
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
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Narrated by:
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Junauda Petrus
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Bahni Turpin
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J. D. Jackson
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By:
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Junauda Petrus
About this listen
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus' bold and lyrical debut is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both.
Port of Spain, Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent, having just found out she's going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend, the pastor's daughter. Audre's grandmother, Queenie (a former dancer who drives a white convertible Cadillac and who has a few secrets of her own), tries to reassure her granddaughter that she won't lose her roots, not even in some place called Minneapolis. "America have dey spirits too, believe me," she tells Audre.
Minneapolis, USA. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why she feels the way she feels - about her ex, Terrell, about her girl, Jada, and that moment they had in the woods, and about the vague feeling of illness that's plagued her all summer. Mabel's reverie is cut short when her father announces that his best friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner.
Mabel quickly falls hard for Audre and is determined to take care of her as she tries to navigate an American high school. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer, and suddenly it's Audre who is caring for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future.
Junauda Petrus' debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.
©2019 Junauda Petrus (P)2019 Listening LibraryListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Fearless." (Teen Vogue)
"Like Toni Morrison, who redrew the narrative of black experience with novels set in Midwestern small towns, Petrus is redrawing a map, creating an Eden where Caribbean, black and LGBT culture can find beauty and lushness, spirituality, history and sustenance." (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
"Petrus’s prose is rhythmic, colloquial, and unabashedly erotic." (City Pages)
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Can't Let Her Go
- By: Kianna Alexander
- Narrated by: Tamara Austin
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Peaches Monroe and Jamie Hunt are core members of their Texas friend squad and have so much in common. They’re successful at their careers in personal care. They take Austin’s “Keep It Weird” vibe to heart, each leaning into their own unique talents and sense of style. And they’re both ready to go on to even bigger things. Is pushing past the boundaries of friendship into something deeper one of them? The red-hot fantasy is there…but so is real life.
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Can't Let Her Go
- By MLTU on 08-22-24
By: Kianna Alexander
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Blood Like Magic
- By: Liselle Sambury
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A rich, dark urban fantasy debut following a teen witch who is given a horrifying task: sacrificing her first love to save her family’s magic. The problem is, she’s never been in love - she’ll have to find the perfect guy before she can kill him.
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Message: Morality is a myth & Balance is essential
- By Timisha on 01-07-22
By: Liselle Sambury
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Juliet Takes a Breath
- By: Gabby Rivera
- Narrated by: Gabby Rivera
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Juliet Milagros Palante is a self-proclaimed closeted Puerto-Rican baby dyke from the Bronx. Only, she's not so closeted anymore. Not after coming out to her family the night before flying to Portland, Oregon, to intern with her favorite feminist writer - what's sure to be a life-changing experience. And when Juliet's coming out crashes and burns, she's not sure her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan - sort of.
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Healing & Growth
- By Judee Squeer on 02-26-22
By: Gabby Rivera
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Compound Fracture
- By: Andrew Joseph White
- Narrated by: Dani Martineck
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him. The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement.
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impeccable
- By J. Cicero on 09-18-24
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The Black Girl Survives in This One
- Horror Stories
- By: Desiree S. Evans - editor, Saraciea J. Fennell - editor, Tananarive Due - introduction
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Tananarive Due
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Celebrating a new generation of bestselling and acclaimed Black writers, The Black Girl Survives in This One makes space for Black girls in horror. Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and survivors who slay monsters, battle spirits, and face down death. Prepare to be terrified and left breathless by the pieces in this anthology.
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Love that the black girl always survived!
- By China on 09-11-24
By: Desiree S. Evans - editor, and others
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The Weight of Blood
- By: Tiffany D. Jackson
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Sarah Mollo-Christensen, Joy Nash, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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When Springville residents—at least the ones still alive—are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation . . . Maddy did it. An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she's dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington.
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Blown away by this Carrie retelling
- By AlohaD on 10-29-22
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Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
- Crossing Press Feminist Series, Book 1
- By: Audre Lorde
- Narrated by: Robin Eller
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in 20th-century literature. In this charged collection of 15 essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope.
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One of the most important things I have ever listened to.
- By Jayrod on 11-16-16
By: Audre Lorde
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Ace of Spades
- By: Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
- Narrated by: Jeanette Illidge, Tapiwa Mugweni
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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When two Niveus Private Academy students, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, are selected to be part of the elite school’s senior class prefects, it looks like their year is off to an amazing start. After all, not only does it look great on college applications, but it officially puts each of them in the running for valedictorian, too. Shortly after the announcement is made, though, someone who goes by Aces begins using anonymous text messages to reveal secrets about the two of them that turn their lives upside down and threaten every aspect of their carefully planned futures.
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Not for me
- By Bee on 10-29-21
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The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
- By: Issa Rae
- Narrated by: Issa Rae
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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"My name is 'J' and I'm awkward--and Black. Someone once told me those were the two worst things anyone could be. That someone was right. Where do I start?" Being an introvert in a world that glorifies cool isn't easy. But when Issa Rae, the creator of the Shorty Award-winning hit series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, is that introvert--whether she's navigating love, work, friendships, or rapping--it sure is entertaining.
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Loved
- By Jamila on 02-25-15
By: Issa Rae
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Iron Widow (Book 1)
- By: Xiran Jay Zhao
- Narrated by: Rong Fu
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed.
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A fun yet uneven read.
- By Cody McGrath on 09-28-21
By: Xiran Jay Zhao
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You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
- A Novel
- By: Akwaeke Emezi
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.
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Very well written but...
- By Sasha on 05-31-22
By: Akwaeke Emezi
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Under the Whispering Door
- By: TJ Klune
- Narrated by: Kirt Graves
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to Charon's Crossing. The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through. When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.
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Lovely, simply lovely
- By DDB on 09-23-21
By: TJ Klune
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Jackal
- A Novel
- By: Erin E. Adams
- Narrated by: Sandra Okuboyejo, William DeMeritt
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Liz Rocher is coming home . . . reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward, passive-aggressive reunions. Liz has grown, though; she can handle whatever awaits her. But on the night of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the newlyweds’ daughter, Caroline, disappears—and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood.
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There’s no such thing as a perfect story
- By Jill N Davies on 04-09-23
By: Erin E. Adams
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The Priory of the Orange Tree
- By: Samantha Shannon
- Narrated by: Liyah Summers
- Length: 25 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction - but assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
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In a word, WOW
- By Kevin Potter on 03-09-19
By: Samantha Shannon
What listeners say about The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
Highly rated for:
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- Nicole Simpkins
- 06-07-21
I LOVE this book
I listened to this book on a long solo car trip and I loved it so very much. It is of course written with a young adult audience in mind, but I am a not-so-young adult and it DELIGHTED me and made me cry and felt like it contained so much strength and magic and medicine. I am so grateful that this book was written and can’t wait for more from Junauda Petrius!!!! Also the narration was superb.
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- LJFS
- 11-21-20
Moving
The writing and the narrators are outstanding. Very much worth the read. The book did NOT follow a predictable path, and the journey felt so authentic
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- Jade Wilkins
- 03-02-20
Amazing love story
Laugh, cry and be witness to a sweet love story. Petrus has a way with words that cuts to the soul.
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- AmazonCustomer
- 09-21-19
My Gawd
This is the most luscious book I have ever read. It's my new favorite.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Alexandra Ortiz
- 03-25-22
So good!
It was awesomely written. The two points of view were interesting. I liked the Teinidad accent. I liked the musical references. Mom describing brunch was pretty cool. There were some surprises and twists and turns. Surprise guests. Quite interesting. I enjoyed how it ended, also in surprise.
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- ZQ
- 09-14-22
remarkable and tender love story
loved seeing the development of characters in this book, the reading was very well done and i felt seen and translated in to text in so much of this book. i am so very happy to have come across it
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- Zhane'l Speaks
- 09-04-20
Beautiful read
Wow! This was a beautiful read. I loved how each character had their own voice and how those voices made me feel connected to them. I really love how the book ended. I visualized the book as a movie.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Bethany P.
- 01-27-21
Wow. What happened?!?
I need more words! Although my heart can accept this ending, my mind needs more words to be able to understand how a freedom for some can be so unfinished for others. I find myself wanting more - more perspectives, more time, more healing. This is a great story. I feel like I inhaled it. And the pieces I want most are lost somewhere between here and forever.
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- Brit R
- 11-27-24
Loved how raw the story was!!
First sapphic novel that I've personally listened too! It was like Audre was telling my story.
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- Kindle Customer
- 08-19-20
An absolutely phenomenal read
I enjoyed every second of listening to this book. Mabel, Audre and the whole cast of characters are breathtakingly real. I really loved the astrology focus of the story because it really got me thinking about spirituality, stars, universe and astrology. I teared up multiple times while reading this incredible book.
TW: homophobia, child abuse, terminal illness, death sentence
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