
Open Throat
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 $7.79
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Pete Cross
-
By:
-
Henry Hoke
About this listen
A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. “I have so much language in my brain,” our lion says, “and nowhere to put it.”
When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call “ellay.” As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief, while scrambling to avoid earthquakes, floods, and the noise of their own conflicted psyche. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate question: Do they want to eat a person or become one?
In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion. Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings mythmaking to real life.
©2023 Henry Hoke (P)2023 Dreamscape MediaListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Vaster Wilds
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
-
-
Slow torture written too hastily
- By Jennifer on 09-23-23
By: Lauren Groff
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Bee Sting
- A Novel
- By: Paul Murray
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
-
-
Bone Clocks meets Jonathan Franzen
- By Cranson on 10-26-23
By: Paul Murray
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
Blackouts
- A Novel
- By: Justin Torres
- Narrated by: Ozzie Rodriguez, Torian Brackett
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly, but who has haunted the edges of his life. Juan Gay—playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized—has a project to pass along. It is inspired by a true artifact of a book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, which contains stories collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried.
-
-
meh
- By Thomas E Flint on 10-28-24
By: Justin Torres
-
Devil Makes Three
- A Novel
- By: Ben Fountain
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Haiti, 1991. When a violent coup d’état leads to the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, American expat Matt Amaker is forced to abandon his idyllic, beachfront scuba business. With the rise of a brutal military dictatorship and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the country’s most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in the chaos–and others are just looking to make it through another day.
-
-
Brilliant Novel about US Policy & its Effects
- By Jason on 10-08-23
By: Ben Fountain
-
The Vaster Wilds
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
-
-
Slow torture written too hastily
- By Jennifer on 09-23-23
By: Lauren Groff
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Bee Sting
- A Novel
- By: Paul Murray
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
-
-
Bone Clocks meets Jonathan Franzen
- By Cranson on 10-26-23
By: Paul Murray
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
Blackouts
- A Novel
- By: Justin Torres
- Narrated by: Ozzie Rodriguez, Torian Brackett
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly, but who has haunted the edges of his life. Juan Gay—playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized—has a project to pass along. It is inspired by a true artifact of a book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, which contains stories collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried.
-
-
meh
- By Thomas E Flint on 10-28-24
By: Justin Torres
-
Devil Makes Three
- A Novel
- By: Ben Fountain
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Haiti, 1991. When a violent coup d’état leads to the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, American expat Matt Amaker is forced to abandon his idyllic, beachfront scuba business. With the rise of a brutal military dictatorship and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the country’s most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in the chaos–and others are just looking to make it through another day.
-
-
Brilliant Novel about US Policy & its Effects
- By Jason on 10-08-23
By: Ben Fountain
-
Absolution
- A Novel
- By: Alice McDermott
- Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky, Rachel Kenney
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American women—American wives—have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era’s mandate to be “helpmeets” to their ambitious husbands with their own, inchoate impulse to “do good” for the people of Vietnam.
-
-
The narration was brilliant…totally engrossing and beautifully spoken
- By Karen Lausa on 12-13-23
By: Alice McDermott
-
Fellow Travelers
- By: Thomas Mallon
- Narrated by: Christian Barillas
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a world of bare-knuckled ideology and secret dossiers, Timothy Laughlin, a recent college graduate and devout Catholic, is eager to join the crusade against Communism. An encounter with a handsome State Department official, Hawkins Fuller, leads to Tim's first job and, after Fuller's advances, his first love affair.
-
-
The tying together of the story threads at the end.
- By Oscar Davila on 12-29-23
By: Thomas Mallon
-
Fairy Tale
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Seth Numrich, Stephen King
- Length: 24 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a horrific accident when he was seven, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from that shed.
-
-
A Boy and his Dog at the end of the World
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 09-06-22
By: Stephen King
-
The Chinese Groove
- A Novel
- By: Kathryn Ma
- Narrated by: James Chen
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighteen-year-old Shelley, born into a much-despised branch of the Zheng family in Yunnan Province and living in the shadow of his widowed father’s grief, dreams of bigger things. Buoyed by an exuberant heart and his cousin Deng’s tall tales about the United States, Shelley heads to San Francisco to claim his destiny, confident that any hurdles will be easily overcome by the awesome powers of the “Chinese groove,” a belief in the unspoken bonds between countrymen that transcend time and borders.
-
-
A delightful surprise
- By R. Glynn on 02-01-23
By: Kathryn Ma
-
Day
- A Novel
- By: Michael Cunningham
- Narrated by: Julianne Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
April 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart.
-
-
The writing is lovely.
- By D. W. Trimm on 12-01-23
-
In Memoriam
- A Novel
- By: Alice Winn
- Narrated by: Christian Coulson
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting. Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle—an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood—without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return
-
-
Amazing
- By Henry on 03-21-23
By: Alice Winn
-
Monstrilio
- By: Gerardo Sámano Córdova
- Narrated by: Victoria Villarreal, Johnny Rey Diaz
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago's lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family's decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses—though curbed by his biological and chosen family's communal care—threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.
-
-
Not exactly what I expected….
- By kisa on 10-06-23
-
Glory Be
- A Glory Broussard Mystery, Book 1
- By: Danielle Arceneaux
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop, where she works as a small-time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears that her best friend—a nun beloved by the community—has been found dead in her apartment. When the police declare the mysterious death a suicide, Glory is convinced that there must be more to the story and, with her reluctant daughter in tow, launches a shadow investigation in a town of oil tycoons, church gossips, and a rumored voodoo priestess.
-
-
loved it
- By Jasmin Harris on 12-26-23
-
Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style
- A Novel
- By: Paul Rudnick
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Devastatingly handsome and insanely rich, Farrell Covington is capable of anything and impossible to resist. He’s a clear-eyed romantic, an aesthete but not a snob, self-indulgent yet wildly generous. As the son of one of the country’s most powerful and deeply conservative families, the world could be his. But when he falls for Nate Reminger, an aspiring writer from a nice Jewish family in Piscataway, New Jersey, the results are passionate and catastrophic. Together, the two embark on a unique romance that spans half a century.
-
-
Great audiobook
- By Ryan Macht on 11-30-23
By: Paul Rudnick
-
A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World
- A Novel
- By: C. A. Fletcher
- Narrated by: C. A. Fletcher
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My name's Griz. I've never been to school, I've never had friends, and in my whole life I've not met enough people to play a game of football. My parents told me how crowded the world used to be, before all the people went away. But we were never lonely on our remote island. We had each other and our dogs. Then the thief came.
-
-
Ah, NOT for animal lovers!
- By Evert on 10-19-19
By: C. A. Fletcher
-
Shelby’s Story
- A Dog’s Way Home Tale
- By: W. Bruce Cameron
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee
- Length: 4 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shelby doesn't remember much of her early life - only that she was always hungry and cold. Then one day, Shelby is rescued by a kind woman, and things change forever. She soon finds herself on a movie set, and her new life is filled with challenges and rewards. She learns things like to go mark, cut, and dig. Her rewards include squeaky toys, yummy chicken, and best of all, love and affection from castmates and crew. Everyone loves Shelby! And so will young listeners and movie fans.
-
-
Cute and Charming for all ages
- By Jami on 08-05-23
By: W. Bruce Cameron
-
Birnam Wood
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place.
-
-
Outstanding thriller w/ exceptional character development
- By Bradley T. Collins on 04-21-23
By: Eleanor Catton
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Other People's Clothes
- A Novel
- By: Calla Henkel
- Narrated by: Lauryn Allman
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Other People’s Clothes brilliantly illuminates the sometimes dangerous intensity of female friendships, as well as offering an unforgettable window into millennial life and the lengths people will go to in order to eradicate emotional pain.
-
-
Every night you miss in Berlin
- By V. G. M on 02-07-22
By: Calla Henkel
-
Pink Slime
- A Novel
- By: Fernanda Trías
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining relationships.
By: Fernanda Trías
-
Daughter
- By: Claudia Dey
- Narrated by: Ellie Moon, Kristen Thomson, Jonathon Young, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To be loved by your father is to be loved by God. So says Mona Dean—playwright, actress, and daughter of a man famous for one great novel, a man whose needs and insecurities exert an inescapable pull and exact an immeasurable toll on the women of his family: Mona, her sister, her half sister, their mothers. His infidelity destroyed Mona’s childhood, setting her in opposition to a stepmother who, though equally damaged, disdains her for being broken.
-
-
Frill-less
- By Amazon Customer on 10-24-24
By: Claudia Dey
-
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
-
Beautyland
- By: Marie-Helene Bertino
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she's different: she possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of earthlings.
-
-
Unforgettable
- By Amazon Customer on 02-04-24
-
Swamplandia!
- By: Karen Russell
- Narrated by: Arielle Sitrick, David Ackroyd
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bigtree alligator-wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, formerly number one in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness.
-
-
Sometimes Brilliant, Sometimes Disappointing
- By Suzn F on 02-05-11
By: Karen Russell
-
Other People's Clothes
- A Novel
- By: Calla Henkel
- Narrated by: Lauryn Allman
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Other People’s Clothes brilliantly illuminates the sometimes dangerous intensity of female friendships, as well as offering an unforgettable window into millennial life and the lengths people will go to in order to eradicate emotional pain.
-
-
Every night you miss in Berlin
- By V. G. M on 02-07-22
By: Calla Henkel
-
Pink Slime
- A Novel
- By: Fernanda Trías
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining relationships.
By: Fernanda Trías
-
Daughter
- By: Claudia Dey
- Narrated by: Ellie Moon, Kristen Thomson, Jonathon Young, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To be loved by your father is to be loved by God. So says Mona Dean—playwright, actress, and daughter of a man famous for one great novel, a man whose needs and insecurities exert an inescapable pull and exact an immeasurable toll on the women of his family: Mona, her sister, her half sister, their mothers. His infidelity destroyed Mona’s childhood, setting her in opposition to a stepmother who, though equally damaged, disdains her for being broken.
-
-
Frill-less
- By Amazon Customer on 10-24-24
By: Claudia Dey
-
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
-
Beautyland
- By: Marie-Helene Bertino
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she's different: she possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of earthlings.
-
-
Unforgettable
- By Amazon Customer on 02-04-24
-
Swamplandia!
- By: Karen Russell
- Narrated by: Arielle Sitrick, David Ackroyd
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bigtree alligator-wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, formerly number one in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness.
-
-
Sometimes Brilliant, Sometimes Disappointing
- By Suzn F on 02-05-11
By: Karen Russell
-
The White Book
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, Deborah Smith
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim
- Length: 1 hr and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While on a writer’s residency, a nameless narrator focuses on the color white to creatively channel her inner pain. Through lyrical, interconnected stories, she grapples with the tragedy that has haunted her family, attempting to make sense of her older sister’s death using the color white. From trying to imagine her mother’s first time producing breast milk to watching the snow fall and meditating on the impermanence of life, she weaves a poignant, heartfelt story of the omnipresence of grief and the ways we perceive the world around us.
-
-
Interesting Read
- By Telly on 02-23-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory
- Stories
- By: Raphael Bob-Waksberg
- Narrated by: Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Full Cast, Nicholas Gonzalez, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the creator of the beloved and universally acclaimed television series BoJack Horseman, a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love - the best and worst thing in the universe. Equally at home with the surreal and the painfully relatable (and both at once), Bob-Waksberg delivers a killer combination of humor, romance, whimsy, cultural commentary, and crushing emotional vulnerability.
-
-
Breaks your heart in the best way just like bojack
- By Lauren C. on 06-24-19
-
Ordinary Human Failings
- A Novel
- By: Megan Nolan
- Narrated by: Jessica Regan
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the "peasants"—ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star seems set to rise when he stumbles across a sensational scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents beloved across the neighborhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and “bad apples”: the Greens. At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, otherworldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances.
-
-
Grim and luminous all at once.
- By M. Locher on 02-08-25
By: Megan Nolan
-
The Bird's Nest
- By: Shirley Jackson, Kevin Wilson - foreword
- Narrated by: Linda Jones, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth is a demure 23-year-old wiling her life away at a dull museum job, living with her neurotic aunt, and subsisting off her dead mother’s inheritance. When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist. But slowly, and with Jackson’s characteristic chill, we learn that Elizabeth is not just one girl - but four separate, self-destructive personalities.
-
-
Great audio version
- By jaspersu on 10-21-21
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
-
Absolution
- A Novel
- By: Alice McDermott
- Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky, Rachel Kenney
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American women—American wives—have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era’s mandate to be “helpmeets” to their ambitious husbands with their own, inchoate impulse to “do good” for the people of Vietnam.
-
-
The narration was brilliant…totally engrossing and beautifully spoken
- By Karen Lausa on 12-13-23
By: Alice McDermott
-
Big Swiss
- A Novel
- By: Jen Beagin
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman, Carlotta Brentan, Stephen Graybill, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss.
-
-
12/10
- By Leah Fesi on 04-23-23
By: Jen Beagin
-
Monstrilio
- By: Gerardo Sámano Córdova
- Narrated by: Victoria Villarreal, Johnny Rey Diaz
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago's lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family's decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses—though curbed by his biological and chosen family's communal care—threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.
-
-
Not exactly what I expected….
- By kisa on 10-06-23
-
Migrations
- A Novel
- By: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Franny Stone has always been the kind of woman who is able to love but unable to stay. Leaving behind everything but her research gear, she arrives in Greenland with a singular purpose: to follow the last Arctic terns in the world on what might be their final migration to Antarctica. Franny talks her way onto a fishing boat, and she and the crew set sail, traveling ever further from shore and safety. But as Franny’s history begins to unspool - a passionate love affair, an absent family, a devastating crime - it becomes clear that she is chasing more than just the birds.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Susan A Koch on 08-20-20
-
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
- Monk & Robot, Book 1
- By: Becky Chambers
- Narrated by: Em Grosland
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
-
-
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
- By Daniel Cascaddan on 07-15-21
By: Becky Chambers
-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate; she works an easy job at a hip art gallery and lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
-
-
I love it...
- By Claudia Gallegos on 07-12-18
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
-
Bright Young Women
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Knoll
- Narrated by: Sutton Foster, Imani Jade Powers, Corey Brill, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Masterfully blending elements of psychological suspense and true crime, Jessica Knoll—bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and the writer behind the Netflix adaptation starring Mila Kunis—delivers an “unflinching and evocative” (Laura Dave, New York Times bestselling author) thriller in Bright Young Women. The book opens on a Saturday night in 1978, hours before a soon-to-be-infamous murderer descends upon a Florida sorority house with deadly results. The lives of those who survive, including a sorority president and key witness, Pamela Schumacher, are forever changed.
-
-
Perfectly executed historical fiction
- By Louie Z on 12-03-23
By: Jessica Knoll
-
Margo's Got Money Troubles
- A Novel
- By: Rufi Thorpe
- Narrated by: Elle Fanning
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.
-
-
I love Margo’s brain and Elle’s voice 👏🏻💕
- By Jessica Larson on 08-19-24
By: Rufi Thorpe
What listeners say about Open Throat
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- me, mara
- 07-16-24
Wonderful Story
I had to listen to this short novella 2x it was so wonderfully written and performed. Loved that it was narrated by the main character... a young mountain lion. This is not a children's story...it is definitely a story that makes you pause and think about our world today. It's so many things... amusing, sweet, touching, ugly, truthful and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andre
- 03-14-24
An Entertaining Book
This is an entertaining book featuring a compelling narrator—a non-binary mountain lion. It helps that I am from L.A. and used to hike there. I could easily imagine the story unfolding before me as I listened. This is thrilling queer fiction.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Heather Tilert
- 11-28-23
Quick listen. Funny, heartfelt, imaginative
Wasn’t sure where it was going at first with the opening scene, and then I quickly fell in love with the first person narrator. Found the objective descriptions of overheard in LA convos funny and painfully true, and was pleasantly surprised to hear the narrator with through things like abandonment, pleasing one’s parents, loss, etc. Great recco from a friend!
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
- JoJo Bear
- 04-11-24
Beautiful and heartbreaking story
As a former Angeleno this story felt so special to me and it was not hard to fall in love with the main character; a sensitive queer cougar who is struggling to stay alive.
I cried my eyes out at the end.
Definitely a great read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mrs. Jones
- 07-03-24
Original, Powerful, Touching
A quick listen filled with sharp, simple writing and universal themes of identity, home, and longing for connection to name a few. You don’t have to be from L.A. to fully immerse yourself in this (having lived there, the main character’s POV was great fun for me). The story is straightforward, a good balance of interior/exterior observations. Certain listeners (like me) will find OPEN THROAT brilliantly heartbreaking, a book that will stay with you indefinitely. The narrator was fantastic.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lauren Alwan
- 07-07-23
Inventive, wry, and wistful LA story
Henry Hoke’s strange and absorbing short novel is a wonder of voice, setting, and character. A mountain lion whose separation, longing, and animal violence is the perfect narrator, and his view of the human world is a wonder of defamiliarization—that fresh descriptive power that shows us a familiar we haven’t seen before.
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
- James W Kreider
- 03-10-25
Clever story. Well told.
Short. Very enjoyable and keeps my interest. Would recommend to any one. Narrator is perfect. No more words.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Liz
- 12-27-24
So unique!
I absolutely loved this book! The story is told from such a unique perspective. Great read!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- mom of teens
- 03-18-24
Delightful!
Original and fun! I must read for those who live in Los Angeles.
I look forward to reading more of Henry Hoke’s work.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ann L
- 06-15-24
Read or listen?
I had access to the book as well as audio. Some recommended reading over listening. I'll disagree because to me the audio had better flow. The narrator was just right. Maybe there were some print nuances, like "scare city" vs. scarcity, or "elay" vs LA, but that didn't detract from the author's purpose.
Of titles narrated from the animal's POV, this was one of the strongest I've experienced.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!