
The Society of Shame
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 $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Thérèse Plummer
-
By:
-
Jane Roper
About this listen
THURBER PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR FINALIST • In this timely and witty combination of So You've Been Publicly Shamed and Where'd You Go, Bernadette? a viral photo of a politician's wife's “feminine hygiene malfunction” catapults her to unwanted fame in a story that's both a satire of social media stardom and internet activism, and a tender mother-daughter tale.
Kathleen Held’s life is turned upside down when she arrives home to find her house on fire and her husband on the front lawn in his underwear. But the scandal that emerges is not that Bill, who's running for Senate, is having a painfully cliched affair with one of his young staffers: it's that the eyewitness photographing the scene accidentally captures a period stain on the back of Kathleen’s pants.
Overnight, Kathleen finds herself the unwitting figurehead for a social media-centered women’s right movement, #YesWeBleed. Humiliated, Kathleen desperately seeks a way to hide from the spotlight. But when she stumbles upon the Society of Shame—led by the infamous author Danica Bellevue—Kathleen finds herself part of a group who are all working to change their lives after their own scandals. Using the teachings of the society, Kathleen channels her newfound fame as a means to reap the benefits of her humiliation and reclaim herself. But as she ascends to celebrity status, Kathleen's growing obsession with maintaining her popularity online threatens her most important relationship IRL: that with her budding activist daughter, Aggie.
Hilarious and heartfelt, The Society of Shame is a pitch-perfect romp through politics and the perils of being "extremely online"—without losing your sanity or your true self.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Romantic Comedy (Reese's Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life. But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show.
-
-
Not really for me
- By Emma on 04-19-23
-
Happy Place
- By: Emily Henry
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t. They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
-
-
Not for me
- By Yj on 04-27-23
By: Emily Henry
-
Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Weisberger
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of The Devil Wears Prada and When Life Gives You Lululemons comes a highly entertaining, sharply observed novel about sisters, their perfect lives...and their perfect lies.
-
-
Woke joke
- By Brigit on 10-12-22
-
The Lost Wife
- A Novel
- By: Susanna Moore
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of our most compelling and sensual writers brings to life a devastating Native American revolt and the woman caught in the middle of the conflict in this novel about a seminal and shameful moment in America’s conquest of the West.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Jean Nisbet on 03-01-24
By: Susanna Moore
-
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
-
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
-
Romantic Comedy (Reese's Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life. But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show.
-
-
Not really for me
- By Emma on 04-19-23
-
Happy Place
- By: Emily Henry
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t. They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
-
-
Not for me
- By Yj on 04-27-23
By: Emily Henry
-
Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Weisberger
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of The Devil Wears Prada and When Life Gives You Lululemons comes a highly entertaining, sharply observed novel about sisters, their perfect lives...and their perfect lies.
-
-
Woke joke
- By Brigit on 10-12-22
-
The Lost Wife
- A Novel
- By: Susanna Moore
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of our most compelling and sensual writers brings to life a devastating Native American revolt and the woman caught in the middle of the conflict in this novel about a seminal and shameful moment in America’s conquest of the West.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Jean Nisbet on 03-01-24
By: Susanna Moore
-
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
-
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
-
Bad Summer People
- A Novel
- By: Emma Rosenblum
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker rule the town of Salcombe, Fire Island every summer. They hold sway on the beach and the tennis court, and are adept at manipulating people to get what they want. Their husbands, Sam and Jason, have summered together on the island since childhood, despite lifelong grudges and numerous secrets. Their one single friend, Rachel Woolf, is looking to meet her match, whether he’s the tennis pro. But even with plenty to gossip about, this season starts out as quietly as any other. Until a body is discovered, face down, off the side of the boardwalk.
-
-
Not a thriller, not a mystery
- By Anonymous User on 05-25-23
By: Emma Rosenblum
-
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
-
From This Day Forward: Encore Edition
- Heartland Homecoming, Book 1
- By: Irene Hannon
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After his surgical career ends in tragedy and his marriage shatters, Dr. Sam Martin leaves Philadelphia for a new life in Oak Hill, Missouri. But he’s never stopped loving the woman who stole his heart. Determined to win her back, Sam invites Cara to recover at his home after she suffers a trauma of her own.
-
-
Wonderful Story!
- By LOK on 08-10-23
By: Irene Hannon
-
The Five-Star Weekend
- By: Elin Hilderbrand
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hollis Shaw, creator of the popular food blog, Hungry with Hollis, is shocked when her heart surgeon husband, Matthew, is killed in a one-car accident on a snowy morning. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper. So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket.
-
-
Perfection
- By Pink Amy on 06-15-23
By: Elin Hilderbrand
-
Happiness Falls (Good Morning America Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Angie Kim
- Narrated by: Shannon Tyo, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Thomas Pruyn, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything—which is why she isn’t initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don’t return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia’s brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.
-
-
A mixed review, but recommend
- By Andrea B. on 09-07-23
By: Angie Kim
-
Someone Else's Shoes
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Daisy Ridley
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope--she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in. That’s because Sam Kemp—in the bleakest point of her life—has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about a lost gym bag—she’s struggling to keep herself and her family afloat.
-
-
Bad language
- By Kerbear on 02-25-23
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Once Upon Nantucket: Encore Edition
- Lighthouse Lane, Book 1
- By: Irene Hannon
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After fifteen years as a Coast Guard search and rescue specialist and a stint at headquarters, Lieutenant Craig Cole hopes to quietly finish out his career in his new assignment as commander of the Coast Guard station on Nantucket. But there’s nothing quiet about his clash with feisty red-haired charter fishing boat captain Katherine MacDonald, who does not appreciate a safety citation from one of the new hotshot commander’s underlings. As she and the commander go head to head, sparks fly … in more ways than one.
-
-
Loved it
- By Ashley on 10-17-24
By: Irene Hannon
-
Holiday Romance
- By: Catherine Walsh
- Narrated by: Shelley Atkinson
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Molly and Andrew are just trying to get home to Ireland for the holidays when a freak snowstorm grounds their flight. As the snow falls over the city and over the heads of two friends who are sure they’re not meant to be together, the universe might just have a plan of its own.
-
-
SWEET
- By Kenz on 12-07-22
By: Catherine Walsh
-
Such a Fun Age
- By: Kiley Reid
- Narrated by: Nicole Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young Black woman out late with a White child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.
-
-
This is embarrassing!
- By Anonymous User on 01-31-20
By: Kiley Reid
-
The Rachel Incident
- A Novel
- By: Caroline O'Donoghue
- Narrated by: Tara Flynn
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.
-
-
Best narration
- By LG on 01-12-24
-
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
- By: Abbi Waxman
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're all - or mostly all - excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It's a disaster!
-
-
Engaging story but not well written
- By Rachel A. on 08-16-19
By: Abbi Waxman
-
The Other Black Girl
- A Novel
- By: Zakiya Dalila Harris
- Narrated by: Aja Naomi King, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Heather Alicia Simms, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.
-
-
Provocative
- By TDub on 06-05-21
Critic reviews
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: BOOKLIST • ZIBBY MAG
PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S BOOK OF THE WEEK
ONE OF PARADE'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF SPRING
“Roper spins a delightfully dead-on comedy of manners around an endearing heroine.” —People
“Clever and inventive. . . . In a sea of sad novels The Society of Shame dares us to laugh.” —Karen Heller, The Washington Post
Fun Read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Creative story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Most fun premise I've come across in a while.
This almost makes me wish my book club didn't choose books a year at a time because there's much here that would be a lot of fun to discuss, preferably with something light and bubbly. But don't think the entire story is fluff. From response to infidelity to what we expect/tolerate of our politicians, from cancel culture to who has your back when things go bad, & taking care of kids when families fall apart -- there is much here for good discussion.
Fun & fluffy, but w things to think & talk about
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Repetitive, thematically confusing, offensive
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Couldn’t get into it
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not worth $ or time
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
All-in-all, The Society of Shame is a very fun and rewarding listen.
Very funny story with a beating heart
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great Take on Modern Life
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.