The Center of Everything
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Narrated by:
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Julie Dretzin
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By:
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Laura Moriarty
About this listen
A remarkable debut that has been called a hybrid of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Myla Goldberg’s Bee Season, The Center of Everything is the fictional story of 10-year-old math prodigy Evelyn Bucknow. Living in Kansas with her single mother and deeply religious grandmother, Evelyn believes she is destined to marry Travis, the boy next door. But as she grows up, she experiences the heartbreak of a love not meant to be. Author Laura Moriarty was a recipient of the George Bennet Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy.
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Nine-year-old Carrie Parker and her mother, Libby, are making a fresh start in the small town of Hartsville, North Carolina, ready to put their turbulent past behind them. Violence has shattered their family and left Libby nearly unable to cope. And while Carrie once took comfort in her beloved sister, Emma, her mother has now forbidden even the mention of her name. When Carrie meets Ruth, Honor, and Cricket Chaplin, these three generations of warmhearted women seem to have the loving home Carrie has always dreamed of. But as Carrie and Cricket become fast friends, neither can escape the pull of their families' secrets.
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Breathtaking
- By Pink Amy on 03-11-24
By: Elizabeth Flock
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Feathers
- By: Jacqueline Woodson
- Narrated by: Sisi Aisha Johnson
- Length: 2 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Frannie doesn't know what to make of the poem she's reading in school. She hasn't thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more "holy". And there is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy.
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National Treasure
- By Austin Jayhawk on 03-19-17
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She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
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Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
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Scarborough
- By: Catherine Hernandez
- Narrated by: Catherine Hernandez
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In Scarborough, a low-income urban neighborhood, three kids struggle to rise above poverty, abuse, and a system that consistently fails them. The adults in their lives either rise to the occasion or fall by the wayside; together, they make up a troubled yet inspired community that refuses to be undone.
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Difficult but excellent!
- By Erna on 01-30-20
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This Dark Road to Mercy
- A Novel
- By: Wiley Cash
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Erik Bergmann, Scott Sowers
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
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This Dark Road to Mercy is a tale of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, a story that involves two young sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay for his sins. When their mother dies unexpectedly, twelve-year-old Easter Quillby and her six-year-old sister, Ruby, are shuffled into the foster care system in Gastonia, North Carolina, a little town not far from the Appalachian Mountains. But just as they settle into their new life, their errant father, Wade, an ex-minor-league baseball player whom they haven't seen in years, suddenly reappears and steals them away in the middle of the night.
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Easter offers chance at redemption; but no spark
- By W Perry Hall on 01-31-14
By: Wiley Cash
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The Land of Forgotten Girls
- By: Erin Entrada Kelly
- Narrated by: LuLu Lam
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
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Two sisters from the Philippines, abandoned by their father and living with their stepmother in Louisiana, fight to make their lives better in this remarkable story for listeners of Cynthia Kadohata and Rita Williams-Garcia, and for anyone searching for the true meaning of family.
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beautiful
- By Marion on 11-10-20
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The Good Goodbye
- By: Carla Buckley
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Suzy Jackson, Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Two cousins, Rory and Arden, lie unconscious in a hospital burn unit. The fire, which broke out in their shared college dorm room, killed another student, and the police want answers. Tension between Rory and Arden's parents was already at an all-time high before the fire, owing to a recent financial crisis and the decline of the family business. As the parents huddle anxiously in the waiting room, carefully avoiding the subject of their own unraveling relationships, disturbing truths come to light.
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I could not stop listening.
- By Amy Davis on 05-29-16
By: Carla Buckley
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The Untelling
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Michele Blackmon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Aria is no stranger to tragedy. Fifteen years ago, a family outing took the lives of her father and baby sister, leaving remaining members of this fractured family struggling with their own guilt - real and imagined. At 25, Aria believes she can reinvent herself through her planned marriage with all its promise of a family of her own. Her infertility changes her life as swiftly and irrevocably as the urban landscape around her.
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Don’t waste your time!
- By shasha on 09-18-20
By: Tayari Jones
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Marlena
- A Novel
- By: Julie Buntin
- Narrated by: Emma Galvin
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Everything about 15-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts - first drink, first cigarette, first kiss - while Marlena's habits harden and calcify.
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A Brilliant, Agonizing Portrait of a Young Woman
- By Sudi on 06-06-17
By: Julie Buntin
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Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
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Ellen O’Farrell is a professional hypnotherapist who works out of the eccentric beachfront home she inherited from her grandparents. It’s a nice life, except for her tumultuous relationship history. She’s stoic about it, but at this point, Ellen wouldn’t mind a lasting one. When she meets Patrick, she’s optimistic. He’s attractive, single, employed, and best of all, he seems to like her back. Then comes that dreaded moment: He thinks they should have a talk. Braced for the worst, Ellen is pleasantly surprised.
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a twisted love story...so interesting!
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Tell Her Story
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Paige Barrett was living her dream as a journalist in New York City, racking up bylines as a staff writer at The Razor, a cutting-edge online magazine. But when she’s suddenly fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, she finds herself back home in the quaint seaside town of Shoreham, Florida, waiting tables and living in her sister’s guesthouse. Restless and itching for something meaningful to occupy her time, she decides to launch a true-crime podcast about the death of Jessica Cady, a beloved teacher who died mysteriously 20 years earlier.
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How to blow up your life in 1 easy step
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What listeners say about The Center of Everything
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-14-20
Unique and lovely
The magic of this story caught me by surprise, a coming of age story about a child of the 80’s, only a bit younger than myself, there were plenty of moments of nostalgia for me. The narration is SUPERB. I gave 4stars for the ending which I didn’t love.
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- Eric
- 11-11-19
It's real. And sad.
When I say, "It's real," what I mean is that this book seems like it can almost be a true account of someone's life. The characters are relatable, the events seem probable, and the emotions seem logical for given situations. The cover of the book in my kindle is a girl smiling in the grass. There is a scene that takes place in the grass in the book... but the girl in that scene is definitely not smiling. It's so real, and so very melancholy. The reader is left perpetually feeling sad for EVERY SINGLE MAIN CHARACTER. Without exception. Every character seems like they are living out some form of tragedy that's all their own. I guess that's the case with real life as well. If you're looking to read a book as a form of happy escapism, this is not for you. It's real. It's sad. And it will make you feel bad due to the unfairness each character faces throughout the work. I'm just saying the highs weren't very high, and the lows were SUPER low. It's worth the read, but the story rarely made me happy. That's why I gave it four stars. I would still recommend it though. The writing was superb. And Moriarty is clearly a master at the craft. I regret feeling the need to take off a star because how the work made me feel, but there it is.
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- Deirdre
- 08-22-20
What the heck
The store ended right in the middle of nothing. Nothing resolved. We don’t find out what happens to anyone.
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- Andrea & Dave
- 08-23-20
Great...until the non end.
Very good read. Very interesting and captivating....until it literally just stopped. I can't even say it "ended", it just stopped. So many things were just starting and nothing was resolved. Very disappointed.
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- Daryl
- 04-29-15
A terrific coming-of-age novel
What made the experience of listening to The Center of Everything the most enjoyable?
I read this book when I was about the same age as Evelyn at the end. I found I could relate to Evelyn in particular, and (at the time) I couldn't wrap my head around her mother and grandother. Fast-forward more than ten years and a ton of life experience, I understand many of the secondary characters more than I did before. I loved this book 10 years ago, for its look at growing up in middle America; I LOVE it now for its complex and flawed characters and its look at opportunities, hard knocks, and making choices.
Which character – as performed by Julie Dretzin – was your favorite?
Julie Dretzin was a terrific choice of narrator for this book. Her voice is young and emotive, and her cast of characters was wonderful!
If you could take any character from The Center of Everything out to dinner, who would it be and why?
Evelyn, of course. She grows up so much in this book, and would grow up more in further pages. But besides her... probably Tina. She is tough, resilient, and wants to do her best for her children, even as she juggles the need to work and provide for two children of vastly different ages with vastly different needs.
Any additional comments?
This book is a wonderful complex look at friendship, family and middle America. It's a character-driven novel, for sure, almost in a stream-of-consciousness style. Normally, this would drive me crazy, but Moriarty pulls this off - with its layers of determination and regret and choices and consequences - incredibly well.
Well-written, well-read, well worth the time!
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- Jenny Bradanini
- 04-29-21
Just as good as Leanne
I purchased this book thinking it was an older book of Leane Moriarty .. I bet I am not the first to confuse them. I love Leanne’s books and this is every bit a good as hers. Laura does an excellent job of developing the characters. Its a rare author who makes me think about the characters when I am not reading. I can put myself right in the scene she writes about. This was narrated beautifully at first I didn’t think I would like the narration to be in a young girls voice but i cant imagine it amy other way. I was sad I was finished.. I wish it went on and on!
I am so happy I found this book. Going to purchase another from her now
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- Lois John
- 05-28-23
Great book
A good audio book of a coming of age from a teenager’s point of view.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Theresa Jameson
- 04-28-14
not religious fiction
Would you try another book from Laura Moriarty and/or Julie Dretzin?
no on moriarty
What do you think your next listen will be?
tracie peterson
Did Julie Dretzin do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
never could figure out the motivation behind some character actions
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
it was very depressing and used quite a bit of cursing. thus dulling my appreciation
Any additional comments?
why was this book listed under religious fiction?
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3 people found this helpful