-
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Bahni Turpin, Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 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 $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
A debut of extraordinary distinction: through the trials of one unforgettable family, Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration, a story of love and bitterness and the promise of a new America.
In 1923, 15-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children, whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them.
Captured here in 12 luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation. Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Unsettled
- A Novel
- By: Ayana Mathis
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there.
-
-
Well that was depressing
- By Holly on 12-05-23
By: Ayana Mathis
-
Behold the Dreamers
- A Novel
- By: Imbolo Mbue
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself; his wife, Neni; and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty - and Jende is eager to please. Clark's wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses' summer home in the Hamptons.
-
-
Overhyped
- By Rochelle on 08-27-16
By: Imbolo Mbue
-
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
- A Novel
- By: Lizzie Damilola Blackburn
- Narrated by: Ronke Adékoluejo
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yinka’s Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, her work friends think she’s too traditional (she’s saving herself for marriage!), her girlfriends think she needs to get over her ex already, and the men in her life…well, that’s a whole other story. But Yinka herself has always believed that true love will find her when the time is right.
-
-
Awesome story, not necessarily funny
- By Kellie on 01-28-22
-
An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden, Eisa Davis
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding.
-
-
So many “WTF” moments
- By Kristen R King on 05-04-18
By: Tayari Jones
-
Yellow Crocus
- Yellow Crocus, Book 1
- By: Laila Ibrahim
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. Thus begins an intense relationship that will shape both of their lives for decades to come. Though Lisbeth leads a life of privilege, she finds nothing but loneliness in the company of her overwhelmed mother and her distant, slave-owning father.
-
-
A rare find, a 5 star book!
- By Kathy in CA on 02-22-15
By: Laila Ibrahim
-
The Mothers
- A Novel
- By: Brit Bennett
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, 17-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is 21, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth.
-
-
anti abortion message dampens the enjoyment
- By T on 06-26-19
By: Brit Bennett
-
The Unsettled
- A Novel
- By: Ayana Mathis
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there.
-
-
Well that was depressing
- By Holly on 12-05-23
By: Ayana Mathis
-
Behold the Dreamers
- A Novel
- By: Imbolo Mbue
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself; his wife, Neni; and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty - and Jende is eager to please. Clark's wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses' summer home in the Hamptons.
-
-
Overhyped
- By Rochelle on 08-27-16
By: Imbolo Mbue
-
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
- A Novel
- By: Lizzie Damilola Blackburn
- Narrated by: Ronke Adékoluejo
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yinka’s Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, her work friends think she’s too traditional (she’s saving herself for marriage!), her girlfriends think she needs to get over her ex already, and the men in her life…well, that’s a whole other story. But Yinka herself has always believed that true love will find her when the time is right.
-
-
Awesome story, not necessarily funny
- By Kellie on 01-28-22
-
An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden, Eisa Davis
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding.
-
-
So many “WTF” moments
- By Kristen R King on 05-04-18
By: Tayari Jones
-
Yellow Crocus
- Yellow Crocus, Book 1
- By: Laila Ibrahim
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. Thus begins an intense relationship that will shape both of their lives for decades to come. Though Lisbeth leads a life of privilege, she finds nothing but loneliness in the company of her overwhelmed mother and her distant, slave-owning father.
-
-
A rare find, a 5 star book!
- By Kathy in CA on 02-22-15
By: Laila Ibrahim
-
The Mothers
- A Novel
- By: Brit Bennett
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, 17-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is 21, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth.
-
-
anti abortion message dampens the enjoyment
- By T on 06-26-19
By: Brit Bennett
-
The Sweetness of Water (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Nathan Harris
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Equal parts beauty and terror, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.
-
-
Masterful storytelling and an exceptional audio performance
- By Pamela on 06-18-21
By: Nathan Harris
-
The House of Eve
- By: Sadeqa Johnson
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake, Nicole Lewis, Sadeqa Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright. Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his parents don’t let just anyone into their fold.
-
-
This could've been good...
- By Speedreader on 10-13-23
By: Sadeqa Johnson
-
Homegoing
- A Novel
- By: Yaa Gyasi
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and will live in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising children who will be sent abroad to be educated before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the empire. Esi, imprisoned beneath Effia in the castle's women's dungeon and then shipped off on a boat bound for America, will be sold into slavery.
-
-
A Novel in Stories
- By Daryl on 06-19-16
By: Yaa Gyasi
-
The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.
-
-
We Must Always Remember
- By Cammie on 09-28-19
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
-
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
- An Oprah’s Book Club Novel
- By: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 29 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s problem on her shoulders.
-
-
The Great American Novel is finally inclusive.
- By Margaret on 12-28-21
-
The Warmth of Other Suns
- The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
-
-
Superior non-fiction
- By Lila on 05-20-11
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
Midlife Crisis
- By: La Jill Hunt
- Narrated by: Susan Spain
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sylvia Blackwell has it all, or so she thinks. She and her handsome husband, Garrett, are the epitome of success: an immaculate house of their dreams, a beautiful and talented 17-year-old daughter, flourishing careers, and nearly 20 years of perfectly wedded bliss. Just as they are making plans for their vow renewal celebration, a call in the middle of the night interrupts their picture-perfect lives. Now Sylvia has to deal with the reality of Garrett's dead mistress and a love child she never knew about.
-
-
Where is the rest of the story
- By Jane on 05-19-19
By: La Jill Hunt
-
Paper Wife
- A Novel
- By: Laila Ibrahim
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Southern China, 1923. Desperate to secure her future, Mei Ling’s parents arrange a marriage to a widower in California. To enter the country, she must pretend to be her husband’s first wife - a paper wife. On the perilous voyage, Mei Ling takes an orphan girl named Siew under her wing. Dreams of a better life in America give Mei Ling the strength to endure the treacherous journey and detainment on Angel Island. But when she finally reaches San Francisco, she’s met with a surprise. Her husband, Chinn Kai Li, is a houseboy, not the successful merchant he led her to believe.
-
-
Just okay..disappointed
- By Donna Smith McG on 11-03-18
By: Laila Ibrahim
-
The Help
- By: Kathryn Stockett
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.
-
-
What a great surprise!
- By Jan on 12-02-09
By: Kathryn Stockett
-
The Davenports
- By: Krystal Marquis
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Company years ago. Now it's 1910, and the Davenports live surrounded by servants, crystal chandeliers, and endless parties, finding their way and finding love—even where they’re not supposed to.
-
-
Giving Bridgerton Vibes
- By Danni B. on 03-11-23
By: Krystal Marquis
-
'Til the Well Runs Dry
- By: Lauren Francis-Sharma
- Narrated by: Ron Butler, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lauren Francis-Sharma's 'Til the Well Runs Dry opens in a seaside village in the north of Trinidad where young Marcia Garcia, a gifted and smart-mouthed 16-year-old seamstress, lives alone, raising two small boys and guarding a family secret. When she meets Farouk Karam, an ambitious young policeman, the risks and rewards in Marcia's life amplify forever.
-
-
Most wells I knew as a boy…
- By Louie Crew Clay on 09-08-15
-
Orphan Train
- A Novel
- By: Christina Baker Kline
- Narrated by: Jessica Almasy, Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to "aging out" out of the foster care system. A community-service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvie and worse.... As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.
-
-
Moving story of sharing and transformation.
- By Kathi on 04-03-13
Related to this topic
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
Angel of Harlem
- By: Kuwanna Haulsey
- Narrated by: Brenda Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by the extraordinary events of Dr. May Chinn’s life, Angel of Harlem is a deeply affecting story of love and transcendence. Weaving seamlessly scenes from the battlefields of the Civil War, during which her father escaped from slavery, to the Harlem living rooms and kitchen tables where May is sometimes forced to operate on her patients, this fascinating novel lays bare the heart of a woman who changed the face of medicine.
-
-
Really Enjoyed!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-08-19
By: Kuwanna Haulsey
-
Promise
- A Novel
- By: Minrose Gwin
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel.
-
-
Mostly Disappointing
- By Anjoli on 06-15-19
By: Minrose Gwin
-
Gathering of Waters
- By: Bernice L. McFadden
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gathering of Waters is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi - a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families. Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit
-
-
Loved it!!
- By Naima on 07-26-16
-
Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
-
-
MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
By: Toni Morrison
-
Memphis
- A Novel
- By: Tara M. Stringfellow
- Narrated by: Karen Murray, Adenrele Ojo, Tara Stringfellow
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.
-
-
Awful narrator
- By Rachael edwards on 06-07-22
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
Angel of Harlem
- By: Kuwanna Haulsey
- Narrated by: Brenda Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by the extraordinary events of Dr. May Chinn’s life, Angel of Harlem is a deeply affecting story of love and transcendence. Weaving seamlessly scenes from the battlefields of the Civil War, during which her father escaped from slavery, to the Harlem living rooms and kitchen tables where May is sometimes forced to operate on her patients, this fascinating novel lays bare the heart of a woman who changed the face of medicine.
-
-
Really Enjoyed!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-08-19
By: Kuwanna Haulsey
-
Promise
- A Novel
- By: Minrose Gwin
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel.
-
-
Mostly Disappointing
- By Anjoli on 06-15-19
By: Minrose Gwin
-
Gathering of Waters
- By: Bernice L. McFadden
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gathering of Waters is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi - a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families. Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit
-
-
Loved it!!
- By Naima on 07-26-16
-
Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
-
-
MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
By: Toni Morrison
-
Memphis
- A Novel
- By: Tara M. Stringfellow
- Narrated by: Karen Murray, Adenrele Ojo, Tara Stringfellow
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.
-
-
Awful narrator
- By Rachael edwards on 06-07-22
-
The Hollow Ground
- By: Natalie S. Harnett
- Narrated by: Luci Christian
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The underground mine fires ravaging Pennsylvania coal country have forced 11-year-old Brigid Howley and her family to seek refuge with her estranged grandparents, the formidable Gram and the black lung-stricken Gramp. Tragedy is no stranger to the Howleys, a proud Irish-American clan who takes strange pleasure in the "curse" laid upon them generations earlier by a priest who ran afoul of the Molly Maguires. The weight of this legacy rests heavily on a new generation, when Brigid, already struggling to keep her family together, makes a grisly discovery in a long-abandoned bootleg mine shaft.
-
-
Disfunction makes a good read
- By NHull on 05-30-14
-
Trading Dreams at Midnight
- By: Diane McKinney-Whetstone
- Narrated by: Shari Peele
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Diane McKinney-Whetstone, the award-winning and best-selling author of Tumbling, presents Trading Dreams at Midnight - - an Essence Book Club Recommended Read. Back in 1984, 15-year-old Neena's mother left and never came back. And now Neena is following in her footsteps.
-
-
Hard to follow
- By Nevada on 08-13-10
-
The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
-
-
Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
-
This Side of the Sky
- By: Elyse Singleton
- Narrated by: Myra Taylor, Sharon Washington, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning journalist Elyse Singleton delivers what Essence calls “a gem - the perfect book to curl up with.”
Best friends Lilian and Myraleen, two African American women from rural Mississippi, travel to Europe during World War II to act as members of the Women’s Army Corps. During this time of segregation and destruction, both women discover love and heartbreak, triumph and defeat.
-
-
A Breath of Fresh Air
- By Adina Andreu on 07-19-12
By: Elyse Singleton
-
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
-
Sula
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
-
-
Good against evil and a riotous story to boot
- By Karen on 04-11-11
By: Toni Morrison
-
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
-
-
Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
-
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
- By: Leslye Walton
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga. Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender.
-
-
Beautiful and Haunting Fairytale
- By FanB14 on 07-24-15
By: Leslye Walton
-
The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove
- A Novel
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bezellia Grove was born into the most prominent of Nashville families, but that didn’t stop her from having an alcoholic mother and a distant, adulterous father. Her nanny, Maizelle, and Nathaniel, the handyman, are the people who have taken care of her since she can remember. She considers them family, but her parents just consider them servants because they are Black. When Bezellia has a clandestine romance with Nathaniel's son, Whites and Blacks unite in fury at the young couple.
-
-
light southern fiction
- By suzanne on 02-08-13
-
The Last Ballad
- A Novel
- By: Wiley Cash
- Narrated by: Karen White, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve times a week, 28-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. Two in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The insular community considers the mill's owners - the newly arrived Goldberg brothers - white but not American and expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans like Violet, Ella May's best friend. While the dirty, hazardous job at the mill earns Ella May a paltry nine dollars for 72 hours of work each week, it's the only opportunity she has.
-
-
Dryer than a popcorn fart
- By Scott Wilson on 02-11-18
By: Wiley Cash
-
Fallen Angels
- By: Patricia Hickman
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Great Depression, Jeb Nubey is running from the law when he meets three abandoned children. With nowhere else to go the group passes a stormy night in a comforting church. When they are discovered, a case of mistaken identity ensues. It seems the congregation has been waiting for their new pastor, a widower with three kids. Looks like more trouble for Jeb. Yet the chance for a steady job and three squares a day is too good to turn down.
-
-
Touching
- By Christina on 11-11-04
By: Patricia Hickman
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Unsettled
- A Novel
- By: Ayana Mathis
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there.
-
-
Well that was depressing
- By Holly on 12-05-23
By: Ayana Mathis
-
Ruby
- A Novel
- By: Cynthia Bond
- Narrated by: Cynthia Bond
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby, “the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,” has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city - the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village - all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother.
-
-
disturbing yet beautiful
- By Beth Anne on 07-06-14
By: Cynthia Bond
-
Say You're One of Them
- By: Uwem Akpan
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, Dion Graham, Kevin R. Free
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few listeners will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.
-
-
Save your Money!
- By Michal A. Joyner on 11-20-09
By: Uwem Akpan
-
Cane River
- By: Lalita Tademy
- Narrated by: Shari Belafonte, Jo Marie Payton, Edwina Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were women whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the 20th century. Through it all, they fought to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.
-
-
Cane River
- By Betty on 06-06-04
By: Lalita Tademy
-
The Book of Night Women
- By: Marlon James
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the 18th century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they - and she - will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans.
-
-
"A lyrical, heart thumping, engaging masterpiece"
- By ann on 01-07-11
By: Marlon James
-
The Sweetness of Water (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Nathan Harris
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Equal parts beauty and terror, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.
-
-
Masterful storytelling and an exceptional audio performance
- By Pamela on 06-18-21
By: Nathan Harris
-
The Unsettled
- A Novel
- By: Ayana Mathis
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there.
-
-
Well that was depressing
- By Holly on 12-05-23
By: Ayana Mathis
-
Ruby
- A Novel
- By: Cynthia Bond
- Narrated by: Cynthia Bond
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby, “the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,” has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city - the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village - all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother.
-
-
disturbing yet beautiful
- By Beth Anne on 07-06-14
By: Cynthia Bond
-
Say You're One of Them
- By: Uwem Akpan
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, Dion Graham, Kevin R. Free
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few listeners will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.
-
-
Save your Money!
- By Michal A. Joyner on 11-20-09
By: Uwem Akpan
-
Cane River
- By: Lalita Tademy
- Narrated by: Shari Belafonte, Jo Marie Payton, Edwina Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were women whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the 20th century. Through it all, they fought to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.
-
-
Cane River
- By Betty on 06-06-04
By: Lalita Tademy
-
The Book of Night Women
- By: Marlon James
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the 18th century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they - and she - will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans.
-
-
"A lyrical, heart thumping, engaging masterpiece"
- By ann on 01-07-11
By: Marlon James
-
The Sweetness of Water (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Nathan Harris
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Equal parts beauty and terror, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.
-
-
Masterful storytelling and an exceptional audio performance
- By Pamela on 06-18-21
By: Nathan Harris
-
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
-
Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
-
-
MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
By: Toni Morrison
-
The American Daughters
- A Novel
- By: Maurice Carlos Ruffin
- Narrated by: Lynnette R. Freeman
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ady, a curious, sharp-witted girl, and her fierce mother, Sanite, are inseparable. Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the pair spend their days dreaming of a loving future and reminiscing about their family’s rebellious and storied history. When mother and daughter are separated, Ady is left hopeless and directionless until she stumbles into the Mockingbird Inn and meets Lenore, a free Black woman with whom she becomes fast friends. Lenore invites Ady to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters.
-
-
Engaging story that made rethink how I reflect on history
- By Aubrey Harris on 07-29-24
-
Someone Knows My Name
- By: Lawrence Hill
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 18 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aminata Diallo is the beguiling heroine of Lawrence Hill's Someone Knows My Name. In it, Hill exquisitely imagines the tale of an 18th-century woman's life, spanning six decades and three continents. The fascinating story that Hill tells is a work of the soul and the imagination. Aminata is a character who will stir listeners, from her kidnapping from Africa through her journeys back and forth across the ocean.
-
-
Rich in history and moral messages
- By Ariela on 10-14-09
By: Lawrence Hill
-
Songs in Ordinary Time
- By: Mary McGarry Morris
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 27 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Songs in Ordinary Time is set in the summer of 1960 - the last of quiet times and America's innocence. It centers on Marie Fermoyle, a strong but vulnerable woman whose loneliness and ambition for her children make her easy prey for the dangerous con man Omar Duvall.
-
-
Where Are The Songs?
- By Louise on 09-18-08
-
Things Past Telling
- A Novel
- By: Sheila Williams
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century, Maryam Prescilla Grace—a.k.a “Momma Grace” will live a long, wondrous life marked by hardship, oppression, opportunity, and love. Though she will be “gifted” various names, her birth name is known to her alone. Over the course of 100-plus years, she survives capture, enslavement by several property owners, the Atlantic crossing when she is only eleven years of age, and a brief stint as a pirate’s ward, acting as both a spy and a translator.
-
-
Fulfilled
- By Lovin Life on 08-18-22
By: Sheila Williams
-
An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden, Eisa Davis
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding.
-
-
So many “WTF” moments
- By Kristen R King on 05-04-18
By: Tayari Jones
-
Perish
- A Novel
- By: LaToya Watkins
- Narrated by: Jeremy Michael Durm, Keyonni James, Chanté McCormick, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bear it or perish yourself. Those are the words Helen Jean hears that fateful night in her cousin’s outhouse that change the trajectory of her life. Spanning decades, Perish tracks the choices Helen Jean—the matriarch of the Turner family—makes and the way those choices have rippled across generations, from her children to her grandchildren and beyond. This family’s “reunion” unearths long-kept secrets and forces each member to ask themselves important questions about who is deserving of forgiveness and who bears the cross of blame.
-
-
listened twice...great performance
- By Carol on 09-20-22
By: LaToya Watkins
-
The Book of Ruth
- By: Jane Hamilton
- Narrated by: Angela Jayne Rogers
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in a world of physical and emotional poverty, Ruth believes her shrewish mother's assessment of her - that she is dimwitted and worthless. When she marries an emotionally unstable ne'er-do-well, her troubles only multiply. Her job at the dry cleaners can't afford her little family the luxury of moving out of her mother's house. As the incessant bickering between her troubled husband and her abusive mother reaches a violent climax, Ruth must find a way to survive.
-
-
It Enters Your Soul
- By C. Byrnes on 03-30-09
By: Jane Hamilton
-
A Lesson Before Dying
- By: Ernest J. Gaines
- Narrated by: Lionel Mark Smith, Roger Guenveur Smith
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jefferson is an innocent and unwitting party to a deadly liquor store shoot-out in the 1940s. As the only survivor, he is tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, a university-trained teacher at the plantation school, is persuaded to visit Jefferson in his cell. Wiggins is torn between staying in his native Cajun community or moving on. The 2 men gradually form a bond as they jointly discover the simple heroism of resisting - and denying - the expected.
-
-
Misses the mark
- By Amie on 02-09-12
By: Ernest J. Gaines
-
Icy Sparks
- By: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
- Narrated by: Kate Miller
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A funny, sad, and transcendent story of a young girl growing up in Appalachia. The New York Times Book Review called this Oprah Book Club selection "vivid and unforgettable."
-
-
Icy made me warm.
- By Alene on 03-28-03
By: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
-
Back Roads
- By: Tawni O'Dell
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harley Altmyer should be in college drinking Rolling Rock and chasing girls. He should be freed from his closed-minded, stricken coal town, with its lack of jobs and no sense of humor. Instead, he's constantly reminded of just how messed up his life is. With his mother in jail for killing his abusive father, Harley is an orphan with the responsibilities of an adult and the fiery, aggressive libido of a teenager.
-
-
An unexpected twist
- By Leticia Porche on 01-02-20
By: Tawni O'Dell
What listeners say about The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Suzn F
- 12-14-12
Hattie and her Family Tragically Flawed
Hattie bore eleven children. In the death of her first two, twins, Hattie becomes a shell of a woman. She is a victim of circumstance, from the times, from her relationships and from herself. Her husband August can't or won't be the man she needs yet he was the one person who shined with love, passion and tenderness toward the children.
The writing was superb; the twining of the twelve tales worked. I felt the ending abrupt and a bit disappointing.And I am so glad to have experienced this book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
34 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Wendy
- 03-04-13
Beautiful Reading
If you could sum up The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah's Book Club 2.0) in three words, what would they be?
Engaging Beautiful Sad
What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I loved hearing the narrator read the accents that sound like home (I live far away now). Her voice is beautiful and easy to listen to.
Any additional comments?
Recommend
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Pretty
- 01-21-15
Truly a Joy
The book made me feel warm like hot tea and cool like cool glass of water all at the same time. The writing kept me engaged, very visual writing. I definitely recommend giving it a chance.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kharma
- 10-30-13
Great Narration, Good Story
What made the experience of listening to The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah's Book Club 2.0) the most enjoyable?
The narration was on point. I could really get into the story and loved the way the narrator was able to move in and out of the period dialect and tone.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No. I actually liked the way it was broken up into short stories that were eventually strung together
Any additional comments?
The book did not leave me completely satisfied in the end. I felt the last quarter of the book were a bit rush and maybe not as well laid out as others.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lydia G.
- 07-08-20
amazing tale of transformation
such a lovely tale of how one mom is transformed through her children. must read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lee
- 05-31-14
The core of what it is to be human
What did you love best about The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah's Book Club 2.0)?
This book gets at the core of what it is to be human. Yes, it is about the Great Migration, but it is about love, loss, regret, hope and so many other more subtle emotional aspects of the human psyche and heart. I was amazed by this author's ability to evoke so many different emotions in me. It was a wonderful intertwined tale that I will recommend to others. Thank you, Oprah, for recommending this one. Absolutely fabulous.
What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The narrators were all wonderful.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Too many to detail.
Any additional comments?
Read this book!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christine
- 05-10-15
Painfully riveting
This is the truth about motherhood. Hattie's love for her children is evident in the sacrifices that she makes for them and the unconditional love that she shows to them. What a great story. Most of us have many Mother's and grandmother's like this.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Danee C Jones-Mitchell
- 02-14-13
Felt each character!
What made the experience of listening to The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah's Book Club 2.0) the most enjoyable?
I enjoyed the brief yet extensive visit with each character. Although set in a particular time period, the characterizations, situations, and reactions were timeless. I cared about each one of character because I understood them.
What did you like best about this story?
I loved that I had an opportunity to get to know Hattie and her husband first. Also the all the complexities of the "why's" that created the "who" that drove the "what" were not made evident all at once. I understood her and them little by little through relationship (which shape us all).
Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Adenrele and Bahni are my favorites and this performance was stellar (as expected!)
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I listen as I drive.
Any additional comments?
I wanted the ending to wrap up differently although I was not disappointed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Susan Davis
- 03-11-13
Loved the story
Where does The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah's Book Club 2.0) rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
As far as the content of the book, I loved it. I found the reader quite distracting to the story, however.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Hattie was the centerpiece, but I found her husband to be the most interesting. It was fascinating to see his perspective on their life and marriage in contrast to her's.
How could the performance have been better?
The reader had very awkward timing and phrasing. It wasn't smooth and consistent. She did well on dialogue, but the narrative was disjointed at times. The male reader was excellent. He had a magnificent voice and was absolutely believable.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No. It was easy to listen in chapters.
Any additional comments?
Very seldom does a book make me cry, but this one really touched my heart. The author caught the emotion and drama of a struggling family with too many mouths to feed and too few resources. It's also a solidifies the fact that even imperfect parents can be loved by their children. A wonderful book.
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
- Sterling Splendor
- 06-12-13
Another disappointing Oprah recommendation -
I generally don't like Oprah's recommendations. But this one came highly recommended, so I gave it a try. The narration was great. Very well done. The book may have been well-written, but was really a series short stories about people at perhaps the most miserable stages of their lives. The book was about Hattie's children, but I never really got a sense of them as a family, since each story was self-contained. Unless you're a true devotee of Oprah's recommendations, I wouldn't suggest this as a read for anyone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!