The Wonder Spot
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Narrated by:
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Melissa Bank
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By:
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Melissa Bank
About this listen
Nothing comes easily to Sophie Applebaum, the black sheep of her family trying to blend in with the herd. Uneasily situated between two brothers, Sophie first appears as the fulcrum and observer of her clan in "Boss of the World". Then, at college, in "The Toy Bar", she faces a gauntlet of challenges as Best Friend to the dramatic and beautiful Venice Lambourne, curator of "perfect things". In her early 20s, Sophie is dazzled by the possibilities of New York City during the Selectric typewriter era, only to land solidly back in Surrey, PA, after her father's death.
The Wonder Spot follows Sophie's quest for her own identity: who she is, what she loves, whom she loves, and occasionally whom she feels others should love, over the course of 25 years. In an often-disappointing world, Sophie listens closely to her own heart. And when she experiences her 'Aha!' moments, her own personal wonder spots, it's the real thing. In this tremendous follow-up to The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Bank again shares her vast talent for capturing a moment, taking it to heart, and giving it back to her readers.
©2005 Melissa Bank (P)2005 Penguin Audio and Books on Tape, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Fans of the megasuccessful Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, rejoice. Bank is back with an equally entertaining novel....Engrossing, engaging; it's a wonderful return for Bank." (Publishers Weekly)
"Another engaging, ruefully funny saga of a young woman growing up without ever quite fitting in....Very appealing." (Kirkus Reviews)
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When Beatrice Trixie Jordan replies to a personal ad, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming, effervescent 30-something free-spirit writer passionately seeking life. He possesses his own turns of phrase and ways of thinking and feeling that dissonantly harmonize with Trixie's off-center vision. As they rollercoaster through the joys and furies of their wrenching romance, they try to come to terms with the hurt brought about by both of their distant fathers who, in different ways, forsook them.
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To see a fortune teller or not to see one...
- By Renee on 08-08-18
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Boy, Snow, Bird
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett, Carra Patterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white.
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For Literary Lovers
- By M. Shipe on 04-25-14
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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The Rest of Her Life
- By: Laura Moriarty
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy, the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community.
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Obnoxious musical interludes ruin the story
- By Joan on 12-25-11
By: Laura Moriarty
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Conversations with Friends
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Frances is a cool-headed and darkly observant young woman vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. Her best friend and comrade-in-arms is the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi. At a local poetry performance one night, Frances and Bobbi catch the eye of Melissa, a well-known photographer, and as the girls are then gradually drawn into Melissa's world, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband, Nick.
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Interesting point of view; glad I listened!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-23-17
By: Sally Rooney
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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Small Admissions
- A Novel
- By: Amy Poeppel
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Despite her innate ambition and summa cum laude smarts, Kate Pearson has turned into a major slacker. After being dumped by her handsome French "almost fiancé", she abandons her grad school plans and spends her days lolling on the couch, leaving her apartment only when a dog-walking gig demands it. Her friends don't know what to do other than pass tissues and hope for a comeback while her practical sister, Angela, pushes every remedy she can think of, from trapeze class to therapy to job interviews.
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For fans of "Where'd You Go, Bernadette ?"
- By RueRue on 01-16-17
By: Amy Poeppel
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After the Parade
- By: Lori Ostlund
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Sensitive, big-hearted, and achingly self-conscious, 40-year-old Aaron Englund long ago escaped the confines of his Midwestern hometown, but he still feels like an outcast. After 20 years under the Pygmalion-like direction of his older partner, Walter, Aaron at last decides it is time to stop letting life happen to him and to take control of his own fate.
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Narrator
- By Barbara on 11-10-24
By: Lori Ostlund
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The Admissions
- A Novel
- By: Meg Mitchell Moore
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hawthorne family has it all. Great jobs, a beautiful house in one of the most affluent areas of Northern California, and three charming kids whose sunny futures are all but assured. And then comes their eldest daughter's senior year of high school....
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Anything for success
- By JillHen on 09-13-15
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Good Riddance
- By: Elinor Lipman
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Daphne Maritch doesn't quite know what to make of the heavily annotated high school yearbook she inherits from her mother, who held this relic dear. Too dear. The late June Winter Maritch was the teacher to whom the class of '68 had dedicated its yearbook, and in turn she went on to attend every reunion, scribbling notes and observations after each one - not always charitably - and noting who overstepped boundaries of many kinds. In a fit of decluttering (the yearbook did not, Daphne concluded, "spark joy"), she discards it when she moves to a small New York City apartment.
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Not her best.
- By kendall dolphin on 02-14-19
By: Elinor Lipman
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The Opposite of Loneliness
- Essays and Stories
- By: Marina Keegan
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. Even though she was just 22 when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation.
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Probably buy the book too.
- By Soupergirl on 09-14-15
By: Marina Keegan
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One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
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Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
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She Regrets Nothing
- A Novel
- By: Andrea Dunlop
- Narrated by: Rachel Dulude
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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When Laila Lawrence becomes an orphan at 23, the sudden loss unexpectedly introduces her to three glamorous cousins from New York who show up unannounced at her mother's funeral. The three siblings are scions of the wealthy family from which Laila's father had been estranged long before his own untimely demise 10 years before. Two years later, Laila has left behind her quiet life in Grosse Point, Michigan to move to New York City, landing her smack in the middle of her cousins' decadent world.
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Good Listen
- By Vallena on 02-19-18
By: Andrea Dunlop
What listeners say about The Wonder Spot
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Donna
- 06-08-05
A wonderful listen
I'm not generally given to writing reviews, but having just this minute finished "The Wonder Spot" and wanting to prolong it a few minutes more, I couldn't resist. This is a lovely, smart, funny work, and the author's read was at first disconcerting (she's a bit low key) but ultimately perfect. I highly recommend this audiobook.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Barbara J. Payne
- 08-08-22
Oh, Melissa Bank! The world is a poorer place without you!
I loved “The Wonder Spot” and give it my highest praise, and say, as Melissa Bank herself would say of something she loved, it is “beautiful and funny and sad and true.” I hope her last book gets published.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ldon
- 08-10-18
Meh
The narrator is excellent, which is why I stuck with it. Not a particularly likable set of characters. Really, I don’t know what the book was about. A distracting, constant use of the phrase, ‘it occurred to me.’
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- Linda
- 05-12-15
It's just a story about Sophie......very simple
What did you love best about The Wonder Spot?
I loved Melissa Bank's book "A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" and have read it many times. I now love this one too. I love the simplicity, the slight sarcastic humor, the situational details......I just love how she writes, and now I love how she speaks!
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Wonder Spot?
I cannot pinpoint one incident. I loved it all, the way it flowed.
What about Melissa Bank’s performance did you like?
I enjoy people's voices that don't go all over the place and hers, to some, may be a bit monotone. But in life, I find I love that in people, especially if they are saying hilarious things with no reaction. Hard to explain. I love her voice and could listen to this book over and over just for the steady flow and clarity of tone.
Who was the most memorable character of The Wonder Spot and why?
Of course I love Sophie the most. But I also enjoyed her brothers.
Any additional comments?
This is not an adventure or thriller or even a complex story. To me it was a simple story of a girl who grows up into a woman and some of the things she went through to get where she was going. As a woman, it just felt good to hear life situations without a lot of action and details of horrible things.
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- Nikki D
- 08-13-22
Perfection
This book is one of the rare ones where the author narrating works well. Melissa Bank was a spectacular writer and I’m forever sad she’s gone. I wish she’d written more books but I’m so glad we have two.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Nicola
- 05-18-06
A good listen, but ...
I enjoyed the wonder spot, but it is definitely not as good as Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing (which was excellent). I thought the narration could have used some enthusiasm to bring the book and characters to life. In the end I finally got the point, but it took a while to get there. Overall, I would say it is a good listen, but not great.
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Overall
- Anne
- 09-21-05
the world is full of sophies
I guess this book falls into the "love it or hate it" category. I vote with the former. I was caught up in the trials and tribulations of Sophie, her family and the friends and lovers that weave in and out of her life. I thought about this novel and its characters long after I finished it, and in what I consider hight praise for a book, I wished it hadn't ended. All of our lives are made up of just those few "aha" moments.
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Overall
- Colleen
- 07-15-05
Better Than Dead Air
Boring. Insipid. Pointless. Endless. Every now and then there would be a brief moment of wit, of illumination, and I would think, Ah! HERE we go! but then it would sink back into interminably meandering prose describing mundane daily activities and observations of meaningless minutiae. Where was this dismally disjointed story going? As it turned out, nowhere....but it was better than dead air.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Joan
- 08-14-05
Worth the Time?
I am having technical difficulty downloading Part II and I seriously wonder if it's worth the time. While there is some great humor in this book, the plot (is there one?) is pointless or so it seems. The narrator is boring and it's her novel! I'll probably listen to the entire novel for the humor, but not for any onther reason.
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- Maureen
- 03-14-15
Sisyphus
Would you try another book from Melissa Bank and/or Melissa Bank?
It depends. If there is some direction to the story after a few chapters, I might take a chance.
Has The Wonder Spot turned you off from other books in this genre?
Nope. They're all different.
Which character – as performed by Melissa Bank – was your favorite?
None.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Wonder Spot?
I would rearrange, add and introduce some comphrension to the story.
Any additional comments?
Sisyphus. Circular. Goes nowhere. Confusing plot--is there a plot? Disappointing. Some direction needed as the story lost me. I'm not sure why it was written.
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