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Half a Life
- A Memoir
- Narrated by: Darin Strauss
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
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Publisher's summary
National Book Critics Circle Award, Autobiography, 2011
In this powerful, unforgettable memoir, acclaimed novelist Darin Strauss examines the far-reaching consequences of the tragic moment that has shadowed his whole life. In his last month of high school, he was behind the wheel of his dad's Oldsmobile, driving with friends, heading off to play mini-golf. Then: a classmate swerved in front of his car. The collision resulted in her death.
With piercing insight and stark prose, Darin Strauss leads us on a deeply personal, immediate, and emotional journey - graduating high school, going away to college, starting his writing career, falling in love with his future wife, becoming a father. Along the way, he takes a hard look at loss and guilt, maturity and accountability, hope and, at last, acceptance. The result is a staggering, uplifting tour de force.
Look for special features inside, including an interview with Colum McCann.
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Critic reviews
“Darin Strauss has spent a good part of his adult life reliving, regretting and reflecting on a single, split-second incident. Half a Life is a starkly honest account of that fateful moment and his life thereafter . . . penetrating, thought-provoking.”—The Washington Post
“A book that inspires admiration, sentence by sentence . . . This is a memoir in its finest form, a fully imagined and bittersweet book that transcends a single misstep.”—Chicago Tribune
“Painfully raw and beautifully written.”—Los Angeles Times
“A remarkable, beyond-brave memoir.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Lyrical and haunting.”—San Francisco Chronicle
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE PLAIN DEALER
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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- Unabridged
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What does it really mean to be a man? In Man Alive, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer that question by focusing on two of the men who most impacted his life - one, his otherwise ordinary father who abused him as a child, and the other, a mugger who almost killed him. Standing at the brink of the life-changing decision to transition from female to male, McBee seeks to understand these examples of flawed manhood and tells us how a brush with violence sent him on the quest to untangle a sinister past and freed him to become the man he was meant to be.
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Worth a listen
- By Kade on 05-30-18
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Long Time Coming
- By: Edie Claire
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Years and distance kept the memories at bay. But back at home, the past is ready and waiting to haunt her... Eighteen years have passed since Joy's childhood best friend, Jenny, met her death in a tragic car accident just a few days after their senior prom. A broken Joy left their small Kentucky hometown shortly after - determined never to come back. But when her father's illness forces her to return, she realizes that neither time nor distance have truly healed her troubled soul.
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Annoying heroine
- By Ally on 05-22-14
By: Edie Claire
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The Good Byline
- A Riley Ellison Mystery
- By: Jill Orr
- Narrated by: Sarah Naughton
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet Riley Ellison, a smart, quirky, young library assistant who's become known in her hometown of Tuttle Corner, Virginia, as Riley Bless-Her-Heart. Ever since her beloved granddaddy died and her longtime boyfriend broke up with her, Riley has been withdrawing from life. In an effort to rejoin the living, she signs up for an online dating service and tries to reconnect with her childhood best friend, Jordan James, a reporter at the Tuttle Times.
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Entertaining light mystery
- By Elisabeth Carey on 04-13-18
By: Jill Orr
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Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
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Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
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After the Eclipse
- A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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A fierce memoir of a mother's murder, a daughter's coming-of-age in the wake of immense loss, and her ultimate mission to know the woman who gave her life.
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True crime memoir
- By Julie on 11-03-17
By: Sarah Perry
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Home Before Dark
- By: Susan Wiggs
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby Sirois
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In her career as a photojournalist, free-spirited Jessie Ryder has seen the world through her camera lens. But she's never traveled far enough to escape a painful moment that has haunted her for the past 16 years: the day she gave her baby daughter away. Now, facing a life-altering crisis, she's decided to fix the broken pieces of her heart and seek out Lila, even if it means she has to upset the world of Lila's adoptive mother...her very own sister, Luz.
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May Be Susan Wiggs Worst
- By C. Scarborough on 06-24-12
By: Susan Wiggs
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The Keep
- The Adversary Cycle, Book 1
- By: F. Paul Wilson
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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"Something is murdering my men." Thus reads the message received from a Nazi commander stationed in a small castle high in the remote Transylvanian Alps. Invisible and silent, the enemy selects one victim per night, leaving the bloodless and mutilated corpses behind to terrify its future victims. When an elite SS extermination squad is dispatched to solve the problem, the men find something that's both powerful and terrifying. Panicked, the Nazis bring in a local expert on folklore - who just happens to be Jewish - to shed some light on the mysterious happenings.
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At long last, The classic horror novel on Audible
- By Shieldslinger on 07-22-20
By: F. Paul Wilson
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Summer at Willow Lake
- The Lakeshore Chronicles, Book 1
- By: Susan Wiggs
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Real estate expert Olivia Bellamy reluctantly trades a trendy Manhattan summer for her family's old resort camp in the Catskills, where her primary task will be renovating the bungalow colony for her grandparents, who want one last summer together filled with fun, friends and family. A posh resort in its heyday, the camp is now in disarray and Olivia is forced to hire contractor Connor Davis - a still-smoldering flame from her own summers at camp.
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Finding Love at Summer Camp
- By Pamela Dale Foster on 02-13-15
By: Susan Wiggs
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True Biz
- A Novel
- By: Sara Novic
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan, Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges listeners into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they’ll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who’s never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school’s golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the hearing headmistress.
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A good story with added features both intriguing and informational
- By A Signing Mom on 05-15-22
By: Sara Novic
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The Priority List
- A Teacher's Final Quest to Discover Life's Greatest Lessons
- By: David Menasche
- Narrated by: David Menasche
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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David Menasche lived for his work as a high school English teacher. His passion inspired his students, and between lessons on Shakespeare and sentence structure, he forged a unique bond with his kids, buoying them through personal struggles while sharing valuable life lessons.
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Truly Inspiring!!
- By Trish on 07-13-14
By: David Menasche
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The Never List
- By: Koethi Zan
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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For years, Sarah Farber and her best friend, Jennifer, kept what they called the Never List: A list of actions to be avoided at all costs, for safety’s sake. But one night, against their best instincts, they accept a cab ride -one with grave, everlasting consequences. For the next three years, they are held captive with two other girls in a dungeon-like cellar by a connoisseur of sadism. Ten years later, Sarah’s abductor is up for parole and she can no longer ignore the twisted letters he sends to her from prison.
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Excellent Shorter Suspense Novel
- By W Perry Hall on 02-04-14
By: Koethi Zan
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Vivian Apple at the End of the World
- By: Katie Coyle
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Seventeen-year-old Vivian Apple never believed in the evangelical Church of America, unlike her recently devout parents. But when Vivian returns home the night after the supposed 'Rapture,' all that's left of her parents are two holes in the roof. Suddenly, she doesn't know who or what to believe. With her best friend Harp and a mysterious ally, Peter, Vivian embarks on a desperate cross-country road trip through a paranoid and panic-stricken America to find answers.
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juvenile
- By emily on 12-16-19
By: Katie Coyle
What listeners say about Half a Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Barbara
- 12-01-13
In the wrong place at the wrong time
Eighteen year old Strauss was driving to a game of mini-golf when a girl on a bicycle swerved in front of his car. This book is a thoughtful, respectful, and unsparing reflection on his struggle to shape the rest of his life around that single, horrific event.
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- Philippa
- 03-08-12
Penance Finally And Thankfully Meets With Peace
Where does Half a Life rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Hearing Darin narrate his own story added to the power of his extraordinary emotional honesty. I could hear him trying to tell it just the way it happened, and how his life has been shaped by the one split second incident. It resonates with an urgency to communicate the complete truth in so far as it can be remembered and told.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Half a Life?
There were so many, but I think that the occasion when Darin goes to visit the parents of the girl he inadvertently killed, has stayed with me and moved me one of the most. Darin was so courageous in his efforts as a young man whose life has been up ended, to try to interpret and follow through with what he felt was the right thing to do, no matter what the personal cost. As he describes the visit of his younger self it is impossible not to feel some of the pain of those present.
Which scene was your favorite?
The social mine field of the school reunion ten years on was brilliantly portrayed.
Any additional comments?
Aside from the power and impact of the events in the book, I found it to be beautifully written. Darin is a writer who I hadn't yet discovered. I was spell bound with his descriptions and the overall quality of writing. I think that while the book may be a step along the path towards his personal healing and journey, it is a gift to the rest of us. I hope to take lessons from it.
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3 people found this helpful
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- David Sauceda
- 03-12-24
authentic performance
Darin memoir really gave me a sense of perspective on how crucial of a time period adolescence is. The biggest takeaway I have from this book is that what we go through in life becomes us.
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- kristin shelly
- 07-14-24
Excellent writer
Honest account of our very real, lived inner world…. inner world is our true life.
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- Kumputer Mekanik
- 04-03-16
Confused
Why does he not read word for word? Why does he not read some footnotes,but reads others.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Macun
- 01-08-13
Terrible narrator
What disappointed you about Half a Life?
It was very difficult to follow the story with the plain, flat voice
What was most disappointing about Darin Strauss’s story?
Every time I tried to listen to the story I had to change to other, could not stand long time.
Would you be willing to try another one of Darin Strauss’s performances?
No
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1 person found this helpful
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its brevity works in its favor
I have read only a few books like this- which we could call creative non-fiction regarding a death. The other one that comes to mind is "Death be not proud," which is a lot older and about a man who has to witness his young son slowly dying. Then there are fiction versions of books like this, by Richard Ford or more recently "The Fault in Our Stars." This book revolves around a random occurrence as a young girl dies as a result of a collision with the author, the driver of an automobile. Like the other books I've mentioned, I faced the same problem- after a while into the book I found little reason to continue caring. I felt like this would only interest a small audience- of those who lived in this area of America and who were impacted directly by this event. I think a lot of times people feel guilty in disliking someone's naked memoir of such a tragedy. I am not afraid to say that a callous part of me just could not care and I didn't know why I had to walk along with this author through HIS healing process and pay for the experience. With that being said, this is a straight-forward and well-written book. The narration is good. There are a few nuggets of wisdom I did get from the book. I think that other readers might find merit in a book like this. I would not have finished it had it been a 5 hour book. The fact that its 4 hours works in its favor.
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- john
- 02-04-13
Get a Life
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
People that like to live in the past and whine. He killed someone by accident - now he rakes in the dough whinning about it. Sorry I am too busy for your sad life. I would rather have read about the real victim
Has Half a Life turned you off from other books in this genre?
Oh Yes
Would you listen to another book narrated by Darin Strauss?
No thanks - he has a way of ruining your day
What character would you cut from Half a Life?
Darin
Any additional comments?
Don't waste your time unless you like to wallow in misery
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1 person found this helpful
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- Celia S. Gilner
- 10-08-20
Skip it
Going nowhere at a short clipped pace One subject is painstakingly repeated with no resolution and little insight into healing of a guilty conscience A boy kills a girl riding a bike with his car beginning and end of story.
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