The House of Discarded Dreams
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Narrated by:
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Robin Miles
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By:
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Ekaterina Sedia
About this listen
Trying to escape her embarrassing immigrant mother, Vimbai moves into a dilapidated house in the dunes and discovers that one of her new roommates has a pocket universe instead of hair, there's a psychic energy baby living in the telephone wires, and her dead Zimbabwean grandmother is doing dishes in the kitchen. When the house gets lost at sea and creatures of African urban legends all but take it over, Vimbai turns to horseshoe crabs in the ocean to ask for their help in getting home to New Jersey.
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Editorial reviews
Book lovers who enjoy fantasy will jump with both feet into the experience of listening to Ekaterina Sedia’s The House of Discarded Dreams, creatively performed by Robin Miles. While the basis of the story is of Vimbai, a Zimbabwean daughter of immigrants to the United States, finding an identity for herself that is separate from her parents and her African heritage, the story is that and so much more.
Miles adeptly captures the impatience and irritation of 20-year-old Vimbai, an only child who would like nothing more than to live an independent life. Miles easily transitions between the terribly irked Vimbai and her parents, who are grappling with their own identities no longer Africans, though not quite Americans. Vimbai’s mother, a university instructor of Africana Studies, indignantly perceives condescension towards all that is African in her American experiences, while Vimbai’s father is a nurse beleaguered by the reality that nothing he can say or do will mollify his wife’s dissatisfaction with life.
When Vimbai attempts a separation from her parents by becoming the third roommate in a house by the shore, The House of Discarded Dreams spins off into a world that may or may not be of Vimbai’s creation. Nevertheless, Miles excels as she takes on the characterizations of Vimbai’s roommates, world-weary Maya and Felix, a loopy fellow with wild, dark hair that is, truly, a universe unto itself. Miles gives life to a croaky (from being stuck in the phone lines) yet highly rambunctious Psychic Energy Baby; a slippery, manipulative Manfish/catfish; but, most compellingly, to Vimbai’s Shona grandmother who has returned from the afterlife to guide Vimbai through the journey launched into motion with Vimbai’s presence in the house. Through Miles, Vimbai’s grandmother is a mellifluous, loving, African elder who reveals the layers in Shona legends Vimbai had been too young to grasp when her grandmother was alive. The tales not only explain the fantasy world Vimbai, Maya, and Felix temporarily inhabit but also begin to illuminate, for Vimbai, the unease and sadness with which her parents view their lives in America. As The House of Discarded Dreams progresses, Vimbai begins to accept the depth to which she is and will always remain African.
Miles’s ability to voice convincingly so many fantastical characters allows listeners to lose themselves in the enchanted world Ekaterina Sedia has created in The House of Discarded Dreams. Tying together one magical scene after another, her narration encourages all to journey alongside Vimbai as she navigates her way through a shape-shifting beach house with other-worldly inhabitants. Through Miles’s extraordinary skills Vimbai and audiobook listeners are entertained by a wise Zimbabwean grandmother who cares enough not only to give us important life lessons through Shona folktales, but also to do the dirty dishes as well. Carole Chouinard
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- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Michael Healy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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The Autumn Castle
- By: Kim Wilkins
- Narrated by: Richard Aspel
- Length: 19 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Berlin in autumn: Christine Starlight lives in an artists' colony with her lover Jude, whose patience and beauty have eased her battle with chronic pain. But Christine begins to be haunted by childhood recollections of a little girl's disappearance and the flapping of a blackbird's wings. Then her world is rocked by the return of a childhood friend... Mayfridh rules over a land where a wolf is the queen's counsellor, fate turns on the fall of an autumn leaf and mortals feel no pain.
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Great Story, Horrible Narration
- By KathyDB on 03-24-15
By: Kim Wilkins
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Surfacing
- By: Shana Norris
- Narrated by: Amanda Ronconi
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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16-year-old Mara Westray has just lost her mother, and now, being shipped off to live with the father she doesn’t know is not how she imagined grieving. She's already counting down the days until she turns 18 and can leave the tiny island of Swans Landing. But from the moment she steps off the ferry, nothing is as ordinary as it looks. As she tries to unravel the events that led to her mom fleeing the island 16 years ago, Mara finds that the biggest secret of all is only the beginning.
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A Good Listen.
- By Karen Russell on 02-28-16
By: Shana Norris
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Because You Love to Hate Me
- 13 Tales of Villainy
- By: Ameriie - editor
- Narrated by: Ameriie, Kevin T. Collins, Julia Whelan
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In this unique YA anthology, 13 acclaimed, best-selling authors team up with 13 influential BookTubers to reimagine fairy tales from the oft-misunderstood villains' points of view. These fractured, unconventional spins on classics like Medusa, Sherlock Holmes, and 'Jack and the Beanstalk' provide a behind-the-curtain look at villains' acts of vengeance, defiance, and rage - and the pain, heartbreak, and sorrow that spurned them on. No fairy tale will ever seem quite the same again!
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I enjoyed more than I expected
- By Doha on 08-30-17
By: Ameriie - editor
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A Curious Tale of the In-Between
- By: Lauren DeStefano
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Pram Bellamy is special - she can talk to ghosts. She doesn't have too many friends among the living, but that's all right. She has her books, she has her aunts, and she has her best friend, the ghostly Felix. Then Pram meets Clarence, a boy from school who has also lost a parent and is looking for answers. Together they arrive at the door of the mysterious Lady Savant, who promises to help. But this spiritualist knows the true nature of Pram's power, and what she has planned is more terrifying than any ghost.
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Interesting, true care, warm feeling step into spiritual world.
- By chessnut888 on 09-24-15
By: Lauren DeStefano
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The Boy Who Drew Monsters
- By: Keith Donohue
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since he nearly drowned in the ocean three years earlier, 10-year-old Jack Peter Keenan has been deathly afraid to venture outdoors. Refusing to leave his home in a small coastal town in Maine, Jack Peter spends his time drawing monsters. When those drawings take on a life of their own, no one is safe from the terror they inspire.
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troubled boy, troubled waters
- By Debra B on 10-29-14
By: Keith Donohue
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Alice
- By: Christina Henry
- Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls that echo the screams of the poor souls inside. In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blond, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn't remember why she's in such a terrible place. Just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood.
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Superb writing and narration
- By Jennifer Wadsworth on 08-27-16
By: Christina Henry
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The Alchemy of Stone
- By: Ekaterina Sedia
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Mattie, an intelligent automaton skilled in the use of alchemy, finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between gargoyles, the Mechanics, and the Alchemists. With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets - secrets that can completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. This doesn't sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to her heart - literally.
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Steam Punk with a fizzle
- By Janice Budd on 12-29-11
By: Ekaterina Sedia
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My Soul to Keep
- By: Tananarive Due
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost.
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A Book I Can't Keep
- By Mistsofjade on 07-19-20
By: Tananarive Due
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Dragon's Blood
- The Pit Dragon Chronicles, Volume 1
- By: Jane Yolen
- Narrated by: Marc Thompson
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Dragons are trained to fight to the death, and two determined teens help free them in this spellbinding saga. Training a dragon to be a fighting champion is the only way to freedom for 15-year-old Jakkin.
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can't even listen to it
- By Ingvor V. Franklin on 11-12-17
By: Jane Yolen
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Liesl & Po
- By: Kei Acedera, Lauren Oliver
- Narrated by: Jim Dale
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Liesl lives in a tiny attic bedroom, locked away by her cruel stepmother. Her only friends are the shadows and the mice - until one night a ghost appears from the darkness. It is Po, who comes from the Other Side. Both Liesl and Po are lonely, but together they are less alone. That same night, an alchemist's apprentice, Will, bungles an important delivery. He accidentally switches a box containing the most powerful magic in the world with one containing something decidedly less remarkable. Will's mistake has tremendous consequences for Liesl and Po....
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Great story made better by a great narrator
- By Marie on 09-16-12
By: Kei Acedera, and others
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Grim
- By: Ellen Hopkins, Julie Kagawa, Amanda Hocking, and others
- Narrated by: Christine Johnson
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Inspired by classic fairy tales, but with a dark and sinister twist, Grim contains short stories from some of the best voices in young adult literature today: Ellen Hopkins, Amanda Hocking, Julie Kagawa, Claudia Gray, Rachel Hawkins, Kimberly Derting, Myra McEntire, Malinda Lo, Sarah Rees-Brennan, Jackson Pearce, Christine Johnson, Jeri Smith Ready, Shaun David Hutchinson, Saundra Mitchell, Sonia Gensler, Tessa Gratton, Jon Skrovron.
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amazing
- By Anonymous User on 10-04-17
By: Ellen Hopkins, and others
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Dreams and Shadows
- A Novel
- By: C. Robert Cargill
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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There is another world than our own - one no closer than a kiss and one no further than our nightmares - where all the stuff of which dreams are made is real and magic is just a step away. But once you see that world, you will never be the same. Dreams and Shadows takes us beyond this veil. Once bold explorers and youthful denizens of this magical realm, Ewan is now an Austin musician who just met his dream girl, and Colby, meanwhile, cannot escape the consequences of an innocent wish.
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An Amazing Book
- By hermanous on 04-14-13
What listeners say about The House of Discarded Dreams
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Becky Parker Geist
- 02-01-15
intriguing ideas but narration falls short
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
No. Narrator doesn't effectively convey what is an odd but sort of interesting narrative.Some good accents, but otherwise weak.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
The story itself seems to meander, although I struggled to follow the story in spite of the narrator, so I suspect it was better than I was able to determine.
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
The African accents of the grandmother and parents were attractive, but the voices she used for Maya and Felix were a turn off. Mostly though, what was frustrating was trying to follow the story in spite of the narrator. I could hear the words trying to convey ideas that the narrator did not help me understand - especially on an emotional level. I felt like I was on the fence about whether to keep listening throughout the book, and unlike other audiobooks, I was not eager to get back to listening or loathe to stop. I pressed on and got to the end, but it was an effort.
Was The House of Discarded Dreams worth the listening time?
No.
Any additional comments?
It was a shame the narrator wasn't better. I would have liked to hear what someone really capable could have done with it.
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- William
- 10-10-21
Disjointed
I enjoyed the book though nearly impossible to find any cohesion. Clever and interesting
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2 people found this helpful
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- CrunchySocks
- 10-12-23
I tried
I tried but just couldn’t finish. The author uses a lot of very descriptive prose, something an English teacher would like, but after awhile, it just droned on and on. The premise is great, and I really wanted to hear more folklore, but I just couldn’t take the writing style.
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