Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
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Narrated by:
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Jeff Woodman
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Barbara Caruso
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Richard Ferrone
About this listen
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is a precocious Francophile who idolizes Stephen Hawking and plays the tambourine extremely well. He's also a boy struggling to come to terms with his father's death in the World Trade Center attacks. As he searches New York City for the lock that fits a mysterious key his father left behind, Oskar discovers much more than he could have imagined.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a masterfully imagined novel from an author Time hails as "a certified wunderkind".
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Critic reviews
- 2005 Audie Award Nominee, Multi-Voiced Performance
"Piercing and so funny." (The Bookseller)
"[Oskar's] first-person narration of his journey is arrestingly beautiful, and readers won't soon forget him." (Booklist)
"Jonathan Safran Foer's second novel is everything one hoped it would be: ambitious, pyrotechnic, riddling, and above all...extremely moving. An exceptional achievement." (Salman Rushdie)
"Brilliant....Unafraid to show his traumatized characters' constant groping for emotional catharsis, Foer demonstrates once again that he is one of the few contemporary writers willing to risk sentimentalism in order to address great questions of truth, love, and beauty." (Publishers Weekly)
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With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man—also named Jonathan Safran Foer—sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
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Astounding reading
- By bookworm123abc on 02-10-23
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What Happened to My Sister
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Flock
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Nine-year-old Carrie Parker and her mother, Libby, are making a fresh start in the small town of Hartsville, North Carolina, ready to put their turbulent past behind them. Violence has shattered their family and left Libby nearly unable to cope. And while Carrie once took comfort in her beloved sister, Emma, her mother has now forbidden even the mention of her name. When Carrie meets Ruth, Honor, and Cricket Chaplin, these three generations of warmhearted women seem to have the loving home Carrie has always dreamed of. But as Carrie and Cricket become fast friends, neither can escape the pull of their families' secrets.
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Breathtaking
- By Pink Amy on 03-11-24
By: Elizabeth Flock
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The Good Luck of Right Now
- By: Matthew Quick
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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For 38 years, Bartholomew Neil has lived with his mother. When she gets sick and dies, he has no idea how to be on his own. His redheaded grief counselor, Wendy, says he needs to find his flock and leave the nest. But how does a man whose whole life has been grounded in his mom, Saturday Mass, and the library learn how to fly? Bartholomew thinks he's found a clue when he discovers a "Free Tibet" letter from Richard Gere hidden in his mother's underwear drawer. In her final days, Mom called him Richard - there must be a cosmic connection.
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AMAZING
- By JoAnn on 02-17-14
By: Matthew Quick
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Bright Lights, Big City
- By: Jay McInerney
- Narrated by: Daniel Passer
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The tragicomedy of a young man in New York City, a writer, never named, who works as a fact-checker for a prestigious magazine. He struggles with the reality of his mother's death, alienation, and the seductive pull of drugs and a vibrant nightlife.
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Curiously, mundanely real
- By Amber on 01-07-12
By: Jay McInerney
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Never Change
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A self-anointed spinster at 51, Myra Lipinski is reasonably content with her quiet life, her dog, Frank, and her career as a visiting nurse. But everything changes when Chip Reardon, the golden boy she adored in high school, is assigned as her new patient. Choosing to forgo treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned to his New England hometown to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.
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sweet story and lovely writing
- By LVG on 07-21-22
By: Elizabeth Berg
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The Hour I First Believed
- A Novel
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 25 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When high-school teacher Caelum Quirk and his wife, Maureen, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, while Caelum is away, Maureen finds herself in the library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed. Miraculously, she survives. But when Caelum and Maureen flee to an illusion of safety on the Quirk family's Connecticut farm, they discover that the effects of chaos are not easily put right.
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excellent all around yarn
- By G. on 01-10-09
By: Wally Lamb
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The Leaving
- By: Tara Altebrando
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Eleven years ago, six kindergartners went missing without a trace. After all that time, the people left behind moved on, or tried to, until today. Today five of those kids returned. But as details of the disappearance begin to unfold, no one is prepared for the truth. This unforgettable novel with its rich characters, high stakes, and plot twists will leave listeners breathless.
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Plot Twist
- By Josh F. on 01-07-21
By: Tara Altebrando
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The Night Ocean
- By: Paul La Farge
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Marina Willett, MD, has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends - or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears.
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Frustratingly Uneven Due to Clumsy Plot Structure
- By Adam on 06-15-17
By: Paul La Farge
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The Name of the Star
- Shades of London, Book 1
- By: Maureen Johnson
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London marks a memorable occasion. For Rory, it’s the start of a new life at a London boarding school. But for many, this will be remembered as the day a series of brutal murders broke out across the city - gruesome crimes mimicking the horrific work of Jack the Ripper in the autumn of 1888. Soon “Rippermania” takes hold of modern-day London, and the police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man police believe to be the prime suspect.
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Paranormal Ripper-Related YA
- By Amy on 08-05-14
By: Maureen Johnson
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Second Hand Heart
- By: Catherine Ryan Hyde
- Narrated by: Khristine Hvam, Anthony Bowden
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Vida is only 19, but she knows a lot about dying. Her weak heart has kept her on the edge of death her whole life. It hasn't been much of a life. Thanks to her overprotective mother, Vida's only friend is Esther, an elderly Holocaust survivor who lives upstairs. Vida's heart is finally about to give out unless she can get a donor heart in time. Richard is 36 and blissfully married until he gets the call that his beloved wife has died in a car accident. His world falls to pieces.
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Worst one yet
- By SAL on 06-23-16
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Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
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Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
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With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man—also named Jonathan Safran Foer—sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
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Astounding reading
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Here I Am
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How do we fulfill our conflicting duties as father, husband, and son; wife and mother; child and adult? Jew and American? How can we claim our own identities when our lives are linked so closely to others’? These are the questions at the heart of Jonathan Safran Foer’s first novel in eleven years—a work of extraordinary scope and heartbreaking intimacy. Unfolding over four tumultuous weeks in present-day Washington, D.C., Here I Am is the story of a fracturing family in a moment of crisis.
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Wonderful novel marred by imperfect narration
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Burned
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Raised in a stern, abusive Mormon household, a teenage girl starts to question her religion and struggles to find her destiny.
Her father is abusive, her mother is submissive, and her church looks the other way. Confused and angry, Pattyn Von Stratten acts out and is sent to live with an aunt on a Nevada ranch. She finds the love and acceptance she craves, with disturbing consequences.
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I cried
- By Anonymous User on 04-28-17
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Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood - facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf - his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong.
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Surprisingly Even-Handed
- By Natalie on 10-27-11
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The Truth about Alice
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Everyone knows Alice slept with two guys at one party. When Healy High star quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons dies in a car crash, it was because he was sexting with Alice. Ask anybody. Rumor has it Alice Franklin is a slut. It's written all over the "slut stall" in the girls' bathroom: "Alice had sex in exchange for math test answers" and "Alice got an abortion last semester." After Brandon dies, the rumors start to spiral out of control.
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Surprised but I liked it!
- By Yikes on 11-11-15
By: Jennifer Mathieu
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What My Mother Doesn't Know
- By: Sonya Sones
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My name is Sophie. This book is about me. It tells the heart-stoppingly riveting story of my first love. And also of my second. And, okay, my third love, too.
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loved it.
- By DangerMouse on 11-07-09
By: Sonya Sones
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Everything Is Illuminated
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With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man—also named Jonathan Safran Foer—sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
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Astounding reading
- By bookworm123abc on 02-10-23
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Here I Am
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- Length: 16 hrs and 59 mins
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Overall
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How do we fulfill our conflicting duties as father, husband, and son; wife and mother; child and adult? Jew and American? How can we claim our own identities when our lives are linked so closely to others’? These are the questions at the heart of Jonathan Safran Foer’s first novel in eleven years—a work of extraordinary scope and heartbreaking intimacy. Unfolding over four tumultuous weeks in present-day Washington, D.C., Here I Am is the story of a fracturing family in a moment of crisis.
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Wonderful novel marred by imperfect narration
- By Sara23 on 09-30-16
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Burned
- By: Ellen Hopkins
- Narrated by: Laura Flanagan
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Raised in a stern, abusive Mormon household, a teenage girl starts to question her religion and struggles to find her destiny.
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I cried
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Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood - facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf - his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong.
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Surprisingly Even-Handed
- By Natalie on 10-27-11
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The Truth about Alice
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Everyone knows Alice slept with two guys at one party. When Healy High star quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons dies in a car crash, it was because he was sexting with Alice. Ask anybody. Rumor has it Alice Franklin is a slut. It's written all over the "slut stall" in the girls' bathroom: "Alice had sex in exchange for math test answers" and "Alice got an abortion last semester." After Brandon dies, the rumors start to spiral out of control.
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Surprised but I liked it!
- By Yikes on 11-11-15
By: Jennifer Mathieu
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What My Mother Doesn't Know
- By: Sonya Sones
- Narrated by: Kate Reinders
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My name is Sophie. This book is about me. It tells the heart-stoppingly riveting story of my first love. And also of my second. And, okay, my third love, too.
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loved it.
- By DangerMouse on 11-07-09
By: Sonya Sones
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We Are the Weather
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In We Are the Weather, Jonathan Safran Foer explores the central global dilemma of our time in a surprising, deeply personal, and urgent new way. Some people reject the fact, overwhelmingly supported by scientists, that our planet is warming because of human activity. But do those of us who accept the reality of human-caused climate change truly believe it? If we did, surely we would be roused to act on what we know.
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Disappointing
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Two Boys Kissing
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Based on true events - and narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS - Two Boys Kissing follows Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record. While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teens dealing with universal questions of love, identity, and belonging.
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A Powerful Book with a Unique Voice
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Almost Perfect
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Everyone has that one line they swear they’ll never cross, the one thing they say they’ll never do. We draw the line. Maybe we even believe it. Sage Hendricks was my line. Logan Witherspoon befriends Sage Hendricks at a time when he no longer trusts or believes in people. He's drawn to Sage, with her constant smile and sexy voice, and his feelings for her grow so strong that he can’t resist kissing her. Sage finally discloses a big secret: She was born a boy. Enraged, frightened, and feeling betrayed, Logan lashes out at her.
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Takes teen angst to a new level
- By Melanie on 06-08-12
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The Kingdom of Little Wounds
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Story
On the eve of Princess Sophia’s wedding, the Scandinavian city of Skyggehavn prepares to fete the occasion with a sumptuous display of riches. Yet beneath the veneer of celebration, a shiver of darkness creeps through the palace halls. A mysterious illness plagues the royal family, threatening the lives of the throne’s heirs, and a courtier’s wolfish hunger for the king’s favors sets a devious plot in motion.
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Not for a very wide audience
- By Sarah Dumoulin on 02-06-14
By: Susann Cokal
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The Nowhere Girls
- By: Amy Reed
- Narrated by: Rebekkah Ross
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Three misfits come together to avenge the rape of a fellow classmate and in the process trigger a change in the misogynist culture at their high school, transforming the lives of everyone around them in this searing and timely story.
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Good book but bad audio quality
- By Sara Jones on 11-30-18
By: Amy Reed
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The Traitor's Kiss
- Traitor's Trilogy, Book 1
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
With a sharp tongue and an unruly temper, Sage Fowler is not what they'd call a lady, which is perfectly fine with her. Deemed unfit for marriage, Sage is apprenticed to a matchmaker and tasked with wrangling other young ladies to be married off for political alliances. She spies on the girls - and on the soldiers escorting them. As the girls' military escort senses a political uprising, Sage is recruited by a handsome soldier to infiltrate the enemy ranks.
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It was ok, but i didn't even finish it
- By Guy A on 10-14-17
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone has Asperger's Syndrome, a condition similar to autism. He doesn't like to be touched or meet new people, he cannot make small talk, and he hates the colors brown and yellow. He is a math whiz with a very logical brain who loves solving puzzles that have definite answers.
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A Different View of the World
- By Alan on 05-19-04
By: Mark Haddon
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Dreaming in Cuban
- By: Cristina García
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo, Marisa Blake, Anthony Lee Medina, and others
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- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times).
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Too hard to follow
- By J. Freeman on 06-03-23
By: Cristina García
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Bless Me, Ultima
- By: Rudolfo Anaya
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- Unabridged
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Story
As Tony follows his own path toward adulthood, he relies on the wisdom of Ultima, a magical healer, to forge his unique identity. With hundreds of thousands of copies in print, Bless Me, Ultima has been called the most widely read Mexican-American novel in the English language. Richly evocative, it has earned its place among the classics of modern literature, even drawing favorable comparisons to Herman Melville's legendary Moby Dick.
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Modern classic - but prepare to think
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Atonement
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Atonement, three children lose their innocence, as the sweltering summer heat bears down on the hottest day in 1935, and their lives are changed forever. Cecilia Tallis is of England's priviledged class; Robbie Turner is the housekeeper's son. In their moment of intimate surrender, they are interrupted by Cecilia's hyperimaginative and scheming 13-year-old sister, Briony. And as chaos consumes the family, Briony commits a crime, the guilt of which she shall carry throughout her life.
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An amazing book about complex human perception
- By Amazon Customer on 08-17-04
By: Ian McEwan
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Crank
- By: Ellen Hopkins
- Narrated by: Laura Flanagan
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, she meets a boy who introduces her to crank. At first she finds it freeing, but soon Kristina's personality disappears inside the drug. What began as a wild, ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul, and her life.
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Good just not for kids
- By Cindy Brown on 10-21-08
By: Ellen Hopkins
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We Are the Ants
- By: Shaun David Hutchinson
- Narrated by: Gibson Frazier
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. Only he isn't sure he wants to. After all, life hasn't been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer's.
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Evocative and moving
- By S. Yates on 06-17-17
What listeners say about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Catherine
- 05-17-05
Solid Novel - Only a Few Imperfections
This was my first Audible audio book and I was pleasantly surprised. EL&IC follows the story of young Oskar Schell on a quest that he believes will help him feel closer to his father who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. I've been told that this is a book that's best read, not heard, but the three narrators were great actors and conveyed much more than I would have thought they could.
The story is told through narratives by the three main characters; Oskar, his paternal grandfather and his paternal grandmother. The narrative shifts from character to character, always without warning and sometimes at jarring times. I found some narratives more compelling than others, growing weary about midway through the book of listening to Oskar's grandfather's narrative, but as the book approached resolution I found his narrative fascinating again.
Occasionally the story was slow. Occasionally it was repetitive to the point of minor annoyance. Occasionally I found myself thinking that Oskar's many idiosyncracies felt horribly contrived. But as the narrative closed, I found myself wanting to learn more about quirky young Oskar and his world. It was well worth the listen.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Jan
- 02-15-13
This is a keeper, I will listen again.
PG-13 read (some swearing, some sex, mature themes), quirky, woven, generational, profound. Excellent writing. Could have been a depressing book... and I did have a good cry part way through... but laughed enough to offset and the reading enriched my heart.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Adam
- 08-11-19
extremely important and incredibly monumental
The narrations keep the listeners on their feet as the grandma, the grandpa, and the kid voice their own braided plots. The cleverness of words is, in many places, brilliant and memorable. Recording quality has no hissing or irritating signs of amateurism. What I think is so monumental about this book is that it truly empathizes with the innocent victims of the terrorist attack. It also teaches adults what it can be like inside the mind of a highly sensitive, somewhat special needs child.
Again, this book took me back to 18 years ago when I had not even heard of the terrorists responsible for the attack on the Twin Towers, and I was left asking what did I do? What do we have to do with anything? That was an eye-opening day for me that, even as an educated adult, I was completely ignorant of the secret wars waged between governments and how the people themselves really do not know the "chess players" are doing with us as their pieces. We think we have free will and struggle to make the right or at least the best decisions, but unbeknownst to us, we steer ourselves within climates chosen for us.
I related to many of the characters and will not spoil their secrets, but I will say that an underlying theme among many of them is that of forgiveness, not just against the obvious but even for loved ones and ourselves. Forgiving ourselves is often a merciless judgment.
My favorite character is the kid, and he does vary from child to adult in his ponderings, hovering often in a whirlpool of adolescence complete with dabbling in vulgarity but in a way portrayed artistically by the writer. I plan to listen to more by this author.
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Overall
- G Reinhardt
- 08-02-10
Unique, interesting, tortured
This novel is written from the perspective of three different characters, all of whom have experienced trauma and all of whom live with some level of dysfunction. I found myself thoroughly enthralled in each of the characters and despite the incredible sadness each of these characters faced throughout their life times, I felt myself wanted to know what happened next on their crazy ride (vs. curling up in a ball and crying with them). I whole-heartedly recommend this book!
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Performance
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- KSQ
- 03-15-12
Beautiful
What made the experience of listening to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close the most enjoyable?
I was so moved by this elegantly told love story. The relationships are complex and each character's story is unique but completely accessible and relatable. From losing a loved one to finding stability among chaos, the story touches the most basic human experiences...love and loss and the beauty and fear behind both. The performers that brought each character to life were equally brilliant. Wonderful.
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- ms coffee
- 01-02-14
Enjoyable read
If you could sum up Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in three words, what would they be?
It is much better than the movie
Who was the most memorable character of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and why?
Oskar!
You will fall in love with his character.
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- Ryan
- 10-15-16
Wow
This book had some of the most hillarious and some of the most sad moments.
The book was great.
My favorite lines:
"My greatest regret is how much I believed in the future."
"It's not a horrible world, but it's filled with a lot of horrible people."
"It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss".
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- Carla
- 11-23-13
I hoped for the best - and got it!!
I loved this book - not the weird parts but thankfully they were few and far between. Mostly it was lovely and sad and really well written and well performed.
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- joker_style_infinite
- 10-27-17
Great audiobook.
The dialogue he has with all the people he meets randomly is pretty great. Found myself going from happy to sad but being alright.
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- kristen Campbell
- 09-24-20
Profoundly Thought Prevoking
This novel leaves one conflicted with a plethora of emotion. I found myself thinking about it often. The performances are wonderful and I felt fully immersed. 10/10
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