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House of Sticks
- Narrated by: Ly Tran
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
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Publisher's summary
New York City Book Awards Hornblower Award Winner
One of Vogue and NPR’s Best Books of the Year
This beautifully written “masterclass in memoir” (Elle) recounts a young girl’s journey from war-torn Vietnam to Queens, New York, “showcas[ing] the tremendous power we have to alter the fates of others, step into their lives and shift the odds in favor of greater opportunity” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis).
Ly Tran is just a toddler in 1993 when she and her family immigrate from a small town along the Mekong river in Vietnam to a two-bedroom railroad apartment in Queens. Ly’s father, a former lieutenant in the South Vietnamese army, spent nearly a decade as a POW, and their resettlement is made possible through a humanitarian program run by the US government. Soon after they arrive, Ly joins her parents and three older brothers sewing ties and cummerbunds piece-meal on their living room floor to make ends meet.
As they navigate this new landscape, Ly finds herself torn between two worlds. She knows she must honor her parents’ Buddhist faith and contribute to the family livelihood, working long hours at home and eventually as a manicurist alongside her mother at a nail salon in Brooklyn that her parents take over. But at school, Ly feels the mounting pressure to blend in.
A growing inability to see the blackboard presents new challenges, especially when her father forbids her from getting glasses, calling her diagnosis of poor vision a government conspiracy. His frightening temper and paranoia leave a mark on Ly’s sense of self. Who is she outside of everything her family expects of her?
An “unsentimental yet deeply moving examination of filial bond, displacement, war trauma, and poverty” (NPR), House of Sticks is a timely and powerful portrait of one girl’s coming-of-age and struggle to find her voice amid clashing cultural expectations.
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Black Sunday
- A Novel
- By: Tola Rotimi Abraham
- Narrated by: Liz Femi, Dele Ogundiran, Miebaka Yohannes, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, is drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth. Soon Bibike and Ariyike's father wagers the family home on a sure bet that evaporates like smoke.
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Good Story - Awful accents
- By Tamara C-J on 02-15-21
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He Came in with It
- A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness
- By: Miriam Feldman
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood, where generations enjoy deep roots in old homes, the O’Rourke family fits right in. Miriam and Craig are both artists and their four children carry on the legacy. When their teenage son, Nick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, a tumultuous decade ensues in which the family careens off the conventional course. Like the 10 Biblical plagues, they are hit by one catastrophe after another: violence, evictions, arrests, a suicide attempt, a near-drowning - even cancer and a brain tumor - play against the backdrop of a wild teenage bacchanal.
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So Beautifully Written
- By Michael on 08-01-22
By: Miriam Feldman
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Members Only
- By: Sameer Pandya
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Raj Bhatt is often unsure of where he belongs. Having moved to America from Bombay as a child, he knew few Indian kids. Now middle-aged, he lives mostly happily in California with a job at a university. Still, his white wife seems to fit in better than he does at times, especially at their tennis club, a place he's cautiously come to love. But it's there that, in one week, his life unravels. It begins at a meeting for potential new members: Raj thrills to find an African American couple on the list; he dreams of a more diverse club. But in an effort to connect, he makes a racist joke.
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Stick with it... so worth it!
- By Andrea R Martinez on 09-02-20
By: Sameer Pandya
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The Dark Side of Innocence
- Growing Up Bipolar
- By: Terri Cheney
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times best-selling author blends a pitch-perfect childlike voice with keen adult observation as she shares her heartrending, groundbreaking insider's look into the fascinating and frightening world of childhood bipolar disorder.
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Eye opening
- By Anonymous User on 03-13-23
By: Terri Cheney
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Picture Us in the Light
- By: Kelly Loy Gilbert
- Narrated by: James Chen
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When Danny discovers a taped-up box in his father's closet filled with old letters and a file on a powerful Silicon Valley family, he realizes there's much more to his family's past than he ever imagined. Danny has been an artist for as long as he can remember, and it seems his path is set, with a scholarship to RISD and his family's blessing to pursue the career he's always dreamed of. Still, contemplating a future without his best friend, Harry Wong, by his side makes Danny feel a panic he can barely put into words.
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A poignant, touching novel for the Asian American millennial
- By Jenny on 06-30-23
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A Face for Picasso
- By: Ariel Henley
- Narrated by: Ariel Henley
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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At only eight months old, identical twin sisters Ariel and Zan Henley were diagnosed with Crouzon syndrome — a rare condition where the bones in the head fuse prematurely. They were the first twins known to survive it. Growing up, Ariel and her sister endured numerous medical procedures to keep them alive. Doctors expanded the twins’ skulls and broke bones to make room for their growing organs. After each surgery, the sisters felt like strangers to each other, unable to recognize themselves in the mirror.
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Fantastic
- By Anna McCall on 03-25-24
By: Ariel Henley
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Finding Chika
- A Little Girl, an Earthquake, and the Making of a Family
- By: Mitch Albom
- Narrated by: Mitch Albom
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to The Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Albom operates in Port Au Prince. With no children of their own, the 40-plus children who live, play, and go to school at the orphanage have become family to Mitch and his wife, Janine. But at age five, Chika is suddenly diagnosed with something a doctor there says "no one in Haiti can help you with."
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BUY READ AND RECOMMEND THIS BOOK
- By The Birds. on 11-05-19
By: Mitch Albom
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Ordinary Light
- A Memoir
- By: Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Tracy K. Smith has a fairly typical upbringing in suburban California: the youngest in a family of five children raised with limitless affection and a firm belief in God by a stay-at-home mother and an engineer father. But after spending a summer in Alabama at her grandmother's home, she returns to California with a new sense of what it means for her to be Black: from her mother's memories of picking cotton as a girl in her father's field for pennies a bushel to her parents' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
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Simply spoken - poetic
- By CarolynneRHarris on 04-27-15
By: Tracy K. Smith
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With or Without You
- By: Caroline Leavitt
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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After almost 20 years together, Stella and Simon are starting to run into problems. An up-and-coming rock musician when they first met, Simon has been clinging to dreams of fame even as the possibility of it has grown dimmer, and now that his band might finally be on the brink again, he wants to go on the road, leaving Stella behind.
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not my cup of tea
- By Grekis on 12-23-20
By: Caroline Leavitt
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Black Girls Must Die Exhausted
- A Novel (Black Girls Must Die Exhausted, Book 1)
- By: Jayne Allen
- Narrated by: Marcella Cox
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Tabitha Walker is a black woman with a plan to "have it all." At 33 years old, the checklist for the life of her dreams is well underway. Education? Check. Good job? Check. Down payment for a nice house? Check. Dating marriage material? Check, check, and check. With a coveted position as a local news reporter, a "paper-perfect" boyfriend, and even a standing Saturday morning appointment with a reliable hairstylist, everything seems to be falling into place. Then Tabby receives an unexpected diagnosis, jeopardizing the keystone she took for granted: having children.
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Not What I Expected
- By R. Cartwright on 10-16-21
By: Jayne Allen
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The Fourth Child
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Winter
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of Break in Case of Emergency follows up her the “extraordinary debut” (The Guardian) with a moving novel about motherhood and marriage, adolescence and bodily autonomy, family and love, religion and sexuality, and the delicate balance between the purity of faith and the messy reality of life.
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Just OK - Considered Bailing
- By Madeleine Homan on 04-18-21
By: Jessica Winter
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Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
- By: Danielle Evans
- Narrated by: Daniel Deadwyler, Jeanette Illidge, Je Nie Fleming, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one's sense of identity and the choices one makes.
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things we do to oursekves
- By Jamintel on 02-06-23
By: Danielle Evans
What listeners say about House of Sticks
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Megan
- 04-01-22
Love
I loved this book. It was heartwarming and eye-opening. Really enjoyed that the author was the reader.
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- Anonymous User
- 07-18-21
A story that will change how you view your own life
Michelle Puleio recommended this book to put on my reading list. Never did I think it would make such an impact on my own life. Beautifully written and sometimes hard to listen to Ly Trans words made me see life through her eyes.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mh
- 06-04-21
Loved it!
Ly's memoir narration was captivating and such vividly told. This is my first time finishing an audiobook within just a few days- that's how amazingly written it is. I highly recommend House of Sticks to those that need inspiration. Ly not only overcame tremendous hurdles, but defied the odds with her strength and resilience. Looking forward to future works from Ms. Tran.
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1 person found this helpful
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- JC
- 03-10-23
Captivating
Ly Tran’s story will captivate you as she tells how she made it out alive.
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- Michelle L. White
- 06-22-21
Great memoir with layers of challenges
I enjoyed reading the trials and tribulations from an emigrants perspective. Resettling in another country where your first language isn’t spoken must be difficult. I appreciated And can relate to, Ly’s depression and internal conflict of loving her dad (and understanding his poor choices) balanced with self care and tending to her needs. I enjoyed how she shared female oppression woven throughout, and from Asian perspective; as well as conflict seeing her mom as a victim and wanting to protect her (and understanding how her mom became that way) yet frustrated her mom doesn’t stand up for herself. Many layers, and an informative and thought-provoking read!
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- Emily Hall
- 06-25-22
I Almost Feel Like Crying
Ly's story is extremely relatable, from the content about mental health to struggles with the school system.
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- Lou lou
- 04-26-22
So worth it❣️
This book has touch me so deeply, thank you Ly Tran for never giving up on yourself or this life that is truly a blessing. I can relate to so much of your story, though our lives took different paths, yet we have come full circle to where we were able to shine as we needed to. Keep up this awesome life!
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- Cindy
- 06-13-22
Amazing immigrant story will evoke many emotions
I really enjoy listening to various immigrant memoirs. I'm Chinese and my dad came to the US at age 11. He was mire fortunate than the Tran family. This tale is sad, anger provoking, but ultimately joyful. I always find it interesting how Asian culture with the strong emphasis on filial piety can be so unhealthy and dysfunctional. So much superstition also exists. So much burden is placed on children to help the family that normal childhood doesn't exist. The abject poverty was sad to listen to. I didn't think sweatshop work still existed in the 1990s, albeit in their own home. It was discouraging to hear how the parents continued with the stereotypical work in nail salons and barely scraped by. It was maddening to repeatedly hear the father's ridiculous excuse not to get glasses for Ly, which truly did amount to child neglect and even abuse. Her inability to see correctly mapped out a difficult childhood and I do blame the parents for that. I happen to be a psychologist and although the dad surely had PTSD that does not EXCUSE the way he treated his wife and kids. No wonder she was extremely depressed! I'm glad she had wonderful mentors and advocates who helped her rise above and out of that situation.
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- A. Santoro
- 06-15-22
Fantastic
Such an amazing, well written and well narrated story. Loved it! Highly recommended this audiobook.
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- Gift
- 11-02-22
Great title, but that’s about it.
The author makes a point to say her mother likes to be a martyr, but misses her own accountability chapter after chapter. I really wanted to like this book. I stuck with it as long as I could (chapter 46) but i could not take another min. She admits over and over to telling lie after lie to people trying to help her. She continues to blame everyone around her for her situation. No matter how many kinda people tried to help her, no matter how much free collage and free Pell Grants she burned through, the story never changes. It’s always someone else’s fault! Poor story building adds to the exhausting ride.
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