-
The Lost Daughter
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $10.88
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
From the author of The Days of Abandonment comes The Lost Daughter, Elena Ferrante's most compelling and perceptive meditation on womanhood and motherhood yet.
Leda, a middle-aged divorcee, is alone for the first time in years when her daughters leave home to live with their father. Her initial, unexpected sense of liberty turns to ferocious introspection following a seemingly trivial occurrence. Throughout the novel, Ferrante's language is as finely tuned and intense as ever, and she treats her theme with a fierce, candid tenacity.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Lying Life of Adults
- By: Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein - translator
- Narrated by: Marisa Tomei
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, is looking more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Will she turn out like her despised Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father have spent their whole lives avoiding and deriding? There must be a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Kay on 09-02-20
By: Elena Ferrante, and others
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
My Brilliant Friend
- The Neapolitan Novels, Book 1
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila, who represent the story of a nation and the nature of friendship.
-
-
Parte Uno Dei Quattro--It's Worth it to Keep Goin'
- By W Perry Hall on 09-14-16
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Frantumaglia
- A Writer’s Journey
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Consisting of over 20 years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, Frantumaglia is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing. Ferrante answers many of her listeners’ questions. She addresses her choice to stand aside and let her books live autonomous lives.
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Incidental Inventions
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elena Ferrante is the best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend, now an HBO original series. Collected here for the first time are the seeds of future novels, the timely reflections of this internationally beloved storyteller, the abiding preoccupations of a writer who has been called “one of the great novelists of our time” (New York Times).
-
-
Enjoyed her insightful writing
- By Even on 02-28-23
By: Elena Ferrante
-
The Lying Life of Adults
- By: Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein - translator
- Narrated by: Marisa Tomei
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, is looking more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Will she turn out like her despised Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father have spent their whole lives avoiding and deriding? There must be a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Kay on 09-02-20
By: Elena Ferrante, and others
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
My Brilliant Friend
- The Neapolitan Novels, Book 1
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila, who represent the story of a nation and the nature of friendship.
-
-
Parte Uno Dei Quattro--It's Worth it to Keep Goin'
- By W Perry Hall on 09-14-16
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Frantumaglia
- A Writer’s Journey
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Consisting of over 20 years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, Frantumaglia is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing. Ferrante answers many of her listeners’ questions. She addresses her choice to stand aside and let her books live autonomous lives.
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Incidental Inventions
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elena Ferrante is the best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend, now an HBO original series. Collected here for the first time are the seeds of future novels, the timely reflections of this internationally beloved storyteller, the abiding preoccupations of a writer who has been called “one of the great novelists of our time” (New York Times).
-
-
Enjoyed her insightful writing
- By Even on 02-28-23
By: Elena Ferrante
-
In the Margins
- On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as “an oracle among authors”. Here, in these four crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers.
-
-
Very disappointing
- By Helen DeGroot on 03-20-22
By: Elena Ferrante
-
The Lincoln Highway
- A Read with Jenna Pick (A Novel)
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Marin Ireland, Dion Graham
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car.
-
-
I'm totally opposite
- By Meaghan Bynum on 10-10-21
By: Amor Towles
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Lessons in Chemistry
- A Novel
- By: Bonnie Garmus
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
-
-
Making my 3 adult daughters read this
- By Teresa H. on 04-07-22
By: Bonnie Garmus
-
Apples Never Fall
- By: Liane Moriarty
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 18 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after 50 years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?
-
-
I wanted to love this BUT.....
- By Mary on 09-27-21
By: Liane Moriarty
-
Hello Beautiful
- A Novel
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Maura Tierney
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all.
-
-
Book was great, performance terrible
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-23
By: Ann Napolitano
-
Wish You Were Here
- A Novel
- By: Jodi Picoult
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos - days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.
-
-
Amazing Jodi + excellent narration = 5+++
- By Susie Q on 12-03-21
By: Jodi Picoult
-
The Power of the Dog
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Savage, Annie Proulx - afterword
- Narrated by: Chad Michael Collins, Annie Proulx
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the wide-open spaces of the American West, The Power of the Dog is a stunning story of domestic tyranny, brutal masculinity, and thrilling defiance from one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in American literature. The novel tells the story of two brothers—one magnetic but cruel, the other gentle and quiet—and of the mother and son whose arrival on the brothers’ ranch shatters an already tenuous peace.
-
-
Abrupt Ending and Hard to Follow Story
- By Trevor on 09-08-21
By: Thomas Savage, and others
-
Beautiful World, Where Are You
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young—but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart.
-
-
Must listen!
- By cathy hunt on 09-09-21
By: Sally Rooney
-
The Handmaid's Tale
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Claire Danes
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After a staged terrorist attack kills the President and most of Congress, the government is deposed and taken over by the oppressive and all-controlling Republic of Gilead. Offred is a Handmaid serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife. She can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name.
-
-
My Top Pick for 2012
- By Em on 11-30-12
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Little Fires Everywhere
- By: Celeste Ng
- Narrated by: Jennifer Lim
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads to the colors of the houses to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter, Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons.
-
-
Boring and Drawn Out!!!
- By M. Ryder on 10-05-17
By: Celeste Ng
-
Call Me by Your Name
- A Novel
- By: André Aciman
- Narrated by: Armie Hammer
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Call Me by Your Name first swept across the world in 2007. It is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. During the restless summer weeks, unrelenting but buried currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them and verge toward the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.
-
-
Amazing.
- By Nico L. on 10-07-17
By: André Aciman
Featured Article: Celebrate Award Season 2022 with Page-to-Screen Nominees and Listening Recs Based on Your Frontrunners
And now, it's time to honor and celebrate the achievements of the artists who brought these treasures to the big screen. No matter who you're rooting for when the ceremony begins, these listens are all worthy of a golden statuette in our books. Here are the audiobooks that directly inspired the nominees and a few others to check out based on your own personal frontrunners.
Related to this topic
-
The Vine of Desire
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anju and Sudha formed an astounding, almost psychic connection during their childhood in India. When Anju invites Sudha, a single mother in Calcutta, to come live with her and her husband, Sunil, in California, Sudha foolishly accepts, knowing full well that Sunil has long desired her. As Sunil's attraction rises to the surface, the trio must struggle to make sense of the freedoms of America - and of the ties that bind them to India and to one another.
-
-
Vine of desire
- By Mz Shantay on 03-27-21
-
The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
-
I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
-
-
Aweful
- By Haley Abreu on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
-
When It Happens to You
- A Novel in Stories
- By: Molly Ringwald
- Narrated by: Molly Ringwald
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it happens to you, you will be surprised. That thing they say about how you knew all the time, but just weren't facing it? That might be the case, but nevertheless, there you will be. Molly Ringwald mines the complexities of modern relationships in this gripping and nuanced collection of interlinked stories. Writing with a deep compassion for human imperfection, Ringwald follows a Los Angeles family and their friends and neighbors while they negotiate the hazardous terrain of everyday life - revealing the deceptions, heartbreak, and vulnerability familiar to us all.
-
-
Narrated by Molly!
- By JillHen on 03-01-13
By: Molly Ringwald
-
Before We Visit the Goddess
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Priya Ayyar, Vikas Adam
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family's situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her wing, but her generosity soon proves dangerous after the girl makes a single unforgivable misstep. Years later, Sabitri's own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother's choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover - but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she'd imagined.
-
-
Absolutely Worth a Credit
- By Texastanya on 08-27-16
-
The Unwelcomed Child
- By: V. C. Andrews
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Cottle
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elle Edwards, who has been told she's a product of her mother's sinful mistake, has never gone to school, never met a teenager her own age, never even been allowed off of her grandparents' property. Convinced that their granddaughter is infected with evil, Myra and Prescott Edwards believe that only the harshest child-rearing methods will prevent Elle from becoming an instrument of the devil.
-
-
I wanted it to be better.
- By A. Smith on 11-25-19
By: V. C. Andrews
-
The Vine of Desire
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anju and Sudha formed an astounding, almost psychic connection during their childhood in India. When Anju invites Sudha, a single mother in Calcutta, to come live with her and her husband, Sunil, in California, Sudha foolishly accepts, knowing full well that Sunil has long desired her. As Sunil's attraction rises to the surface, the trio must struggle to make sense of the freedoms of America - and of the ties that bind them to India and to one another.
-
-
Vine of desire
- By Mz Shantay on 03-27-21
-
The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
-
I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
-
-
Aweful
- By Haley Abreu on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
-
When It Happens to You
- A Novel in Stories
- By: Molly Ringwald
- Narrated by: Molly Ringwald
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it happens to you, you will be surprised. That thing they say about how you knew all the time, but just weren't facing it? That might be the case, but nevertheless, there you will be. Molly Ringwald mines the complexities of modern relationships in this gripping and nuanced collection of interlinked stories. Writing with a deep compassion for human imperfection, Ringwald follows a Los Angeles family and their friends and neighbors while they negotiate the hazardous terrain of everyday life - revealing the deceptions, heartbreak, and vulnerability familiar to us all.
-
-
Narrated by Molly!
- By JillHen on 03-01-13
By: Molly Ringwald
-
Before We Visit the Goddess
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Priya Ayyar, Vikas Adam
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family's situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her wing, but her generosity soon proves dangerous after the girl makes a single unforgivable misstep. Years later, Sabitri's own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother's choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover - but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she'd imagined.
-
-
Absolutely Worth a Credit
- By Texastanya on 08-27-16
-
The Unwelcomed Child
- By: V. C. Andrews
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Cottle
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elle Edwards, who has been told she's a product of her mother's sinful mistake, has never gone to school, never met a teenager her own age, never even been allowed off of her grandparents' property. Convinced that their granddaughter is infected with evil, Myra and Prescott Edwards believe that only the harshest child-rearing methods will prevent Elle from becoming an instrument of the devil.
-
-
I wanted it to be better.
- By A. Smith on 11-25-19
By: V. C. Andrews
-
The Space Between Us
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling author Thrity Umrigar won the Nieman Fellowship and earned a finalist spot for the PEN/Beyond Margins award with The Space Between Us. Set in modern-day India, this evocative novel follows upper-middle-class Parsi housewife Sera Dubash and 65-year-old illiterate household worker Bhima as they make their way through life. Though separated by their stations in life, the two women share bonds of womanhood that prove far stronger than the divisions of class or culture.
-
-
A Story that stays with you
- By gardener97 on 04-25-15
By: Thrity Umrigar
-
The World We Found
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling author and PEN and Beyond Margins Award finalist Thrity Umrigar’s acclaimed novels “resonate with rich prose and vibrant depictions of India” ( Booklist). In The World We Found, Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita, and Nishta - once friends at the University of Bombay - reconnect 30 years later when Armaiti is diagnosed with cancer. Coming together, all four women are forced to reexamine their lives.
-
-
Good story but performance not so much!
- By Alisha on 09-13-15
By: Thrity Umrigar
-
Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
-
-
Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Beach House
- By: Mary Alice Monroe
- Narrated by: Mary Alice Monroe
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Caretta Rutledge thought she’d left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind. But an unusual request from her mother – coming just as her own life is spinning out of control – has Cara heading back to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers. Before long, the rhythms of the island open her heart in wonderful ways as she repairs the family beach house, becomes a bona fide “turtle lady” and renews old acquaintances long thought lost.
-
-
Good story, very poor audio quality
- By Dawn on 04-11-16
-
Family Secrets
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Thayer
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though Diane Randall’s jewelry business is a great success, her marriage is not, and she finds herself growing lonely as her children near adulthood. Meanwhile, her eighteen-year-old daughter Julia is falling dangerously in love, and Diane’s mother, Jean, is relishing her newfound freedom as a single woman in Europe. Distracted by their individual concerns, the three women are ill-prepared for the crisis that suddenly appears on Diane’s doorstep in the form of a handsome FBI agent asking about an explosive secret that’s laid buried for decades.
-
-
Nancy! Is there a sequel? What?
- By PattieLynn on 12-02-22
By: Nancy Thayer
-
The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translator)
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
-
-
one of the very best I've ever heard
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-06-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
-
The Blue Between Sky and Water
- By: Susan Abulhawa
- Narrated by: Jennifer Woodward
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1947, and Beit Daras, a quiet village in Palestine surrounded by olive groves, is home to the Baraka family. Eldest daughter Nazmiyeh looks after her widowed mother, prone to wandering and strange outbursts, while her brother, Mamdouh, tends to the village bees. Their younger sister, Mariam, with her striking mismatched eyes, spends her days talking to imaginary friends and writing.
-
-
Horrible pronunciation
- By Debra Sabah Press on 11-08-18
By: Susan Abulhawa
-
Gold Dust
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three women linked by their blood, their dreams...and their sins. From Leningrad in the '70s to America and London in the present day, Kimberley Freeman's new novel follows the lives of two sisters, Lena and Natalia, and their cousin, Sofi, as they move away from Russia and all they have known. Despite promising to always take care of each other, a pact to meet every winter is shattered as their lives change and long-held resentments begin to surface. Can that resentment turn to hatred? To murder?
-
-
It's just not the same without Caroline Lee
- By Maria on 12-04-17
-
Light Years
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
-
-
Unfathomable Font of Blue: Life's Serial Goodbyes
- By W Perry Hall on 04-18-19
By: James Salter
-
Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
-
-
Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
-
Putney
- A Novel
- By: Sofka Zinovieff
- Narrated by: Michelle Ford
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spirit of Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal and Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a man 20 years her senior. Masterfully told from three diverse viewpoints - victim, perpetrator, and witness - Putney is a subtle and enormously powerful novel about consent, agency, and what we tell ourselves to justify what we do, and what others do to us.
-
-
One of the greatest stories of all time!
- By Valarie on 06-17-20
By: Sofka Zinovieff
-
The Wife
- A Novel
- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The moment Joan Castleman decides to leave her husband, they are 35,000 feet above the ocean on a flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph, is one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award, and Joan, who has spent 40 years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop.
-
-
A bit of a downer
- By Jody Cox on 08-01-18
By: Meg Wolitzer
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Lying Life of Adults
- By: Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein - translator
- Narrated by: Marisa Tomei
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, is looking more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Will she turn out like her despised Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father have spent their whole lives avoiding and deriding? There must be a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Kay on 09-02-20
By: Elena Ferrante, and others
-
The Days of Abandonment
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An IndiBound best seller, The Days of Abandonment shocked and captivated its Italian public when first published. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband, with two young children to care for. When she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.
-
-
D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
- By Margaret M. Cranston on 01-18-16
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Troubling Love
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following her mother's untimely and mysterious death, Delia embarks on a voyage of discovery through the streets of her native Naples searching for the truth about her family. A series of mysterious telephone calls leads her to compelling and disturbing revelations about her mother's final days. A story about mothers and daughters and the complicated knot of lies and emotions that binds them, it is a must-listen.
-
-
Too boring
- By CARLA A. on 09-06-24
By: Elena Ferrante
-
My Brilliant Friend
- The Neapolitan Novels, Book 1
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila, who represent the story of a nation and the nature of friendship.
-
-
Parte Uno Dei Quattro--It's Worth it to Keep Goin'
- By W Perry Hall on 09-14-16
By: Elena Ferrante
-
In the Margins
- On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as “an oracle among authors”. Here, in these four crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers.
-
-
Very disappointing
- By Helen DeGroot on 03-20-22
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Incidental Inventions
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elena Ferrante is the best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend, now an HBO original series. Collected here for the first time are the seeds of future novels, the timely reflections of this internationally beloved storyteller, the abiding preoccupations of a writer who has been called “one of the great novelists of our time” (New York Times).
-
-
Enjoyed her insightful writing
- By Even on 02-28-23
By: Elena Ferrante
-
The Lying Life of Adults
- By: Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein - translator
- Narrated by: Marisa Tomei
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, is looking more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Will she turn out like her despised Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father have spent their whole lives avoiding and deriding? There must be a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Kay on 09-02-20
By: Elena Ferrante, and others
-
The Days of Abandonment
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An IndiBound best seller, The Days of Abandonment shocked and captivated its Italian public when first published. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband, with two young children to care for. When she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.
-
-
D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
- By Margaret M. Cranston on 01-18-16
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Troubling Love
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following her mother's untimely and mysterious death, Delia embarks on a voyage of discovery through the streets of her native Naples searching for the truth about her family. A series of mysterious telephone calls leads her to compelling and disturbing revelations about her mother's final days. A story about mothers and daughters and the complicated knot of lies and emotions that binds them, it is a must-listen.
-
-
Too boring
- By CARLA A. on 09-06-24
By: Elena Ferrante
-
My Brilliant Friend
- The Neapolitan Novels, Book 1
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila, who represent the story of a nation and the nature of friendship.
-
-
Parte Uno Dei Quattro--It's Worth it to Keep Goin'
- By W Perry Hall on 09-14-16
By: Elena Ferrante
-
In the Margins
- On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as “an oracle among authors”. Here, in these four crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers.
-
-
Very disappointing
- By Helen DeGroot on 03-20-22
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Incidental Inventions
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elena Ferrante is the best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend, now an HBO original series. Collected here for the first time are the seeds of future novels, the timely reflections of this internationally beloved storyteller, the abiding preoccupations of a writer who has been called “one of the great novelists of our time” (New York Times).
-
-
Enjoyed her insightful writing
- By Even on 02-28-23
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Frantumaglia
- A Writer’s Journey
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Consisting of over 20 years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, Frantumaglia is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing. Ferrante answers many of her listeners’ questions. She addresses her choice to stand aside and let her books live autonomous lives.
By: Elena Ferrante
-
The Lost Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Gill Paul
- Narrated by: Helen Duff
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1918: Pretty, vivacious Grand Duchess Maria Romanov, the 19-year-old daughter of the fallen Tsar Nicholas II, lives with her family in suffocating isolation, a far cry from their once-glittering royal household. Her days are a combination of endless boredom and paralyzing fear; her only respite are clandestine flirtations with a few of the guards imprisoning the family - never realizing her innocent actions could mean the difference between life and death.
-
-
Slow....Very Slow....
- By D. Fields on 04-10-20
By: Gill Paul
-
The Mountain King
- A Novel
- By: Anders de la Motte
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Detective Leonore Asker seems to have the leading position at Malmö’s Major Crime Division within reach. But things go awry when, in the middle of a high profile kidnapping case, management relegates her to the so-called Department of Lost Souls—the unit for odd, cold cases banished to the basement of the police station.
-
Still Born
- By: Guadalupe Nettel, Rosalind Harvey - translator
- Narrated by: Rachel Schwab
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura is so determined not to become a mother that she has taken the drastic decision to have her tubes tied. But when she announces this to her friend, she learns that Alina has made the opposite decision and is preparing to have a child of her own.
-
-
The title
- By valeria on 10-17-24
By: Guadalupe Nettel, and others
-
The Beach at Night
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Natalie Portman
- Length: 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celina is having a terrible night, one full of jealousy for the new kitten, Minù; feelings of abandonment and sadness; misadventures at the hands of the beach attendant; and dark dreams. But she will be happily found by Mati, her child, once the sun rises.
By: Elena Ferrante
-
Girls Against God
- A Novel
- By: Jenny Hval, Marjam Idriss - translator
- Narrated by: Gabrielle Baker
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows, and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her work, things start stirring themselves up. In a corner of Oslo, a coven of witches begin cooking up some curses. A time-traveling Edvard Munch arrives in town to join a death-metal band, closely pursued by the teenaged subject of his painting Puberty, who has murder on her mind. Meanwhile, out deep in the forest, a group of school girls get very lost and things get very strange. And awful things happen in aspic.
-
-
A Fascinating Voice that edges too close to the Absurd
- By Miss M on 10-17-24
By: Jenny Hval, and others
-
A Girl's Story
- By: Annie Ernaux, Alison L. Strayer
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In A Girl's Story, Annie Ernaux revisits a night 50 years earlier when she found herself submerged and controlled by another person's desire and willpower. It was the summer of 1958, the year she turned 18, and the man she had given herself to had moved on. She'd submitted her will to his and then found that she was a slave without a master.
-
-
horrifying pronunciation
- By melinda on 02-08-24
By: Annie Ernaux, and others
-
Assembly
- By: Natasha Brown
- Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner
- Length: 1 hr and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend’s family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can’t escape the question: Is it time to take it all apart?
-
-
HATED IT
- By valerie on 09-24-21
By: Natasha Brown
-
Austerlitz
- By: W. G. Sebald
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, Austerlitz follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.
-
-
To each their own
- By Sebastian Romero on 04-23-20
By: W. G. Sebald
-
Veronica
- By: Mary Gaitskill
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a teenager on the streets of San Francisco, Alison is discovered by a photographer and swept into the world of fashion-modeling in Paris and Rome. When her career crashes and a love affair ends disastrously, she moves to New York City to build a new life. There she meets Veronica: an older wisecracking eccentric with her own ideas about style, a proofreader who comes to work with a personal "office kit" and a plaque that reads "Still Anal After All These Years".
-
-
Everything is baroque-en
- By Eric on 12-14-06
By: Mary Gaitskill
-
La amiga estupenda [My Brilliant Friend]
- Dos amigas, no. 1 [Neapolitan Novels, Book 1]
- By: Elena Ferrante, Celia Filipetto Isicato
- Narrated by: Mercè Montalà
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Con La amiga estupenda, Elena Ferrante inaugura una tetralogia deslumbrante que tiene como telón de fondo la ciudad de Nápoles a mediados del siglo pasado y como protagonistas a Lenù y Lila, dos jóvenes mujeres que están aprendiendo a gobernar su vida en un entorno donde la astucia, antes que la inteligencia, es el ingrediente de todas las salsas. La relación a menudo tempestuosa entre Lila y Lenù viene acompañada de un coro de voces que dan cuerpo a su historia y nos muestran la realidad de un barrio pobre.
-
-
Preciosa
- By Renee on 12-07-22
By: Elena Ferrante, and others
-
All Aunt Hagar's Children
- Selected Stories
- By: Edward P. Jones
- Narrated by: James Peter Francis
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Returning to the city that inspired his first prize-winning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens.
-
-
I JUST DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS!
- By Mimi Routh on 07-05-15
By: Edward P. Jones
What listeners say about The Lost Daughter
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Leslie Mallard
- 12-31-21
Still not quite sure what to say about this book
I definitely feel some kind of way about this book—about Elena. But not quite sure what. It’s great, and dredges up a lot of emotions. Not a simple story, though.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amanda F.
- 01-28-22
Beautiful and Freeing
Oh my beautiful, would suggest a must read before a second child. The wording is deep of simple thoughts a mother has and feels…just fleeting thoughts that run in and out of your mind but you question how a mother thought them. Only to realize other mothers have thought them too. It doesn’t really make you a bad mother…the fact that you question yourself in itself allows you to see your were/are a good mother. Wow on to the Netflix movie (some may not like that sentence but I am interested to see maggie gyllenhaal version that Ferrante allowed. What a sense of freeing as a woman after reading. You wonder if you would not of been so hard on your younger self.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kasandra F.
- 03-15-22
very interesting story
I enjoyed this book. It was very different then what I typically would read. I found the main character intriguing and the story well worth the time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- lisa Cawley
- 03-01-23
The Lost Daughter
Ferrante never disappoints and often challenges her reader to think of her story’s intentions and meaning long after
it is completed .
Hillary Huber’s delivery makes even the most mundane actions , exciting !
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dr Sophie Henshaw
- 09-06-21
Fascinating and Psychologically Complex
Unlike many of the reviewers here, I didn't find the characters unlikeable. Rather, they reminded me very much of the cast of characters in Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet, some even having the same names and traits. For example, Leda shares some commonalties with Lenu (her academic life, where she lived and her work as a writer, the same number of daughters, similar relationship with her ex husband, etc.) and Nina with Lila (who was both beautiful, elegant, but also coarse with her Naples dialect and violent tendencies).
The book delves into the private inner world of a middle-aged but youthful looking woman, Leda, who is ambivalent about motherhood. Leda experiences both tenderness and cruelty in relation to her daughters, Bianca and Marta and the Neapolitan mother Nina, her child Elena and the doll, Nene. I think this is the most interesting aspect of her character, that she has both tenderness / attraction and repulsion / irritability for the family on the beach. These are sentiments I'm sure many mothers would relate to, but very few would be honest about, which makes this book interesting. The sentiments also have a strong cultural flavour in the sense there's a "cult of the child" in Italy whereby children are adored but in private can experience cruelty and scorn from mothers who are overburdened.
The ending appears somewhat inconclusive and you're left wondering exactly what happened. That's where it's important to pay close attention to the opening chapter - which is actually the ending (but you don't realise it until the end). I had to go back and re-read it.
When I did re-read chapter 1 , I wondered about Leda's gift to Nina of the antique hatpin and her instruction to disinfect it when she got home. Did she or didn't she? I guess I'll never know! (P.S. You won't understand this part unless you get the book!).
As for the narration, it was rather nasally, which didn't seem to be the case when Hillary Huber read My Brilliant Friend. As such it seemed somewhat affected, which has put off some people but in the end didn't bother me too much.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Natalia Carrillo
- 12-16-19
muy buena novela
Esta novela es excelente. La lectura en voz alta es muy buena también. El contenido es seco, a veces cruel, pero así es la vida a veces. La autora representa bien ese tipo de momentos, y nos lleva a la vida de una mujer madura que enfrenta una nueva etapa en su vida.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joyce Berkowitz
- 01-13-22
Fascinating story
Much food for thought in this exploration of mother daughter relationships and the ambivalence felt by many mothers.
Reader a bit nasal but tolerable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jonna Higgins
- 01-03-23
Book Disappointment
This book was a pity story of a woman and her selflessness. She lost her emotional abilities to relate to her own family and tended to selflessly harm others mentally, emotionally and to her own desires.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 12-26-17
Ferrante at her best
A remarkable turn of events, a devastating ending. And Ferrante's marvelous prose. Worth every page.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- kdiz
- 11-08-21
Ferrante's finest shorter work
A violent slap in the face of a book. This one is about the trauma of motherhood, which is both reveling and mysterious and leaves you feeling haunted by Ferrante’s undercurrents of hidden violence which pervade all her works.
If you’ve read the Neapolitan quartet, you’ll see familiar mirror components here and there. The more I read Ferrante, the more I get a sense of who she is. Her writing is vicious and completely compelling and forces you to reflect on your own truths and personal sense of morality. I liked this one best of all her shorter novels.
Hillary Huber, once again, captures Ferrante perfectly.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful