Power
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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It's been 18 months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine, since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her. It started slow. First the teachers died, one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything. But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her.
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Let’s go lesbians let’s go
- By Sandra Gomez on 07-12-19
By: Rory Power
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Rebecca
- By: Daphne du Maurier
- Narrated by: Anna Massey
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.... The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives - presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.
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Easily the best audiobook I have ever heard!
- By Kid at Heart on 11-10-18
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In Memoriam
- A Novel
- By: Alice Winn
- Narrated by: Christian Coulson
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting. Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle—an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood—without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return
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Amazing
- By Henry on 03-21-23
By: Alice Winn
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The Summer Book
- By: Tove Jansson, Thomas Teal - translator
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Summer Book Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer - its sunlight and storms - into 22 crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia's grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent.
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GORGEOUS. FULL OF GRACE. NEEDED THIS.
- By Annie Armstrong on 04-14-22
By: Tove Jansson, and others
What listeners say about Betty
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- Anonymous User
- 10-09-20
Fantastic storytelling
Betty is a story ultimately about resilience in the face of violence. It’s about family and the flawed people within and their secrets. At times I found that a lot of the characters were hard to like but not hard to love and have some compassion for and some hatred for. At times I found myself having to fast forward, some scenes were too hard to hear and to violent to handle for me. Some left me feeling raw. I always had to prepare myself for the next chapter whether it would be kindness I’d hear or cruelty. Guess that’s how life works sometimes!
Ultimately, I loved this book and I want to get the hard copy!
Dale Dickey did a great job narrating and had a range with the characters. What an amazing voice!!!
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- Sarai
- 05-01-21
Sad but not oppressive
It took me a couple of months to get through this book because there is so much sadness and trauma. But I cared very much for (most of) the characters, so I continued to return. It only gets sadder and sadder with more and more frequency as you get towards the end. It’s not a light read. There is a lot of rhythm to the prose, though delivered by an unconvincing performance. The accent sounds like Appalachia to me? Definitely southern which was a little distracting. But not appallingly so. I recommend.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-19-21
Beautiful Story
For me this was simply a beautiful story that takes its time to unfold. It has characters that are deep that you grow to love and hate. If you’re looking to take your time and just listen to a well crafted story then definitely listen to “Betty”.
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- L. Randall
- 05-26-21
Betty's story
This book was full of devastating truths and darkness. Nothing I love more than a story that doesn't have the typical happy ending. This is based on a true story about a girl growing up with a poor and dysfunctional family that fights every day to survive and they are always fighting their own demons. Betty is the focus of the story and we follow her childhood journey on a bumpy ride. I rooted for Betty, I cried for Betty, I wished a different life for Betty. I felt like I knew her and wanted so badly to protect her. The author is Betty's daughter so this book felt so alive and real.
This book is not for the faint of heart or someone who wants to see a happy family united. It has some events that are hard to read. I would highly suggest reading this book however. It is one that you can't ignore. It makes you feel so many emotions.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-10-23
Beautiful written
This book is a heartfelt story that was beautifully written. I highly recommend this book.
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- Melissa Megan
- 03-17-25
all of it
Beautifully written but tragic story of one little girl who takes on the role of history holder, story teller and secret protector for her family. Have tissue handy, this story is rough, but it's worth the tears. Narration is also top level.
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- Mellatrix
- 01-11-21
Amazing! One of the most beautifully written books I have ever experienced!
Do not miss the opportunity to read or listen to this book. It is fantastic.
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- SistaMoonShine
- 03-23-21
Beautiful Story
yes this a sad story but it's beautifully written. A writer writes to be heard and I am honored to have read this book.
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- Lynn Cornelissen
- 05-26-22
Absolutely incredible
Addictive and bewitching read. I truly couldn’t recommend this book enough. Cannot wait to reread this one.
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- Jessica Cavanaugh
- 01-07-23
Incredible Ride
First, the narrator who read did an amazing job. The story itself is riveting. I cried, I laughed, I cussed out loud, I grieved, and I felt every inch of the words as she spoke them. The writing is beautiful and the story is worth reading. Excellent read for my first book of 2023. I can not wait to read the authors new book On the Savage Side.
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