Everything We Never Had
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
JB Tadena
-
Ramón de Ocampo
-
Manny Jacinto
-
Jesse Inocalla
-
By:
-
Randy Ribay
About this listen
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD!
From the author of the National Book Award finalist Patron Saints of Nothing comes an emotionally charged, moving novel about four generations of Filipino American boys grappling with identity, masculinity, and their fraught father-son relationships.
Watsonville, 1930. Francisco Maghabol barely ekes out a living in the fields of California. As he spends what little money he earns at dance halls and faces increasing violence from white men in town, Francisco wonders if he should’ve never left the Philippines.
Stockton, 1965. Between school days full of prejudice from white students and teachers and night shifts working at his aunt’s restaurant, Emil refuses to follow in the footsteps of his labor organizer father, Francisco. He’s going to make it in this country no matter what or who he has to leave behind.
Denver, 1983. Chris is determined to prove that his overbearing father, Emil, can’t control him. However, when a missed assignment on “ancestral history” sends Chris off the football team and into the library, he discovers a desire to know more about Filipino history―even if his father dismisses his interest as unamerican and unimportant.
Philadelphia, 2020. Enzo struggles to keep his anxiety in check as a global pandemic breaks out and his abrasive grandfather moves in. While tensions are high between his dad and his lolo, Enzo’s daily walks with Lolo Emil have him wondering if maybe he can help bridge their decades-long rift.
Told in multiple perspectives, Everything We Never Had unfolds like a beautifully crafted nesting doll, where each Maghabol boy forges his own path amid heavy family and societal expectations, passing down his flaws, values, and virtues to the next generation, until it’s up to Enzo to see how he can braid all these strands and men together.
©2024 Randy Ribay (P)2024 Listening LibraryCritic reviews
2024 National Book Awards Young People’s Literature Longlist
National Indie Bestsellers list (debuted at #15)
★ “[An] emotionally resonant tale…Compact storytelling richly layered with Filipino American culture and history provides the backdrop for each father-son relationship as the Maghabols confront personal and familial expectations in both past and present narratives.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ "Told in alternating viewpoints, this strongly characterized novel covers the boys’ struggles with identity against the backdrop of changes in American society. The many heartwarming and heartbreaking moments offer deep insights into intergenerational patterns and how one’s life experiences and upbringing affect parenting and relationships….A powerful and moving family saga."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
★ “Entwined and exquisite like a taut braid, the narrative expertly weaves the lives of these fathers and sons into a powerful family drama centered on one family's Filipino American experience. Even more impressive than Ribay’s ability to balance four separate point-of-view characters is the way the story immerses the reader in each character’s time period…Ribay vividly and honestly brings these settings to life so the reader can better understand how the characters’ worlds shape them.”—Booklist, starred review
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Buffalo Dreamer
- By: Violet Duncan
- Narrated by: Ashley Callingbull
- Length: 2 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Summer and her family always spend relaxed summers in Alberta, Canada, on the reservation where her mom’s family lives. But this year is turning out to be an eye-opening one. First, Summer has begun to have vivid dreams in which she's running away from one of the many real-life residential schools that tore Native children from their families and tried to erase their Native identities. Not long after that, she learns that unmarked children’s graves have been discovered at the school her grandpa attended as a child.
-
-
Beautiful Story
- By Jennifer on 09-13-24
By: Violet Duncan
-
Patron Saints of Nothing
- By: Randy Ribay
- Narrated by: Ramón de Ocampo
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story. Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth - and the part he played in it.
-
-
Touching and informative
- By Pedro Navejas on 07-09-19
By: Randy Ribay
-
Ariel Crashes a Train
- By: Olivia A. Cole
- Narrated by: Olivia A. Cole
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ariel is afraid of her own mind. She already feels like she is too big, too queer, too rough to live up to her parents' exacting expectations, or to fit into what the world expects of a “good girl.” And as violent fantasies she can’t control take over every aspect of her life, she is convinced something much deeper is wrong with her. Ever since her older sister escaped to college, Ariel isn't sure if her careful rituals and practiced distance will be enough to keep those around her safe anymore.
By: Olivia A. Cole
-
Wild Dreamers
- By: Margarita Engle
- Narrated by: Zac Aleman, Andre Bellido, Alejandra Reynoso
- Length: 2 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ana and her mother have been living out of their car ever since her militant father became one of the FBI’s most wanted. Leandro has struggled with debilitating anxiety since his family fled Cuba on a perilous raft. One moonlit night, in a wilderness park in California, Ana and Leandro meet. Their connection is instant—a shared radiance that feels both scientific and magical. Then they discover they are not alone: a huge mountain lion stalks through the trees, one of many wild animals whose habitat has been threatened by humans.
-
-
Complexity of Growing up as a Dreamer
- By Jeanie Lemon on 07-02-24
By: Margarita Engle
-
The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky
- By: Josh Galarza
- Narrated by: Robb Moreira
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ever since cancer invaded his adoptive mother’s life, Brett feels like he’s losing everything, most of all control. To cope, Brett fuels all of his anxieties into epic fantasies, including his intergalactic Kid Condor comic book series, which features food constellations and characters not unlike those in his own life. But lately Brett’s grip on reality has started to lose its hold. The fictions he’s been telling himself—about his unattractive body, the feeling that he’s a burden to his best friend, that he’s too messed up to be loved—have consumed him completely.
-
-
Original, Heartfelt, Healing - Awesomely Creative and Often Hilarious
- By ALS on 08-02-24
By: Josh Galarza
-
The First State of Being
- By: Erin Entrada Kelly
- Narrated by: Ramon de Ocampo
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's August 1999. For twelve-year-old Michael Rosario, life at Fox Run Apartments in Red Knot, Delaware, is as ordinary as ever—except for the looming Y2K crisis and his overwhelming crush on his fifteen-year-old babysitter, Gibby. But when a disoriented teenage boy named Ridge appears out of nowhere, Michael discovers there is more to life than stockpiling supplies and pining over Gibby.
-
-
Great, diverse, very different plot!
- By pamela miller on 04-16-24
-
Buffalo Dreamer
- By: Violet Duncan
- Narrated by: Ashley Callingbull
- Length: 2 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Summer and her family always spend relaxed summers in Alberta, Canada, on the reservation where her mom’s family lives. But this year is turning out to be an eye-opening one. First, Summer has begun to have vivid dreams in which she's running away from one of the many real-life residential schools that tore Native children from their families and tried to erase their Native identities. Not long after that, she learns that unmarked children’s graves have been discovered at the school her grandpa attended as a child.
-
-
Beautiful Story
- By Jennifer on 09-13-24
By: Violet Duncan
-
Patron Saints of Nothing
- By: Randy Ribay
- Narrated by: Ramón de Ocampo
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story. Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth - and the part he played in it.
-
-
Touching and informative
- By Pedro Navejas on 07-09-19
By: Randy Ribay
-
Ariel Crashes a Train
- By: Olivia A. Cole
- Narrated by: Olivia A. Cole
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ariel is afraid of her own mind. She already feels like she is too big, too queer, too rough to live up to her parents' exacting expectations, or to fit into what the world expects of a “good girl.” And as violent fantasies she can’t control take over every aspect of her life, she is convinced something much deeper is wrong with her. Ever since her older sister escaped to college, Ariel isn't sure if her careful rituals and practiced distance will be enough to keep those around her safe anymore.
By: Olivia A. Cole
-
Wild Dreamers
- By: Margarita Engle
- Narrated by: Zac Aleman, Andre Bellido, Alejandra Reynoso
- Length: 2 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ana and her mother have been living out of their car ever since her militant father became one of the FBI’s most wanted. Leandro has struggled with debilitating anxiety since his family fled Cuba on a perilous raft. One moonlit night, in a wilderness park in California, Ana and Leandro meet. Their connection is instant—a shared radiance that feels both scientific and magical. Then they discover they are not alone: a huge mountain lion stalks through the trees, one of many wild animals whose habitat has been threatened by humans.
-
-
Complexity of Growing up as a Dreamer
- By Jeanie Lemon on 07-02-24
By: Margarita Engle
-
The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky
- By: Josh Galarza
- Narrated by: Robb Moreira
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ever since cancer invaded his adoptive mother’s life, Brett feels like he’s losing everything, most of all control. To cope, Brett fuels all of his anxieties into epic fantasies, including his intergalactic Kid Condor comic book series, which features food constellations and characters not unlike those in his own life. But lately Brett’s grip on reality has started to lose its hold. The fictions he’s been telling himself—about his unattractive body, the feeling that he’s a burden to his best friend, that he’s too messed up to be loved—have consumed him completely.
-
-
Original, Heartfelt, Healing - Awesomely Creative and Often Hilarious
- By ALS on 08-02-24
By: Josh Galarza
-
The First State of Being
- By: Erin Entrada Kelly
- Narrated by: Ramon de Ocampo
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's August 1999. For twelve-year-old Michael Rosario, life at Fox Run Apartments in Red Knot, Delaware, is as ordinary as ever—except for the looming Y2K crisis and his overwhelming crush on his fifteen-year-old babysitter, Gibby. But when a disoriented teenage boy named Ridge appears out of nowhere, Michael discovers there is more to life than stockpiling supplies and pining over Gibby.
-
-
Great, diverse, very different plot!
- By pamela miller on 04-16-24
-
The Unboxing of a Black Girl
- By: Angela Shanté
- Narrated by: Angela Shanté
- Length: 1 hr and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in New York City in the ’90s, Angela Shanté’s poems and stories paint a mosaic of childhood that is shaped by the past and reverberates into the present. As Shanté navigates the city through memory, this timeless book illuminates the places where Black girls are nurtured or boxed in, through stories and poems about expectations, exploitation, love, loss, and self-realization.
By: Angela Shanté
-
Mid-Air
- By: Alicia D. Williams
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s the last few months of eighth grade, and Isaiah feels lost. He thought his summer was going to be him and his boys Drew and Darius, hanging out, doing wheelies, watching martial arts movies, and breaking tons of Guinness World Records before high school. But now, more and more, Drew seems to be fading from their friendship, and though he won’t admit it, Isaiah knows exactly why. Because Darius is…gone.
-
Kareem Between
- By: Shifa Saltagi Safadi
- Narrated by: Peter Romano
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventh grade begins, and Kareem’s already fumbled it. His best friend moved away, he messed up his tryout for the football team, and because of his heritage, he was voluntold to show the new kid—a Syrian refugee with a thick and embarrassing accent—around school. Just when Kareem thinks his middle school life has imploded, the hotshot QB promises to get Kareem another tryout for the squad. There’s a catch: to secure that chance, Kareem must do something he knows is wrong.
-
Libertad
- By: Bessie Flores Zaldívar
- Narrated by: Spring Inés Peña
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the contentious 2017 presidential election looms and protests rage across every corner of the city, life in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, churns louder and faster. For her part, high school senior Libertad (Libi) Morazán takes heart in writing political poetry for her anonymous Instagram account and a budding romance with someone new. But things come to a head when Mami sees texts on her phone mentioning a kiss with a girl and Libi discovers her beloved older brother, Maynor, playing a major role in the protests.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Daniela on 09-16-24
-
Come Out, Come Out
- By: Natalie C. Parker
- Narrated by: Jeremy Carlisle Parker
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's never been safe for Fern, Jaq, or Mallory to come out to their families. As kids their emerging identities drove them into friendship but also forced them into the woods to hide in an old, abandoned house when they needed safety. But one night when the girls sought refuge, Mallory never made it back home. Fern and Jaq did, but neither survivor remembered what happened or the secrets they were so desperate to keep. Five years later, a spirit who looks like Mallory begins to appear, seeking revenge for her death, and the part Fern and Jaq played in it.
-
Mysterious Ways
- A Novel
- By: Wendy Wunder
- Narrated by: Georgina Sadler
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventeen-year-old Maya knows everything. When she looks at someone, she instantly knows their history, their private thoughts, their secret desires, their most tragic failures. Combine these private miseries with the general state of the world, and it's easy to see why Maya's power starts to get her down… Which is why she was sent to the Whispering Pines Psychiatric Facility, and also why starting at a new school is going to be such a challenge. Now, faced with Tyler, a cute guy she actually wants to know everything about, Maya realizes that maybe her power isn't so horrible after all.
-
-
Humor!
- By TRM on 10-01-24
By: Wendy Wunder
-
Free Period
- By: Ali Terese
- Narrated by: Josephine Huang, Cassandra Cassandra
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helen and Gracie are pranking their way through middle school when a stinky stunt lands them in the front office—again. Because nothing else has curbed their chaos, the principal orders the best friends to do the unthinkable: care about something. So they join the school's Community Action Club with plans to do as little as humanly possible. But when Helen is caught unprepared by an early period and bleeds through her pants— they were gold lamé!—the girls take over the club's campaign for maxi pads in bathrooms for all students who menstruate.
By: Ali Terese
-
Sync
- By: Ellen Hopkins
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Alexandra Ryan
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventeen-year-old twins Storm and Lake have always been in perfect sync. They faced the worst a parent could do and survived it together. In the wake of their mother’s rejection, they’ve spent the last five years moving from foster home to foster home—sometimes placed together, sometimes apart. After being separated from his sister once again, Storm is devastated. He’s the older brother and promised to always take care of Lake. But after a stint in juvie, his newest placement has him feeling almost hopeful.
-
-
Another beautiful story about ugly situations.
- By Cheyenne Aldridge on 10-31-24
By: Ellen Hopkins
-
Orbiting Jupiter
- By: Gary D. Schmidt
- Narrated by: Zachary Roe
- Length: 2 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at 13 who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he’s placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, meets 12-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost. In this riveting novel, two boys discover the true meaning of family and the sacrifices it requires.
By: Gary D. Schmidt
-
With Love, Echo Park
- By: Laura Taylor Namey
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventeen-year-old Clary is set to inherit her family’s florist shop, La Rosa Blanca—one of the last remnants of the Cuban business district that once thrived in Los Angeles’s Echo Park neighborhood. Clary knows Echo Park is where she’ll leave a legacy, and nothing is more important to her than keeping the area’s unique history alive.
-
Compound Fracture
- By: Andrew Joseph White
- Narrated by: Dani Martineck
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him. The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement.
-
-
disturbingly well-done
- By AndRhysHend on 11-21-24
-
The Brightwood Code
- By: Monica Hesse
- Narrated by: Saydee Dickinson
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seven months ago, Edda was on the World War I front lines as one of two hundred “Hello Girls,” female switchboard operators employed by the US Army. She spent her nights memorizing secret connection codes to stay ahead of spying enemies, and her days connecting vital calls between platoons and bases and generals, all trying to survive—and win—a brutal war. Their lives were in Edda’s hands, and one day, in fateful seconds, everything went wrong.
-
-
An Unusual Topic
- By Avid series reader on 09-01-24
By: Monica Hesse
What listeners say about Everything We Never Had
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 09-05-24
Stirring literary YA for the post-pandemic world
This was powerful in a more subdued, subtextual way than Patron Saints of Nothing. The characters are super-believable and well developed, and the descriptions are perfectly balanced, exulting in the poignance of the smallest everyday moments as they paint their long arc across four generations. If you're into powerful family chronicles and/or pandemic-era lit, this is the best of both worlds.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!