
Hula
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Mapuana Makia
About this listen
Audiofile Magazine Earphones Award Winner • Named a Best Book of the Summer by Harper's Bazaar and ELLE
“Stunning…an intricately built novel that spans decades, moving in and out of a collective voice, while also telling Hi’i’s deeply personal and devastating story of trying to find her way.” –Los Angeles Times
“A full-throated chant for Hawai'i. . . . It’s impossible to come away unchanged.” —KAWAI STRONG WASHBURN, author of the PEN/Hemingway award-winning Sharks in the Times of Saviors
Set in Hilo, Hawai’i, a sweeping saga of tradition, culture, family, history, and connection that unfolds through the lives of three generations of women—a tale of mothers and daughters, dance and destiny.
“There’s no running away on an island. Soon enough, you end up where you started.”
Hi'i is proud to be a Naupaka, a family renowned for its contributions to hula and her hometown of Hilo, Hawaii, but there’s a lot she doesn’t understand. She’s never met her legendary grandmother and her mother has never revealed the identity of her father. Worse, unspoken divides within her tight-knit community have started to grow, creating fractures whose origins are somehow entangled with her own family history.
In hula, Hi'i sees a chance to live up to her name and solidify her place within her family legacy. But in order to win the next Miss Aloha Hula competition, she will have to turn her back on everything she had ever been taught, and maybe even lose the very thing she was fighting for.
Told in part in the collective voice of a community fighting for its survival, Hula is a spellbinding debut that offers a rare glimpse into a forgotten kingdom that still exists in the heart of its people.
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Such a cute story
- By L. Katz on 03-08-24
By: Sophie Wan
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Honolulu
- By: Alan Brennert
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the 1920s and 1930s, Honolulu explores the stark contrast between the image of the glamorous Hawaiian paradise portrayed to the mainland and the harsh reality of life on the island. With characters as vivid and richly descriptive as the history of Hawaii itself, this novel is sure to enthrall listeners.
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Very Distracting Narrator
- By P Hermes on 05-22-12
By: Alan Brennert
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Sharks in the Time of Saviors
- By: Kawai Strong Washburn
- Narrated by: Jolene Kim, Kaleo Griffith, G. K. Bowes, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends. Nainoa’s family, struggling amidst the collapse of the sugarcane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favor from ancient Hawaiian gods - a belief that appears validated after he exhibits puzzling new abilities.
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Glad This Was Free
- By Shad Huddleston on 04-01-20
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Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Queen Lili'uokalani
- Narrated by: Asia Ring
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In this unusually personal document, Queen Liliʻuokalani paints a detailed picture of life in a royal family—something few such figures ever attempt. She shares important memories from her childhood and chronicles her life on the international stage, beginning with her momentous ascension to the throne and ending with her effective overthrow by American businessmen and politicians who had little interest in maintaining Hawaii’s autonomy.
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There are two versions. This one is better
- By GreatMom on 02-01-23
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Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen
- By: Lili‘uokalani
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1893, Liliuokalani, the Queen of Hawaii, was deposed and five years later her nation became an incorporated territory of the United States. Published shortly after these momentous events, her book Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen is an incredibly personal history of the islands that she was born to rule. Liliuokalani covers from her birth in 1838 through the reigns of her forebears to her own turbulent time as Queen of the Hawaiian Islands.
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Learn to pronounce Hawaiian words before narrating
- By ArchJoanne on 11-15-19
By: Lili‘uokalani
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Moloka’i
- By: Alan Brennert
- Narrated by: Anne Noelani Miyamoto
- Length: 17 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The powerful debut novel from Alan Brennert, Moloka’i tells the story of Rachel Kalama, a seven-year-old Hawaiian girl who contracts leprosy and is quarantined on the island of Moloka’i during the 1890s. Separated from her family and forced to grow up in the leper colony of Kalaupapa, Rachel experiences intense isolation. But she remains strong, finding moments of joy, and even love. Rich in Hawaiian history, this novel proves itself a stellar piece of historical fiction.
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Outstanding Book!
- By David on 08-23-12
By: Alan Brennert
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The Last Bloodcarver
- By: Vanessa Le
- Narrated by: VyVy Nguyen
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In the industrial city of Theumas, Nhika is seen not as a healer, but a monster that kills for pleasure. And in the city's criminal underbelly, the rarest of monsters are traded for gold. When Nhika is finally caught by the infamous Butchers, she's forced to heal the last witness to a high-profile murder.
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great science fiction
- By Chris-chris on 05-21-25
By: Vanessa Le
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Shark Dialogues
- A Novel
- By: Kiana Davenport
- Narrated by: Jolene Kim
- Length: 25 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning with the fateful meeting of a 19th-century Yankee sailor and the runaway daughter of a Tahitian chief, and sweeping over a century and a half of passionate, turbulent Hawaiian history, Shark Dialogues takes its place as the first novel to do justice to the rich heritage and cruel conflicts of the beautiful and beleaguered islands and their people.
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Maika’i
- By Anonymous User on 06-29-23
By: Kiana Davenport
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Five-Star Stranger
- A Novel
- By: Kat Tang
- Narrated by: Julian Cihi
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In an age where online ratings are all-powerful, Five-Star Stranger follows the adventures of a top-rated man on the Rental Stranger app—a place where users can hire a pretend fiancé, a wingman, or an extra mourner for a funeral. Referred to only as Stranger, the narrator navigates New York City under the guise of characters he plays, always maintaining a professional distance from his clients. But, when a nosy patron threatens to upend his long-term role as father to a young girl, Stranger begins to reckon with his attachment to his pretend daughter, her mother, and his own fraught past.
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Had good parts that kept me engaged.
- By C. Dad on 09-06-24
By: Kat Tang
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Lost Kingdom
- Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure
- By: Julia Flynn Siler
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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A thriving monarchy had ruled over Hawaii for generations. Taro fields and fish ponds had long sustained native Hawaiians but sugar plantations had been gradually subsuming them. This fractured, vulnerable Hawaii was the country that Queen Lili‘uokalani, or Lili‘u, inherited when she came to power at the end of the nineteenth century.
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Fascinating story, sparsely told
- By Great Tutu Kona on 01-17-12
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Aloha Betrayed
- Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism
- By: Noenoe K. Silva
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1897, as a White oligarchy made plans to allow the United States to annex Hawai'i, native Hawaiians organized a massive petition drive to protest. Ninety-five percent of the native population signed the petition, causing the annexation treaty to fail in the US Senate. This event was unknown to many contemporary Hawaiians until Noenoe K. Silva rediscovered the petition in the process of researching this book. With few exceptions, histories of Hawai'i have been based exclusively on English-language sources.
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Same story again and again
- By Buretto on 01-28-22
By: Noenoe K. Silva
Interesting
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Beautiful story telling
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Thought-full historical fiction
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Clear-eyed passionate love letter to Hawai’i
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A beautiful adventure
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I found the actual writing and many turn of phrases such as - possible paraphrase;
“she snuck into the room of my head and re-arranged the furniture”
almost life changing. That may sound silly, but it so perfectly describes how someone can have so much influence that you begin doubt your own reality.
The narration is spot-on.
At times I had to re-wind as I became a bit confused, although part of this was due to my lack of familiarity with the Hawaiian words.
I don’t usually like multi generational, female, familiar relationship sagas; but placed in the context of Hawaiian history and cultural atrocities, they represent the effects of that history.
My niece has a PhD re the financial colonization of Latin America, and I believe she will find this book extremely well done. Her mother, my sister, nurtured and encouraged her daughter’s education and world views exactly from books like this.
This would have been one of the best credits I ever spent, oh wait, it was the daily special I think. What a treat.
In summary, I am very impressed with this book, and very much look forward to her next creation.
Note: when the book ended, I immediately started it all over again. Just sayin ☺️
10 STARS
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Rich and complex novel with beautiful writing.
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Beautiful Hawaiian culture explained.
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Finally!!
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Authentic portrayal of the struggle native Hawaiians face
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