Black and Blue
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Narrated by:
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Ruth Ann Phimister
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By:
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Anna Quindlen
About this listen
When 19-year-old Fran married Bobby Benedetto, she never dreamed that she would find herself in an abusive relationship. Every time her New York City policeman husband hit her, she would think of convincing reasons to stay.
Now, with her 10-year-old son in tow, she is running for her life. Living in Florida under an assumed name, she is bravely shaping a new life and dares to believe that, finally, she has escaped from her painful past. Black and Blue is a wise and powerful novel whose protagonists could be the people next door.
An Oprah Book Club® Selection.
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Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy, the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community.
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Obnoxious musical interludes ruin the story
- By Joan on 12-25-11
By: Laura Moriarty
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Tapestry of Fortunes
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Cecilia Ross is looking for a change. She has decided to take time off from her job as a successful motivational speaker and sell her home. She moves in to a beautiful old house in St. Paul, Minnesota, complete with a big front porch, a wild garden, a chef's kitchen - and three roommates. The four women are different ages, but all are feeling restless, and want to take a roadtrip to find the people and things they miss.
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Mellow story
- By Amazon Customer on 04-24-17
By: Elizabeth Berg
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Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See
- By: Juliann Garey
- Narrated by: Dan Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In her tour-de-force first novel, Juliann Garey takes us inside the restless mind, ravaged heart, and anguished soul of Greyson Todd, a successful Hollywood studio executive who leaves his wife and young daughter and for a decade travels the world giving free reign to the bipolar disorder he's been forced to keep hidden for almost 20 years.
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Psychosis or Syphilis?
- By Vira on 04-02-13
By: Juliann Garey
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Orange Mint and Honey
- By: Carleen Brice
- Narrated by: Cherise Booth
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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After grad school, Shay Dixon feels like she's had enough for awhile. Inspired by her spiritual adviser - a soul-soothing blues player named Nina Simon - Shay calls her estranged mother Nona for the first time in years, and shocks herself by asking if it would be okay to come home for a while.
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One For The Money
- By DiaRose on 09-25-17
By: Carleen Brice
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The Untelling
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Michele Blackmon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Aria is no stranger to tragedy. Fifteen years ago, a family outing took the lives of her father and baby sister, leaving remaining members of this fractured family struggling with their own guilt - real and imagined. At 25, Aria believes she can reinvent herself through her planned marriage with all its promise of a family of her own. Her infertility changes her life as swiftly and irrevocably as the urban landscape around her.
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Don’t waste your time!
- By shasha on 09-18-20
By: Tayari Jones
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The Magician's Assistant
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Karen Ziemba
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
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Story
When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
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Patchett Has It
- By Pamela Harvey on 06-10-08
By: Ann Patchett
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The Opposite of Maybe
- By: Maddie Dawson
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Jonathan and Rosie have been together so long they finish each other's sentences - so when he (finally) proposes and asks her to move across the country with him, everyone is happily surprised. But when things suddenly unravel, Rosie sends Jonathan packing and moves back home with Soapie, the irascible, opinionated grandmother who raised her.
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Well written book. The characters grow on you~
- By chatteycathi on 08-01-18
By: Maddie Dawson
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Accidents of Marriage
- By: Randy Susan Meyers
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Maddy is a social worker trying to balance her career and three children. Years ago, she fell in love with Ben, a public defender, drawn to his fiery passion, but now he's lashing out at her during his periodic verbal furies. She vacillates between tiptoeing around him and asserting herself for the sake of their kids - which works to keep a fragile peace - until the rainy day when they're together in the car and Ben's volatile temper gets the best of him, leaving Maddy in the hospital fighting for her life.
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Love Is Not Always Enough
- By Pamela Dale Foster on 11-08-14
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May We Be Forgiven
- By: A. M. Homes
- Narrated by: Andy Paris
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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May We Be Forgiven, a darkly comic novel of 21st-century domestic life, stars Harold Silver, a historian who's always been jealous of his successful brother, George. But when the hot-tempered George is institutionalized for committing a violent act, Harold finds himself comforting his brother's wife and children. What follows is a scathing examination of a family so fractured it may never be whole again.
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Give this one a try!
- By JWB on 02-13-13
By: A. M. Homes
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Great reading, but way too much cut out
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Icy Sparks
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A funny, sad, and transcendent story of a young girl growing up in Appalachia. The New York Times Book Review called this Oprah Book Club selection "vivid and unforgettable."
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Icy made me warm.
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"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy." So begins the tale of Ellen Foster, the brave and engaging heroine of Kaye Gibbons's first novel, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Wise, funny, affectionate and true, Ellen Foster is, as Walker Percy called it, "The real thing. Which is to say, a lovely, sometimes heart/wrenching novel...."
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Great!!
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What listeners say about Black and Blue
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Wendy S.
- 12-24-21
Ending Ruined it for me
She gains her freedom at the price of a sacrifice too grand. Characters were good. Should still listen/read.
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- Amy
- 11-16-12
Sleeping with the Enemy, but better...
What did you like best about this story?
The fact that she got out and tried to make a better life for her and her son. Not sure how I feel about the ending.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Victoria E
- 11-06-21
Great insights on the reality of abuse that is both physical and mental
While reading this book I could relate to the fear that grips a woman in a terrible situation as is described in this writing.
The physical battering, the destruction of self through emotional abuse and the deep fear of living with an unpredictable violent narcissist.
Escape or death are the only options that face too many women.
This was not a book I loved, it is simply a story I absorbed as I felt my heart shattering with every word.
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- Carol Nain
- 10-01-19
Blue Badge
Very good. Completely believable story. Just hoped the ending would have had a solution instead but I have a good imagination.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Rachel Leo
- 04-04-18
Liked the story but the narrator's voice is irritating.
I would of enjoyed this book so much more if the narrator's voice was softer and not so harsh sounding. My daughter agreed with me as well.
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- Pat
- 10-19-13
A Story of Hope
Any additional comments?
Although the story is kind of formulaic (another abused wife whose husband is an insane cop who spends all his time tracking down his runaway wife, ie: Safe Haven), the author gives us characters that seem very real, people you start rooting for. I like that the ending isn't as predictable as I would have thought...meaning it feels more like real life than a perfect storybook ending. You can't go wrong with an Anna Quindlen book.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Natalie M. R. Hernandez
- 08-04-16
Powerful but real
Every woman wants to believe they will never be in 'that' situation and I hope and wish no woman would. However, sometimes you find yourself there. And society has put these thoughts and lies in our heads that its the woman's fault for not leaving. This gives a look from a woman point of view. When everyone says its so easy to leave, would it be that easy if your abusive husband was a cop?
Love the story and how the narrator sets the tone.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joann
- 03-19-21
Heartbreaking
I love Anna Quindlen's work. I can't imagine trying to live like the woman in this story and didn't realize there were people out there actively working to give abused women and their children new identities.
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- Carol T. Carr
- 09-11-12
Another Quindlen Jewel
Spousal abuse is a challenging, difficult topic to both write and read about. I put off reading this book for some time, despite having read several other gems in Quindlen's repertoire and knowing the quality of her work. And though it was still a hard book to take in, the skill with which she developed every character in this book made it well worth the effort. Spousal abuse doesn't happen in a vacuum between a husband and wife; children and families are equally victimized and scarred for life, and Quindlen uses every bit of her remarkable writing expertise to make this point. As well, Quindlen used those skills most effectively to show the birth and evolution of an inherently flawed relationship.
Phimister's verbal portrayal of every character was equally well-done. She captured well the painful suffering and confusion of the main character as well as her moments of joy, but easily slipped into the voice of a Bronx cop, an aged holocaust survivor, an eleven-year old boy and a Southern belle. Her reading was thoughtful and sometimes pensive, totally fitting a story wherein the main character is struggling to understand what happened to her life.
There are some stories in life where there can be no happy ending. This is certainly one of them, but it still ends on a note of realistic hope for the future, and I thank the author for that. I highly recommend this book.
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6 people found this helpful
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- KatrinaD
- 12-05-19
Violence against women remains current and is wonderfully treated in this novel
Anna Quindlen tells the story of a young woman stuck in a marriage where the violence escalates slowly, love rage and anger coexist for more than ten years before Franny escapes with her son. Franny is isolated by her shame although she is “allowed” to work Asdf-2346& a nurse by her cop husband. Her son Robert is the tie that keeps her captive. She knows that her life will be endangered if she leaves.
The dilemma, ambivalence and fear are beautifully described in this novel. Absolutely worth reading and as successful as “One true thing” by the same author
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