
I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness
A Novel
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
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

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:
-
Kristen Sieh
About this listen
Named a Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post, Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Esquire, and Kirkus
“There’s some kind of genius sorcery in this novel. It’s startlingly original, hilarious and harrowing by turns, finally transcendent. Watkins writes like an avenging angel. It's thrilling and terrifying to stand in her wake.” (Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation and Weather)
A darkly funny, soul-rending novel of love in an epoch of collapse - one woman’s furious revisiting of family, marriage, work, sex, and motherhood.
Since my baby was born, I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things. a) As much as I ever did. b) Not quite as much now. c) Not so much now. d) Not at all. Leaving behind her husband and their baby daughter, a writer gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump and a spiraling case of postpartum depression. Her temporary escape from domestic duties and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends mutates into an extended romp away from the confines of marriage and motherhood, and a seemingly bottomless descent into the past. Deep in the Mojave Desert where she grew up, she meets her ghosts at every turn: the first love whose self-destruction still haunts her; her father, a member of the most famous cult in American history; her mother, whose native spark gutters with every passing year. She can’t go back in time to make any of it right, but what exactly is her way forward? Alone in the wilderness, at last she begins to make herself at home in the world.
Bold, tender, and often hilarious, I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness reaffirms Watkins as one of the signal writers of our time.
©2021 Claire Vaye Watkins (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Battleborn
- By: Claire Vaye Watkins
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Morgan Hallett, Laura Knight Keating, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it.
-
-
Wonderful magnificent stories beautifully told
- By Pedro Ramirez on 12-03-15
-
No One Is Talking About This
- A Novel
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void.
-
-
Funny, moving, glad to have read it
- By Terra on 05-26-21
-
A Visit from the Goon Squad
- By: Jennifer Egan
- Narrated by: Roxana Ortega
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the listener does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.
-
-
Deep and dazzling novel, brilliantly read!
- By J. W. Coop on 06-29-19
By: Jennifer Egan
-
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- A Novel
- By: Gabrielle Zevin
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim, Julian Cihi
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have heard before.
-
-
This book sucked the life out of me
- By RMan on 08-08-22
By: Gabrielle Zevin
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
Nightbitch
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Yoder
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.
-
-
If you don’t get it just say so
- By Stephanie Rzonca on 02-19-22
By: Rachel Yoder
-
Battleborn
- By: Claire Vaye Watkins
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Morgan Hallett, Laura Knight Keating, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it.
-
-
Wonderful magnificent stories beautifully told
- By Pedro Ramirez on 12-03-15
-
No One Is Talking About This
- A Novel
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void.
-
-
Funny, moving, glad to have read it
- By Terra on 05-26-21
-
A Visit from the Goon Squad
- By: Jennifer Egan
- Narrated by: Roxana Ortega
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the listener does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.
-
-
Deep and dazzling novel, brilliantly read!
- By J. W. Coop on 06-29-19
By: Jennifer Egan
-
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- A Novel
- By: Gabrielle Zevin
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim, Julian Cihi
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have heard before.
-
-
This book sucked the life out of me
- By RMan on 08-08-22
By: Gabrielle Zevin
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
Nightbitch
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Yoder
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.
-
-
If you don’t get it just say so
- By Stephanie Rzonca on 02-19-22
By: Rachel Yoder
-
Sea of Tranquility
- A Novel
- By: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrated by: John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.
-
-
An excellent listen.
- By Mark on 04-11-22
-
Crying in H Mart
- A Memoir
- By: Michelle Zauner
- Narrated by: Michelle Zauner
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian-American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
-
-
Broken Korean
- By Tim on 04-21-21
By: Michelle Zauner
-
Matrix
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her.
-
-
Wonderful story well written and narratives
- By ReallyNelie on 09-25-21
By: Lauren Groff
-
The Glass Castle
- A Memoir
- By: Jeannette Walls
- Narrated by: Jeannette Walls
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family; she called herself an "excitement addict."
-
-
What's normal?
- By Kmrsy on 11-30-13
By: Jeannette Walls
-
Hollywood Park
- A Memoir
- By: Mikel Jollett
- Narrated by: Mikel Jollett
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hollywood Park is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer.
-
-
An honest and heartbreakingly beautiful memoir
- By Jeannete Coronel on 05-28-20
By: Mikel Jollett
-
Luster
- A Novel
- By: Raven Leilani
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edie is stumbling her way through her 20s - sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage - with rules.
-
-
Spellbinding
- By Nana on 08-07-20
By: Raven Leilani
-
The Best of Me
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 25 years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to listen without laughing.
-
-
Almost No New Material
- By Lizardectomy on 11-05-20
By: David Sedaris
-
America's First Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, best-selling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph - a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.
-
-
Great Story Great Narration
- By MissSusie66 on 03-30-16
By: Stephanie Dray, and others
-
The Best of Friends
- By: Lucinda Berry
- Narrated by: Amy Rubinate, Tara Sands, Coleen Marlo
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best friends Lindsey, Kendra, and Dani endure every parent’s nightmare when a tragic accident befalls their teenage boys, leaving one dead, another in a coma, and a third too traumatized to speak. Reeling from the worst night of their lives, the three mothers plunge into a desperate investigation of the bizarre incident. How could something so horrible happen in their wealthy Southern California suburb? They soon discover that the accident was just the beginning, and troubling discoveries lead to chilling questions: Do they really know their children? Do they even know each other?
-
-
Synopsis is well-written but misleading. Minimal mystery. Women’s fiction w angsty melodrama.
- By A Customer on 09-15-20
By: Lucinda Berry
-
The Aviator's Wife
- A Novel
- By: Melanie Benjamin
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For much of her life, Anne Morrow, the shy daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, has stood in the shadows of those around her, including her millionaire father and vibrant older sister, who often steals the spotlight. Then Anne, a college senior with hidden literary aspirations, travels to Mexico City to spend Christmas with her family. There she meets Colonel Charles Lindbergh, fresh off his celebrated 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic. Enthralled by Charles’s assurance and fame, Anne is certain the celebrated aviator has scarcely noticed her. But she is wrong.
-
-
The Megalomaniac's Wife
- By Audrey on 01-19-13
By: Melanie Benjamin
-
What Looks Like Bravery
- An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love
- By: Laurel Braitman
- Narrated by: Laurel Braitman
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Laurel Braitman spent her childhood learning from her dad how to out-fish grown men, keep bees, and fix carburetors. Diagnosed young with terminal cancer, he raced against the clock to leave her the skills she’d need to survive without him. This was one legacy. Another was relentless perfectionism and the belief that bravery meant never acknowledging your own fear. By her mid-thirties Laurel is a ship about to splinter on the rocks, having learned the hard way that no achievement can protect her from pain or remove the guilt and regret her dad’s death leaves her with.
-
-
What a beautiful story!
- By BRYANT S. JAMES on 12-23-24
By: Laurel Braitman
-
All Fall Down
- By: Jennifer Weiner
- Narrated by: Tracee Chimo
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Allison Weiss is a typical working mother, trying to balance a business, aging parents, a demanding daughter, and a marriage. But when the website she develops takes off, she finds herself challenged to the point of being completely overwhelmed. Her husband’s becoming distant, her daughter’s acting spoiled, her father is dealing with early Alzheimer’s, and her mother’s barely dealing at all.
-
-
Annoying
- By Jessica on 06-17-15
By: Jennifer Weiner
Critic reviews
“Intense, intelligent, and bristly...angry and alive...a virtuoso performance.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“An audaciously candid story.... Watkins’s book sparks the same electric jolt that The Awakening must have sent juicing through Kate Chopin’s readers in 1899.” (The Washington Post)
“A tour-de-force.... Much of motherhood literature can radiate a sort of wounded egotism, as if the greatest crime that society might commit against a woman were to think ill of her. Watkins, though, neither stews nor panders. She just follows her light.” (The New Yorker)
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Jawbone
- By: Mónica Ojeda, Sarah Booker - translator
- Narrated by: Victoria Villarreal
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality.
-
-
I don’t know what I just listened to….
- By Ash S on 01-08-25
By: Mónica Ojeda, and others
-
Banal Nightmare
- A Novel
- By: Halle Butler
- Narrated by: Ruby McCollister
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Banal Nightmare is filled with complicated characters who will dazzle you in their rendering just as often as they will infuriate you with their decisions. Halle Butler singularly captures the volatile, angry, aggrieved, surreal and entirely disorienting atmosphere of the modern era.
-
-
Character’s self loathing
- By Amazon Customer on 11-30-24
By: Halle Butler
-
Cursed Bread
- A Novel
- By: Sophie Mackintosh
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population.
-
-
boring
- By Anonymous User on 02-23-25
-
How to Be Eaten
- A Novel
- By: Maria Adelmann
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina's love story will shock them all.
-
-
Great story & narration; i wish it were longer (sad face emoji)
- By socalconsumer on 08-12-23
By: Maria Adelmann
-
A Touch of Jen
- By: Beth Morgan
- Narrated by: Casey Turner
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former coworker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and new age mantra they know by heart. Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons.
-
-
Speechless
- By Schabel on 07-16-21
By: Beth Morgan
-
The Shame
- A Novel
- By: Makenna Goodman
- Narrated by: Eliana Marianes
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alma and her family live a life close to the land. Then, one night, she abruptly leaves it all behind. This is a propulsive, funny, and thought-provoking debut about a woman in isolation whose mind - fueled by capitalism, motherhood, and the search for meaningful art - attempts to betray her.
-
-
First novel
- By PAULA on 09-14-23
By: Makenna Goodman
-
Jawbone
- By: Mónica Ojeda, Sarah Booker - translator
- Narrated by: Victoria Villarreal
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality.
-
-
I don’t know what I just listened to….
- By Ash S on 01-08-25
By: Mónica Ojeda, and others
-
Banal Nightmare
- A Novel
- By: Halle Butler
- Narrated by: Ruby McCollister
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Banal Nightmare is filled with complicated characters who will dazzle you in their rendering just as often as they will infuriate you with their decisions. Halle Butler singularly captures the volatile, angry, aggrieved, surreal and entirely disorienting atmosphere of the modern era.
-
-
Character’s self loathing
- By Amazon Customer on 11-30-24
By: Halle Butler
-
Cursed Bread
- A Novel
- By: Sophie Mackintosh
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population.
-
-
boring
- By Anonymous User on 02-23-25
-
How to Be Eaten
- A Novel
- By: Maria Adelmann
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina's love story will shock them all.
-
-
Great story & narration; i wish it were longer (sad face emoji)
- By socalconsumer on 08-12-23
By: Maria Adelmann
-
A Touch of Jen
- By: Beth Morgan
- Narrated by: Casey Turner
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former coworker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and new age mantra they know by heart. Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons.
-
-
Speechless
- By Schabel on 07-16-21
By: Beth Morgan
-
The Shame
- A Novel
- By: Makenna Goodman
- Narrated by: Eliana Marianes
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alma and her family live a life close to the land. Then, one night, she abruptly leaves it all behind. This is a propulsive, funny, and thought-provoking debut about a woman in isolation whose mind - fueled by capitalism, motherhood, and the search for meaningful art - attempts to betray her.
-
-
First novel
- By PAULA on 09-14-23
By: Makenna Goodman
-
Pizza Girl
- A Novel
- By: Jean Kyoung Frazier
- Narrated by: Jeena Yi
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighteen years old, pregnant, and working as a pizza delivery girl in suburban Los Angeles, our charmingly dysfunctional heroine is deeply lost and in complete denial. She's grieving the death of her father, avoiding her supportive mom and loving boyfriend, and flagrantly ignoring her future.
-
-
Writing
- By Tobyizme on 07-11-20
-
One’s Company
- A Novel
- By: Ashley Hutson
- Narrated by: Rachel Jacobs
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bonnie Lincoln just wants to be left alone. To come home from work, shut out the voice that reminds her of some devastating losses, and unwind in front of the nostalgic, golden glow of her favorite TV show, Three's Company. When Bonnie wins the lottery, a more grandiose vision—to completely shuck off her own troublesome identity—takes shape. She plans a drastic move to an isolated mountain retreat where she can re-create the iconic apartment set of Three's Company and slip into the lives of its main characters.
-
-
Maybe i just don’t get it
- By Jen on 03-23-24
By: Ashley Hutson
-
Normal Women
- A Novel
- By: Ainslie Hogarth
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When her daughter Lotte was born, Dani had welcomed the chance to be a stay-at-home mother. To be good at something, for once. But now Dani can’t stop thinking about her seemingly healthy husband, Clark, dropping dead. Not because she hates him (not right now, anyway) but because it’s become abundantly clear to Dani that if he dies, she and Lotte will be left destitute. And then Dani discovers The Temple.
-
-
Kind of boring
- By Anonymous User on 04-16-25
By: Ainslie Hogarth
-
Thunderhead
- By: Miranda Darling
- Narrated by: Abbe Holmes
- Length: 3 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Winona Dalloway begins her day—in the peaceful early hours before her children, that ‘tiny tornado of little hands and feet', wake up—she doesn't know that by the end of it, everything in her world will have changed. On the outside, Winona is a seemingly unremarkable young mother: unobtrusive, quietly going about her tasks. But within is a vivid, chaotic self, teeming with voices—a mind both wild and precise. And meanwhile, a storm is brewing …
By: Miranda Darling
-
Ripe
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Rose Etter
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Ivy League grads complain about the snack selection from a conference room with a view of unhoused people bathing in the bay. Start-up burnouts leap into the paths of commuter trains, and men literally set themselves on fire in the streets.
-
-
EG, Sorry to say it doesn't get any better
- By Alexis_Vandew on 08-18-23
By: Sarah Rose Etter
-
Nightbitch
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Yoder
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.
-
-
If you don’t get it just say so
- By Stephanie Rzonca on 02-19-22
By: Rachel Yoder
What listeners say about I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sandra
- 04-30-22
Just wow!
Stunning book and stunning performance. I will be sitting with this for a long time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ashley
- 10-15-23
underwhelming, wanted more
the author had some good one-liners, speaking dark truths that most women I know would never say out loud, but I wanted more of them and in more detail. there was too much useless backstory in my opinion, too much unnecessary dialogue. I was underwhelmed and it left with a lot unexplained.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- napleszoo
- 04-07-24
Brilliantly written; Good narration
Brilliant writing of a personal story with reflection that’s vulnerable, funny, and relatable. Love the perspective of someone wise with years looking back on their life to navigate their journey through the present and somehow to the future, and telling that story in their own voice and on their own terms. Highly recommend this audiobook.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Barbara S
- 10-22-21
strange
“I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness”. Just from the title alone, I was intrigued. It’s billed as a woman trying to cope with being a new mother and a wife. Plus it’s one of the most anticipated novels of the Fall of 2021.
Author Claire Vaye Watkins chooses to name her protagonist, well, Claire Watkins. Hmmm…does a work of fiction by an author ever name their main character after themselves??? Is this a memoir??? Watkins uses her life as fodder, and most likely has fun with her reading audience, having us all ponder what is real and what is not. Even the first sentence “I’ve tried to tell this story a bunch of times.” leads the reader to consider. Plus, novel Claire is an author too.
In the story, she abandons her infant and husband for a book tour. From the start, we understand that Claire is struggling with motherhood. She takes the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression test, which is hilarious. She ponders, when does postnatal depression become just depression?? The beginning of the story was the funniest to me. Most mothers can empathize with the endeavors of being a new mom with a crying baby.
Furthermore, she has an ongoing debate about “The Oregon Trail Generation” which is sandwiched between Gen X and the Millennials. It’s the generation that came of age on the internet. Those who played “The Oregon Trail” and those who parented children who played “The Oregon Trail” understand. It’s an interesting discussion.
Lines are crossed between fiction and memoir when novel Claire has the same father as author Claire. And that father was part of the Charles Manson cult. The father wasn’t involved in the notable killings, but he was involved in supplying women/girls to Manson. Let’s say Claire’s young life in a cult most likely influenced her life as a new mother.
Where lines are not crossed is book Claire’s obsession with her vagina, specifically teeth that are growing in her vagina. I needed to google this, as it is a thing in mythical format. Yes, cysts can contain teeth (mostly those near the ovaries). Can a woman have a vagina full of teeth? The answer is no, but book Claire’s does. Bizarre, yet I went on.
The title of the story came from a boyfriend who had that statement tattooed on his body. The boyfriend had a religious mother who wanted him to be good. Well, he got a tattoo with that statement explaining his feelings. Claire spends time searching for this ex-boyfriend and we get a bit of the backstory. Claire decides that she’s not choosing darkness, but darkness is choosing her. Don’t we all feel that at times??
This is a strange story, and I don’t think I was the intended target audience. I give a full 5 stars to the title. 5 stars for quirkiness. 1 star for format as it was too strange to follow at times (perhaps it’s because I used the audio format). 1 star for falling short of what this story could have been.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Taylor alper
- 11-08-21
Not what I expected
I totally understand that my misunderstanding of what this novel about has no effect on the caliber of the book. But after a thorough history of the Manson cult, I truly thought I had started the wrong book. It wasn't bad. Just some stuff made me tilt my head in confusion. A lot. The narration was good. Story was strange.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brian
- 04-26-22
Self Absorbed
A better title for this book would be 'I Love You But I've Chosen Self-Absorption'
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- belowsealevel
- 01-05-22
Hits right. This is the new American Western.
I am going to buy copies of this book and hand them out to every one of my friends. Then I am going to wait for them to come back to me with either OMFG we need to make an altar and worship Claire Vaye Watkins OR WTF did you give this to me for? I am going to take the first group of friends on a crazy retreat in Tecopa and never tell the second group. The event will not be televised.
When you know, you know. I am not sure if this book distills universal truth or was just written for me.
On a random note:
I literally BEGGED a surgeon to give me the biohazard bag that contained the teeth and hair from my dermoid cyst. The author is a freaking genius - I think about my beloved cyst all the time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 06-20-23
Dark and interesting.
I really appreciated this book. It is dark and about a women that has chosen the road less traveled. It’s pretty real and raw. As a Millennial women raised in ca, I appreciates the references and the want for something beyond the prescribed life. I thought the unique story telling was interesting and vulnerable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Harry
- 02-27-22
waste of money
Struggled to finish, it was so poorly written and the story was noy easy to follow.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- tallxtall
- 07-23-23
Tedious beyond description
Selfish, shallow, immature. The author relentlessly uses every single human in her sphere to try to create a story where none exists.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful