
Songs for the Brokenhearted
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Ayelet Tsabari
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Assaf Cohen
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Yossi Zabari
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By:
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Ayelet Tsabari
About this listen
A young Yemeni Israeli woman learns of her mother’s secret romance in a dramatic journey through lost family stories, revealing the unbreakable bond between a mother and a daughter—the debut novel of an award-winning literary voice.
“A gorgeous, gripping novel filled with unforgettable characters.”—Elizabeth Graver, author of Kantika
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD’S JJ GREENBERG MEMORIAL AWARD
1950. Thousands of Yemeni Jews have immigrated to the newly founded Israel in search of a better life. In an overcrowded immigrant camp in Rosh Ha’ayin, Yaqub, a shy young man, happens upon Saida, a beautiful girl singing by the river. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, they fall in love. But they weren’t supposed to; Saida is married and has a child, and a married woman has no place befriending another man.
1995. Thirty-something Zohara, Saida’s daughter, has been living in New York City—a city that feels much less complicated than Israel, where she grew up wishing that her skin was lighter, that her illiterate mother’s Yemeni music was quieter, and that the father who always favored her was alive. She hasn’t looked back since leaving home, rarely in touch with her mother or sister, Lizzie, and missing out on her nephew Yoni’s childhood. But when Lizzie calls to tell her their mother has died, she gets on a plane to Israel with no return ticket.
Soon Zohara finds herself on an unexpected path that leads to shocking truths about her family—including dangers that lurk for impressionable young men and secrets that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, her heritage, and her own future.
©2024 Ayelet Tsabari (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Songs for the Brokenhearted is immersive, distinguished by sharp and agile prose, a remarkable cast of fully realized characters, and spellbinding storytelling. And when it comes to bearing witness to the vibrant history and culture of generations of Israel’s marginalized groups, the novel is an unparalleled triumph.”—Jewish Book Council, Book Club Pick
“Ayelet Tsabari is a gorgeous and empathic writer, and her new book, Songs for the Brokenhearted, is one of the most bighearted, profound, and nuanced novels I’ve read in years. This book broke my heart but, through Tsabari’s masterful writing and beautifully rendered characters, gave me optimism, too. . . . An incredible debut novel by a writer wise beyond her years. I loved it.”—Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans
“In her new novel, Ayelet Tsabari’s craft is at its apex. Her characters are alive, the story skillfully structured, and the tragic, hidden history of Yemenite Jews expertly woven into the lives of people you will laugh with and shed tears for. To read this book is also to encounter an Israel and Palestine few of us are familiar with nowadays, back when words like ‘peace’ and ‘hope’ were common, and nuance and complexity possible. A love song for a time long past, overflowing with emotional intelligence and psychological insight, Songs for the Brokenhearted will break your heart.”—Jonathan Garfinkel, author of In a Land Without Dogs the Cats Learn to Bark
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- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing from the magical world of her iconic Sundance award-winning film, Julie Dash’s stand-alone novel tells another rich, historical tale of the Gullah-Geechee people: a multigenerational story about a Brooklyn College anthropology student who finds an unexpected homecoming when she heads to the South Carolina Sea Islands to study her ancestors.
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My BFF Bahni...
- By Lillian Collins on 12-31-22
By: Julie Dash
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The Antidote for Everything
- By: Kimmery Martin
- Narrated by: Dorothy Dillingham Blue
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Georgia Brown’s profession as a urologist requires her to interact with plenty of naked men, but her romantic prospects have fizzled. The most important person in her life is her friend Jonah Tsukada, a funny, empathetic family medicine doctor who works at the same hospital in Charleston, South Carolina and who has become as close as family to her. Just after Georgia leaves the country for a medical conference, Jonah shares startling news. The hospital is instructing doctors to stop providing medical care for transgender patients.
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50/50
- By RueRue on 03-13-20
By: Kimmery Martin
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Perish
- A Novel
- By: LaToya Watkins
- Narrated by: Jeremy Michael Durm, Keyonni James, Chanté McCormick, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Bear it or perish yourself. Those are the words Helen Jean hears that fateful night in her cousin’s outhouse that change the trajectory of her life. Spanning decades, Perish tracks the choices Helen Jean—the matriarch of the Turner family—makes and the way those choices have rippled across generations, from her children to her grandchildren and beyond. This family’s “reunion” unearths long-kept secrets and forces each member to ask themselves important questions about who is deserving of forgiveness and who bears the cross of blame.
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listened twice...great performance
- By Carol on 09-20-22
By: LaToya Watkins
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The Art of Leaving
- A Memoir
- By: Ayelet Tsabari
- Narrated by: Ayelet Tsabari
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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An intimate memoir in essays by an award-winning Israeli writer who travels the world, from New York to India, searching for love, belonging, and an escape from grief following the death of her father when she was a young girl. With fierce, emotional prose, Ayelet Tsabari crafts a beautiful meditation about the lengths we will travel to try to escape our grief, the universal search to find a place where we belong, and the sense of home we eventually find within ourselves.
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An Emotional Masterpiece
- By Alex on 04-16-20
By: Ayelet Tsabari
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The Burning Island
- By: Hester Young
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Journalist Charlie Cates has always believed in facts, in what can be proved - her career depends on it. Which is why she has never truly accepted the supernatural visions that guide her to children in danger. After her work on a high-profile missing-child case brings unwanted fame, she reluctantly flees to the lush Big Island of Hawaii with her best friend, Rae. Determined to avoid her disturbing visions, Charlie begins writing what seems to be a harmless interview of a prominent volcanologist. But soon, she's haunted by dreams of a local girl who went missing six weeks earlier.
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I enjoyed the story
- By M. Abrego on 03-04-20
By: Hester Young
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Scarlet in Blue
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Murphy
- Narrated by: Justis Bolding, Stephen Graybill, Rebecca Lowman, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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For Blue Lake’s entire life, she and her mother, Scarlet, have been on the run from HIM - the man who Scarlet, a talented and enigmatic painter, insists is chasing them. But now, at 15 years old, Blue has begun to resent the nomadic life that once seemed like an adventure, increasingly unsure what to make of the phantom pursuer she’s never seen. She only yearns to settle down in one place, to live a normal life.
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Great production of a good and interesting book
- By K. Gruber on 07-19-23
By: Jennifer Murphy
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The Incorrigibles
- A Novel
- By: Meredith Jaeger
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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1890, San Francisco. Seduced by her employer’s nephew, Annie Gilmurray, an Irish maid, is accused of stealing the ring he promised her. Sentenced to one year in San Quentin, Annie is heartbroken and frightened among the inmates of the women’s ward: prostitutes, murderers, and pickpockets. But Annie finds beauty and friendship in a brutal place, where the women look out for one another, dreaming of a better life after release. But their world inside San Quentin's walls is a dangerous one, and when the unthinkable happens, Annie makes a choice that will alter the course of her future forever.
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A page-turner following strong women finding their agency imbued with rich, local SF history
- By S. Brett on 06-04-24
By: Meredith Jaeger
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Everything Here Is Beautiful
- By: Mira T. Lee
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Emily Woo Zeller, Ozzie Rodriguez, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Two sisters - Miranda, the older, responsible one, always her younger sister's protector; Lucia, the headstrong, unpredictable one, whose impulses are huge and, often, life changing. When their mother dies and Lucia starts hearing voices, it is Miranda who must find a way to reach her sister. But Lucia impetuously plows ahead, marrying a bighearted, older man only to leave him, suddenly, to have a baby with a young Latino immigrant.
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Review
- By Sherri H Skalski on 01-30-18
By: Mira T. Lee
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A Season of Perfect Happiness
- A Novel
- By: Maribeth Fischer
- Narrated by: Beth Hicks
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Ten years after an unspeakable tragedy caused Claire to flee her hometown in Delaware, she finally feels content. She has a quiet, tidy life in Wisconsin, a place she picked at random for its shape on a map. Her careful existence centers on a simple plan: keep her social circle small and keep the past a secret. But when she meets Erik—a lighthearted theater nerd who gives Claire more of a chance than she’s given herself in a long time—that plan seems increasingly impossible.
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Couldn’t put it down!
- By Lawrence S. Weigand on 11-19-24
By: Maribeth Fischer
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All over Creation
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Ozeki
- Narrated by: Ruth Ozeki
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Yumi Fuller hasn’t set foot in her hometown of Liberty Falls, Idaho—heart of the potato-farming industry—since she ran away at age fifteen. Twenty-five years later, the prodigal daughter returns to confront her dying parents, her best friend, and her conflicted past, and finds herself caught up in an altogether new drama. The post-millennial farming community has been invaded by Agribusiness forces at war with a posse of activists, the Seeds of Resistance, who travel the country in a camping car, “The Spudnick,” biofueled by pilfered McDonald’s french-fry oil.
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ozeki !!!
- By Leah on 01-03-25
By: Ruth Ozeki
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Darling Girl
- A Novel of Peter Pan
- By: Liz Michalski
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Life is looking up for Holly Darling, granddaughter of Wendy—yes, that Wendy. She's running a successful skincare company; her son, Jack, is happy and healthy; and the tragedy of her past is well behind her...until she gets a call that her daughter, Eden, who has been in a coma for nearly a decade, has gone missing from the estate where she's been long tucked away. And, worst of all, Holly knows who must be responsible: Peter Pan, who is not only very real, but more dangerous than anyone could imagine.
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Brilliant
- By D. D. Falvo on 05-06-22
By: Liz Michalski
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A House Among the Trees
- A Novel
- By: Julia Glass
- Narrated by: Mary Stuart Masterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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When the revered children's book author Mort Lear dies accidentally at his Connecticut home, he leaves his property and all its contents to his trusted assistant, Tomasina Daulair, who is moved by his generosity but dismayed by the complicated and defiant directives in his will. Tommy knew Morty for more than four decades, since meeting him in a Manhattan playground when she was 12 and he was working on sketches for the book that would make him a star.
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Glass Fan
- By G Eliot on 07-17-17
By: Julia Glass
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The Slaughterman's Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Yaniv Iczkovits
- Narrated by: Tovah Feldshuh
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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With her reputation as a vilde chaya (wild animal), Fanny Keismann isn’t like the other women in her shtetl in the Pale of Settlement - certainly not her obedient and anxiety-ridden sister, Mende, whose “philosopher” of a husband has run off to Minsk, abandoning her and their two children. As a young girl, Fanny felt an inexorable pull toward her father’s profession of ritual slaughterer and, under his reluctant guidance, became a master with a knife. And though she long ago gave up that unsuitable profession, Fanny still keeps the knife tied to her right leg.
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The narration - why?????
- By agarista on 07-20-21
By: Yaniv Iczkovits
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Promise
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
- Narrated by: Imani Parks
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The Kindred sisters—Ezra and Cinthy—have grown up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbors, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful Maine village perched high up on coastal bluffs. But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbors, including Ezra’s best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way.
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Powerful!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-14-23
It is extremely well written and extraordinarily performed on Audiobooks. High marks!
Wm R Greenfield MD
Surprisingly good!
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wonderful story
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Historical fiction, Sad and Fascinating
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such a heartfelt wonderful human read
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The love story of Yakov and Saïda.
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Didn’t want it to end!
The story felt very familiar and believable and I enjoyed every moment .
Beautiful
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heartfelt story about love and loss
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Yemini life and cultural appreciation
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