The Rehearsal Audiobook By Eleanor Catton cover art

The Rehearsal

A Novel

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The Rehearsal

By: Eleanor Catton
Narrated by: Nicole Arumugum
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A teacher's affair with his underage student jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own power. Their nascent desires surprise even themselves as they find the practice room where they rehearse with their saxophone teacher is the safe place where they can test out their abilities to attract and manipulate. It seems their every act is a performance, every platform a stage.

But when the local drama school turns the story into their year-end show, the real world and the world of the theater are forced to meet. With the dates of the performances - the musicians' and the acting students' - approaching, the dramas, real and staged, begin to resemble each other, until they merge in a climax worthy of both life and art.

©2014 Eleanor Catton (P)2014 Hachette Audio Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Urban Student Theater

Critic reviews

"Uncommonly witty and bold... [ The Rehearsal has] a real knack for narrative." ( The Times of London)
" The Rehearsal is a significant debut novel from an exciting young writer. Eleanor Catton is a new talent who has arrived fully formed... This is a startling novel, striking and strange and brave." ( New Zealand Listener)
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I loved this book and the way it weaves together the real and the performative aspects of being human. It’s a fascinating look at sex, social hierarchies, creative expression, and the way we make meaning of ourselves and our experiences— both for ourselves and for other people. I also thought the reader did a fantastic job. Her voice is crisp and clear and has just the right amount of drama. Highly recommend this audiobook.

Brilliant book and fantastic reader

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Catton puts you in high school as the students, the teachers, puts you in an exclusive acting school, discovering what's real, authentic in the self and in a performance and in the audience. Sharp and sharp witted.

Brilliant.

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The English accent of the narrator led me to believe that it was set in England - but in fact it's set in the author's native New Zealand (why would they do this!). The dialogue is too clever by far - its artificiality distances one from the characters. A huge disappointment after the same author's brilliant Luminaries and Birnham Wood.

too clever by far

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Hunh?could someone explain this book to me. Just a little too much. Ok three more words.

What?

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