This Is Not a Love Story
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Sarah Rose Humphrey
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By:
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Judy Brown
About this listen
A razor-sharp, hilarious, and poignant memoir about growing up in the closed world of the ultraorthodox Jewish community.
The third of six children in a family that harks back to a gloried Hassidic dynasty, Judy Brown grew up with the legacy of centuries of religious teaching and the faith and lore that sustained her people for generations.
But her carefully constructed world begins to crumble when her "crazy" brother, Nachum, returns home after a year in Israel living with relatives. Though supposedly "cured", he is still prone to retreating into his own mind or erupting in wordless rages. The adults' inability to make him better - or even to give his affliction a name - forces Judy to ask larger questions: If God could perform miracles for her sainted ancestors, why can't he cure Nachum? And what of the other stories her family treasured?
Judy starts to negotiate with God, swinging from holy tenets to absurdly hilarious conclusions faster than a Talmudic scholar: She goes on a fast to nab coveted earrings; she fights with her siblings at the dinner table for the ultimate badge of honor ("Who will survive the next Holocaust?"); and she adamantly defends her family's reputation when, scandalously, her parents are accused of having fallen in love - which is absolutely not what pious people do.
For all its brutal honesty about this insular community, This Is Not a Love Story is ultimately a story of a family like so many others, whose fierce love for each other and devotion to their faith pulled them through the darkest time in their lives.
©2015 Judy Brown (P)2015 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Why we think it’s a great listen: Never before has an author’s narration of his fiction been so important to fully grasping the book’s impact and global implications. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.
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A Worhty Read
- By P. C..S. on 08-17-03
By: Khaled Hosseini
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Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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Fruit of the Drunken Tree
- A Novel
- By: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Narrated by: Marisol Ramirez, Almarie Guerra, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister, Cassandra, enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways.
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Maybe better to read this book than listen???
- By Amazon Customer on 12-12-18
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In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
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My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
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One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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Above Us Only Sky
- By: Michele Young-Stone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Prudence Eleanor Vilkas was born with a pair of wings molded to her back. Considered a birth defect, her wings were surgically removed, leaving only the ghost of them behind. Growing up in Los Vientos, Florida, Prudence meets her long-estranged Lithuanian grandfather and discovers a miraculous lineage beating and pulsing with past Lithuanian bird-women.
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I'm So Glad I Listened to It!
- By Elizabeth on 08-22-16
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Memphis
- A Novel
- By: Tara M. Stringfellow
- Narrated by: Karen Murray, Adenrele Ojo, Tara Stringfellow
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Awful narrator
- By Rachael edwards on 06-07-22
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The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
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Don't Let Him Know
- By: Sandip Roy
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In a boxy apartment building in an Illinois university town, Romola Mitra, a newly arrived young bride, anxiously awaits her first letter from home in India. When she accidentally opens the wrong letter, it changes her life. Decades later, her son Amit finds that letter and thinks he has discovered his mother's secret. But secrets have their own secrets sometimes.
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another great book by Roy
- By Amazon Customer on 04-27-15
By: Sandip Roy
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The Witch of Little Italy
- By: Suzanne Palmieri
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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When young Eleanor Amore gets pregnant, she returns to her estranged family in the Bronx, called by the "Sight" they share. It is the first time she has been back since she was 10, and while everyone else remembers that summer, Eleanor can’t recall anything earlier than the moment she left. With her past coming back to her in flashes, she becomes obsessed with recapturing those memories. Aided by her childhood sweetheart, she learns the secrets still haunting her magical family.
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Kept me entertained......
- By Barbara on 05-25-13
By: Suzanne Palmieri
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The Great Failure
- A Bartender, a Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Original Recording
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"The Great Failure is a boundless embrace, leaving nothing out. I wanted to learn the truth, to become whole. If I could touch the dark nature in someone else, I could know it in myself." So begins Natalie Goldberg in this candid exploration of her life. Here, Goldberg makes sense of primary relationships between father and daughter, teacher and student, and exemplifies the accomplishment available when creating daily writing practices.
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If you have been let down by anyone. Listen
- By Mia on 04-19-18
By: Natalie Goldberg
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Secret Daughter
- By: Shilpi Somaya Gowda
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
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Debut novelist Shilpi Somaya Gowda pens this compelling tale about two families, worlds apart, linked by one Indian child. After giving birth to a girl for a second time, impoverished Kavita must give her up to an orphanage. The baby, named Asha, is adopted by an American doctor and raised in California. But once grown, Asha decides to return to India.
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A Must Read
- By Stephanie on 06-08-11
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September, 1939. The six Zaks siblings watch in silent horror as the Wehrmacht marches into their quiet hometown in southern Poland. Concerned for their survival, Yisrael Zaks leads his wife Haiya and his brothers Volf and Avraham toward the Russian border. But their escape does not go unhindered; and as they are captured by the invading German forces, they can hear their father’s last commandment still echoing behind them: “Never break the family apart. And whatever you do: never, ever leave any one of your siblings behind.”
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Very interesting and well told
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September, 1939. The six Zaks siblings watch in silent horror as the Wehrmacht marches into their quiet hometown in southern Poland. Concerned for their survival, Yisrael Zaks leads his wife Haiya and his brothers Volf and Avraham toward the Russian border. But their escape does not go unhindered; and as they are captured by the invading German forces, they can hear their father’s last commandment still echoing behind them: “Never break the family apart. And whatever you do: never, ever leave any one of your siblings behind.”
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They immigrated to America from Germany in the nineteenth century with names like Loeb, Sachs, Seligman, Lehman, Guggenheim, and Goldman. From tenements on the Lower East Side to Park Avenue mansions, this handful of Jewish families turned small businesses into imposing enterprises and amassed spectacular fortunes. But despite possessing breathtaking wealth that rivaled the Astors and Rockefellers, they were barred by the gentile establishment from the lofty realm of "the 400," a register of New York's most elite, because of their religion and humble backgrounds.
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Finance heavy
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On the Run in Nazi Berlin
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Berlin, 1942. The Gestapo arrest 18-year-old Bert Lewyn and his parents, sending the latter to their deaths and Bert to work in a factory making guns for the Nazi war effort. Miraculously tipped off the morning the Gestapo round up all the Jews who work in the factories, Bert goes underground. He finds shelter sometimes with compassionate civilians, sometimes with people who find his skills useful and sometimes in the cellars of bombed-out buildings.
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NOT YOUR USUAL STORY ABOUT THE NAZIS...FANTASTIC!
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Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), the Lubavitcher Rebbe, took an insular Chasidic group that was almost decimated by the Holocaust and transformed it into one of the most influential and controversial forces in world Jewry. This superbly crafted biography draws on recently uncovered documents and archives of personal correspondence, painting an exceptionally human and charming portrait of a man who was well known but little understood.
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Great narration for an inspiring book
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The Postcard
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques—all killed at Auschwitz. Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why.
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The author’s words deserve a better narrator
- By TK on 05-22-23
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What listeners say about This Is Not a Love Story
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Susan White
- 02-09-19
Moving story
A story of a mother's love and determination and a family's struggle to navigate the journey of autism when it was not in the forefront of our society's understanding. It is also an opportunity to learn about a culture with a long history of faith and tradition. The storyteller's perspective is likely not uncommon or different from other siblings of a child with autism.
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- TS
- 09-06-22
Nice Story
A very nice story and memoir about family life, growing up in an orthodox Jewish community and learning to rise to the privilege of including the challenges and triumphs of autism. Simply written, personal and articulate.
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- elli's mom
- 09-08-22
Amazing
As the mom of a special needs child, this book moved me. It made me think about and consider feeling that I had long buried. My daughter and family benefited from the services that are described in the epilogue. I have never thought about their origins.
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1 person found this helpful
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- David
- 03-03-16
A Moving Memoir
Would you listen to This Is Not a Love Story again? Why?
I fully intend on listening to This is Not a Love Story again for the many poignant and powerful scenes of a life inside the world of the Chasidim.
What did you like best about this story?
I think the thing I like most was how the narrator relates her growth process, going from her thoughts as a girl of seven or eight, to her memories as a teen, to the epilogue where she talks briefly about her adult relationship with her brother.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
There were many moments where I was highly sympathetic to the family. Having known autistic individuals for over half my life, I can only imagine what it must have been like to live with an autistic sibling, especially in a time where autism was not a common diagnosis. The way the narrator describes everything leaves you with a clear vision of what that world and time was like.
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- Robert
- 10-05-15
POWERFUL*TOUCHING*INSPIRING STORY
This book was so captivating and touching that I could not stop listening to it.
This story reminds us that we should always strive to see others as God sees them. The struggles families with autistic children go through are inconceivable by those of us who have never had to deal with the challenges presented by their presence in our world.
The families and other wonderful people who work with autistic children are the Real Heroes and Superstars in our world.
If this story has been made into a movie I would love to see it. I am so thankful I had the privilege to listen to this audio book. I know many caring people who would love to read its and I will recommend it to them
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6 people found this helpful
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- tammy
- 05-28-20
This should be required reading!
I am neither Jewish nor, do I have an autistic brother but I was so deeply touched by this book. I believe it to be an allegory for acceptance. Our prejudices about religion; sexual orientation; race or anyone who is different than ourselves, can keep us from experiencing some of the most genuine and fulfilling relationships of our lives.
There are so many lessons to be learned in this touching memoir much the same as in The Diary of Anne Frank and Huckleberry Finn. Please, Teachers, advocate for this book to be required reading.
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- Margaret
- 09-02-15
More than a love story...
This very cleverly written memoir from Judy Brown chronicles growing up with a "crazy brother" Nachum and how hard her mother fought, in the sometimes claustrophobic world of Hassidism, to find help for her son. It may be my age (46), but I empathized with Ms. Brown's mother's point of view more than the sister who narrates, though she was mentally hilarious and seeing through her eyes kept the more difficult times the family went through lighter. The ending stayed with me a long, long time.
Definitely recommend.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Janet
- 08-17-15
Heartwarming
Any additional comments?
This book takes the familiar tale about growing up with an autistic sibling and turns it on its head, since the author is an ultra-Orthodox Jew. Getting a glimpse into Orthodox life is equally as interesting as learning about the author's brother. I'm no sentimentalist, but even I felt good inside when the brother began to respond to therapy. Worth a listen.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Rebecca
- 07-06-23
Such a beautiful story. And the narrator was excellent
Wonderful narration and a beautiful story and insight into the world of Hasidic judiasim and special needs
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