Ordinary People
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Narrated by:
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Jennifer Saayeng
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By:
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Diana Evans
About this listen
October 2018's Selection for the Washington Post's "Lily Lit" Book Club
One of The Millions' "Most Anticipated" Books of 2018
Evoking the sharp insight of Little Fires Everywhere and the sweep of NW, an incisive portrait of the bliss and torment of domestic love.
Hailed as “one of the most thrilling writers at work today” (Huffington Post), Diana Evans reaches new heights with her searing depiction of two couples struggling through a year of marital crisis. In a crooked house in South London, Melissa feels increasingly that she’s defined solely by motherhood, while Michael mourns the former thrill of their romance. In the suburbs, Stephanie’s aspirations for bliss on the commuter belt, coupled with her white middle-class upbringing, compound Damian’s itch for a bigger life catalyzed by the death of his activist father. Longtime friends from the years when passion seemed permanent, the couples have stayed in touch, gathering for births and anniversaries, bonding over discussions of politics, race, and art. But as bonds fray, the lines once clearly marked by wedding bands aren’t so simply defined. Ordinary People is a moving examination of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, and the fragile architecture of love.
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- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that seduces beautiful Connie into a second date...and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades later, they live more or less happily in the London suburbs with their moody seventeen year-old son, Albie. Then Connie tells him she thinks she wants a divorce. The timing couldn’t be worse. Connie has planned a month-long tour of European capitals, a chance to experience the world’s greatest works of art as a family, and she can’t bring herself to cancel. And maybe going ahead is for the best anyway? Douglas is privately convinced that this landmark trip will rekindle the romance in the marriage, and might even help him to bond with Albie. Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest, slyly witty, and at times achingly optimistic point of view, Us is the story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves, and learning how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.
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Great novel - my favorite in years
- By Mark on 07-21-15
By: David Nicholls
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Late in the Day
- A Novel
- By: Tessa Hadley
- Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
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It's all in the performance
- By RueRue on 02-08-19
By: Tessa Hadley
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The Red Address Book
- By: Sofia Lundberg, Alice Menzies - translator
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The global fiction sensation - published in 32 countries around the world: Meet Doris, a 96-year-old woman living alone in her Stockholm apartment. She has few visitors, but her weekly Skype calls with Jenny - her American grandniece, and her only relative - give her great joy and remind her of her own youth. In writing down the stories of her colorful past - working as a maid in Sweden, modelling in Paris during the '30s, fleeing to Manhattan at the dawn of the Second World War - she may help Jenny, haunted by a difficult childhood, unlock the secrets of their family....
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narrator was overwrought
- By Janet L. Hamilton on 02-22-19
By: Sofia Lundberg, and others
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Obsession
- By: Amanda Robson
- Narrated by: Stephanie Racine, Helen Keeley, Thomas Judd, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Carly and Rob, Jenni and Craig. Two couples, four friends. Betraying each other. Wanting each other. All of them have access to prescription drugs through the medical practice where they work, and all of them are fighting their own demons. But can any of them be trusted? And when the lies begin, can they ever be silenced?
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Your old time religion
- By patricia williams on 01-23-18
By: Amanda Robson
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Evergreen Falls
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A long-forgotten secret, a scandalous attraction and a place where two women's lives are changed forever. 1926: Violet Armstrong is one of the few remaining members of staff working at the grand Evergreen Spa Hotel as it closes down over winter. Only a handful of guests are left, including the heir to a rich grazing family, his sister and her suave suitor. When a snowstorm moves in, the hotel is cut off and they are all trapped. No-one could have predicted what would unfold.
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Soooo Boring
- By Merford on 10-09-19
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Some Kind of Fairy Tale
- A Novel
- By: Graham Joyce
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty years ago, 16-year-old Tara Martin disappeared from a small town in the heart of England. Now, her sudden return and the mind-bending tale of where she’s been will challenge our very perception of the truth. For 20 years after Tara Martin disappeared, her parents and her brother, Peter, lived in denial of the grim fact that she was gone for good. Then suddenly on Christmas Day, the doorbell rings at her parents’ home, and there, dishevelled and slightly peculiar looking, Tara stands. It’s a miracle, but alarm bells are ringing for Peter. Tara’s story just does not add up.
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Extremely Well Done
- By Amanda on 07-11-12
By: Graham Joyce
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The Daughter
- By: Jane Shemilt
- Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Jenny is a successful family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers, married to a celebrated neurosurgeon. But when her youngest child, 15-year-old Naomi, doesn't come home after her school play, Jenny's seemingly ideal life begins to crumble. The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.
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BORING...
- By Nyesha on 06-08-15
By: Jane Shemilt
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Duet
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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From the London pop scene, to the opera stages of Europe; from a tiny Greek island, to a stifling manor house full of secrets and deceptions; from the sun-drenched Queensland coast, to the silent outback; Angela and Ellie are two women both looking for something. One in search of her identity and her memory; the other in search of the love that she had and lost; theirs is a duet whose last note will not be sung until the heart-stopping climax, when a shadow from the past returns to claim them both.
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Gosh that was a great story!
- By Anonymous User on 06-10-09
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The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
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My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
What listeners say about Ordinary People
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 05-22-20
Ordinary People
Loved the narration, really looked forward to listening to her each time. Very interesting story. Gives you a lot to think about in your own life. Wonderful descriptions of characters and scenes to imagine the story, like you are there.
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- Charles Davis
- 04-05-19
Ordinary
The voice is great. The story tells a realistic life story about marriage. A little too realistic. I realize I want my books to embellish a little.
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1 person found this helpful
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- J. Starr
- 06-20-21
Beautiful character study
Here’s a novel that explores the real nature of relationship. The characters feel whole, troubled, beautiful, precariously teetering on the edge of their futures— lost from the path of what they’d expected.
The writer gives so much to the people who inhabit this book and the places they inhabit. Place becomes its own character, with its own flaws and arcs. I love how the story breaks into bivalved narratives— the narrative of the characters and the characterization of the places.
Artful spellbinding, be prepared to fall in and out of love with each of them.
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- Denise
- 01-24-19
Long painful slog.
The unraveling of this couple’s marriage unfolds very gradually over many pages. None of the characters were very compelling, yes they are ordinary. I got the idea early but the same conflicts and unhappiness just go on and on without much nuance. Not for me, I’m not sure why I finished it.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Ronit
- 05-12-19
Ordinary would be thrilling. OH. HOW. TIRESOME.
I admit - I never got to the end. After just more than half the novel I realized there's no reason to continue.
Starting with the quite horrible narrator, who practically KILLED this book. By pausing. Everywhere. There was. A comma. Seems like the only thing she does. Is. Pause. I thought i was going MAD.
On top of that, the story is not only boring but sounds like it's written from a somewhat childish POV on marriage, parenting, and sex in a long term relationship. Having been there, done that. I am looking for a more sophisticated POV on those issues, which this book was not about to deliver.
In fact, REAL ordinary people have much more interesting small crisis, but they probably need a more talented author to capture them.
Sorry. A waste of time.
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1 person found this helpful