
The Float Test
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Andi Arndt
About this listen
From Lynn Steger Strong, critically acclaimed author of Flight, a sophisticated and layered novel about sisters, betrayal, love, and climate change, for listeners of The Dutch House and The Most Fun We Ever Had.
"With surgical precision, Lynn Steger Strong dissects and then elegantly reconstructs an American family on the brink: of falling apart, of finding themselves, of saying all the things left unsaid. From the collateral damage inevitably caused by artists, to the notion that perhaps we are who we always were, Strong’s clear and confident voice and prose makes the unvarnished truths in this book sting. But that same quality makes the moments of profound tenderness and humanity linger. The Float Test—and the Floridian world of this clan—will stay with me for a long time to come."
— Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Anita de Monte Laughs Last
"What I loved most about The Float Test is the sense of place, and how the sticky, dense heat of Florida, the relentless sun, the flat roads ending at the ocean, is woven into the Kenner family’s DNA. The adult children of the family—all at crisis points in their own lives—gather on the hot ground of their childhood following their mother’s death, where they try to untangle decades of betrayals and sorrow, and reclaim their sense of home."
— Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
The Kenner siblings are at odds. Jenn is a harried mom struggling under the weight of family obligations. Fred is a novelist who can’t write, maybe because she’s lost faith in storytelling itself. Jude is a recovering corporate lawyer with her own story to tell, and a grudge against her former favorite sister, Fred. George, the baby, is estranged from his wife and harboring both a secret about his former employer and an ill-advised crush on one of his sisters’ friends. Gathered after a major loss, each sibling needs the others more than ever—if only they could trust each other.
A family story is, of course, only as honest as the person telling it. This family story in particular is fraught with secrets about kids and sex and jobs and why the Kenner matriarch had a gun in her underwear drawer. The biggest secret of all though is the secret of what happened between Jude and Fred to create such a rift between the two once-close middle sisters. Over the course of a sweltering Florida summer, the Kenner siblings will revisit what it means to be a family and, if they are smart and kind and lucky, come out on the other side better for having each other.
A rich exploration of family, ambition, secrets, and love, The Float Test is an elegant and gripping testament to the power that family has to both nurture and destroy us from a critically acclaimed writer working at the top of her craft.
©2025 Lynn Steger Strong (P)2025 HarperCollins PublishersRelated to this topic
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Story
Blythe Benedict is content. Her life didn’t end when her marriage did. In fact, she’s more than happy living in her comfortable house in Boston, working as a middle school teacher, and raising four wonderful children. With three of her kids in the throes of teenagerhood and one not too far behind them, Blythe has plenty of drama to keep her busy every single day. But no amount of that drama could change the family’s beloved annual summer trip to Nantucket.
By: Nancy Thayer
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Want
- A Novel
- By: Lynn Steger Strong
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Elizabeth is tired. Years after coming to New York to try to build a life, she has found herself with two kids, a husband, two jobs, a PhD - and now they're filing for bankruptcy. As she tries to balance her dream and the impossibility of striving toward it while her work and home lives feel poised to fall apart, she wakes at ungodly hours to run miles by the icy river, struggling to quiet her thoughts.
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Why??
- By S. Whalum on 07-16-20
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Black Woods, Blue Sky
- A Novel
- By: Eowyn Ivey
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover, sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature. Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie, he represents everything she’s ever longed for.
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The mixture of fantasy and reality
- By Amazon Customer on 03-23-25
By: Eowyn Ivey
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Jilted
- By: Vi Keeland
- Narrated by: Aiden Snow, Andi Arndt
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Weddings. I spend every working minute talking and writing about them, when just the thought of one makes me want to scream. After my fiancé abandoned me at the altar last year, my dream job at Bride magazine has turned into a reoccurring nightmare. To add insult to injury, the bridezilla at my latest assignment somehow roped me into filling in for a missing bridesmaid. Of course, I had to get paired with the most gorgeous groomsman. Wilder Hayes is perfect—except when he opens his mouth and we end up bickering all evening. That is, until the coat closet incident.
By: Vi Keeland
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All the Other Mothers Hate Me
- By: Sarah Harman
- Narrated by: Georgina Sadler
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Florence Grimes is a thirty-one-year-old party girl who always takes the easy way out. Single, broke and unfulfilled after the humiliating end to her girl band career, she has only one reason to get out of bed each day: her ten-year-old son Dylan. But then Alfie Risby, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast frozen food empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect. Florence, for once, is faced with a task she can’t quit: She’s got to find Alfie and clear her son’s name, or risk losing Dylan forever.
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Good book!
- By Amanda Corkum on 03-13-25
By: Sarah Harman
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The Last Bookstore on Earth
- By: Lily Braun-Arnold
- Narrated by: Bailey Carr
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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The world is about to end. Again. Ever since the first Storm wreaked havoc on civilization as we know it, seventeen-year-old Liz Flannery has been holed up in an abandoned bookstore in suburban New Jersey where she used to work, trading books for supplies with the few remaining survivors. It’s the one place left that feels safe to her. Until she learns that another earth-shattering Storm is coming . . . and everything changes. Enter Maeve, a prickly and potentially dangerous out-of-towner who breaks into the bookstore looking for shelter one night.
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I like it.
- By Marj on 01-30-25