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You Exist Too Much
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Zehra Jane Naqvi
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
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Publisher's summary
On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: "You exist too much," she tells her daughter.
Told in vignettes that flash between the US and the Middle East, Zaina Arafat's debut novel traces her protagonist's progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as "love addiction." In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.
You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings - for love, and a place to call home.
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Disappointing
- By Cody Wheeler on 04-28-20
By: Denise Hunter
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It Had to Be You
- A Novel
- By: Georgia Clark
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell, Feodor Chin, Frankie Corzo, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past 20 years, Liv and Eliot Goldenhorn have run In Love in New York, Brooklyn’s beloved wedding-planning business. When Eliot dies unexpectedly, he even more unexpectedly leaves half of the business to his younger, blonder girlfriend, Savannah. Liv and Savannah are not a match made in heaven, to say the least. But what starts as a personal and professional nightmare transforms into something even savvy, cynical Liv Goldenhorn couldn’t begin to imagine.
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Distractingly bad narration
- By maggie walsh on 05-12-21
By: Georgia Clark
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Fault Lines
- A Novel
- By: Emily Itami
- Narrated by: Lydia Wilson
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children, and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.
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Confused by the choice of narrator
- By Bri T. on 02-13-22
By: Emily Itami
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Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin
- A Memoir
- By: Nicole Hardy
- Narrated by: Nicole Hardy
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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When Nicole Hardy’s eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy’s essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of 35, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity.
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This Book Spoke to Me
- By Allison on 04-08-14
By: Nicole Hardy
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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
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Surfside Sisters
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Thayer
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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A Nantucket woman returns home to find that reunions aren’t always simple, in this heartwarming novel from the New York Times bestselling author. Keely Green always dreamed of leaving the beautiful shores of Nantucket to become a writer. Now she’s a bestselling novelist living in New York City, attending glamorous cocktail parties, mingling with the literary elite, and dating a charming pediatric surgeon. But a moment of clarity strikes when Keely’s boyfriend suddenly wants to settle down and her editor rejects her latest novel.
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Too fluffy!
- By LoRe Bolling on 07-10-19
By: Nancy Thayer
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The UnAmericans
- Stories
- By: Molly Antopol
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.
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Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.
- By MidwestGeek on 05-04-14
By: Molly Antopol
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wonderful read!
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Adored all of the characters—even the insufferable ones
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On the eve of her daughter Alia's wedding, Salma reads the girl's future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967.
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It's been three months since The Night on the Bathroom Floor--when Lily found her older sister Alice hurting herself. Ever since then, Lily has been desperately trying to keep things together, for herself and for her family. But now Alice is coming home from her treatment program and it is becoming harder for Lily to ignore all of the feelings she's been trying to outrun.
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Amazing
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A uniquely American story told in powerful, evocative prose, The Beauty of Your Face navigates a country growing ever more divided. Afaf Rahman, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, is the principal of Nurrideen School for Girls, a Muslim school in the Chicago suburbs. One morning, a shooter - radicalized by the online alt-right - attacks the school.
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wonderful read!
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Adored all of the characters—even the insufferable ones
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Best read in print
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In the aftermath of a flood that washes away much of a small Tennessee town, evangelical preacher Asher Sharp offers shelter to two gay men. In doing so, he starts to see his life anew - and risks losing everything: his wife, locked into her religious prejudices; his congregation, which shuns Asher after he delivers a passionate sermon in defense of tolerance; and his young son, Justin, caught in the middle of what turns into a bitter custody battle. With no way out but ahead, Asher takes Justin and flees to Key West, where he hopes to find his brother, Luke, whom he'd turned against years ago after Luke came out.
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When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to America, it comes after years of yearning to leave Pennyfield, the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised. More than anything, Patsy wishes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, whose letters arrive from New York steeped in the promise of a happier life and the possible rekindling of their young love. But Patsy's plans don't include her overzealous, evangelical mother - or even her five-year-old daughter, Tru. Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first.
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If heroes are required... Avoid!
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Perfect for fans of Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli, Mason Deaver's groundbreaking debut will rip your heart out before showing you how to heal from tragedy and celebrate life in the process. When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they're thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school.
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What a huge disappointment
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Candamo draws on his experiences and heartfelt stories with impactful people in his life—from friends, to presidents, to a former drug cartel member—all of whom inspired his own journey navigating corporate America. But this book isn't about replicating his story, per se. That's entirely the wrong approach because everyone wants something different in life. This book is about demystifying success and providing a path to follow so that you can achieve what matters to you—your own version of success.
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Recently jilted and increasingly unhinged, Dr. Voth throws himself into his work, obsessively researching the life of Jack Sheppard, a legendary 18th-century thief. No one knows Jack's true story - his confessions have never been found. That is, until Dr. Voth discovers a mysterious stack of papers titled "Confessions of the Fox". Dated 1724, the manuscript tells the story of an orphan named P. Sold into servitude at 12, P struggles for years with her desire to live as "Jack".
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Superb!!!
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L.A. Woman
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L.A. Woman is quintessential Babitz, the story of Sophie, a 20-something blonde Jim Morrison groupie gliding through a golden existence in L.A.; and Lola, a German immigrant who settles in Hollywood in the '20s to drive Pierce Arrows recklessly down Sunset Boulevard and who knows that Maybelline mascara cakes and that Rudolph Valentino is the essence of life. Sophie and Lola, like the many other women who move in and out of this electric saga, know that while L.A. is constantly changing, it is essentially eternal.
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I'm a Fan
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Sheena Patel’s incandescent first novel begins with the unnamed narrator describing her involvement in a seemingly unequal romantic relationship. With a clear and unforgiving eye, she dissects the behavior of all involved, herself included, and makes startling connections between the power struggles at the heart of human relationships and those of the wider world. I’m a Fan offers a devastating critique of class, social media, patriarchy’s hold on us, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed.
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Razor sharp cultural commentary
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Girls Against God
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Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows, and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her work, things start stirring themselves up. In a corner of Oslo, a coven of witches begin cooking up some curses. A time-traveling Edvard Munch arrives in town to join a death-metal band, closely pursued by the teenaged subject of his painting Puberty, who has murder on her mind. Meanwhile, out deep in the forest, a group of school girls get very lost and things get very strange. And awful things happen in aspic.
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A Fascinating Voice that edges too close to the Absurd
- By Miss M on 10-17-24
By: Jenny Hval, and others
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Everything You Ever Wanted
- By: Luiza Sauma
- Narrated by: Stephanie Racine
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You stay in bed until the afternoon, scrolling through your social media feeds and wondering why everyone else seems to be achieving so much. Sometimes you don't get out of bed at all. Then you hear about Life on Nyx, a programme that allows 100 lucky winners the chance to escape it all, move to another planet and establish a new way of life. One with meaning and purpose. One without Instagram and online dating. There's one caveat: if you go, you can never come back. But you aren't worried about that. After all, what on Earth could there possibly be to miss?
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Nothing Happens
- By Brandon on 05-21-24
By: Luiza Sauma
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Perfume and Pain
- A Novel
- By: Anna Dorn
- Narrated by: Natalie Naudus
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Having recently moved both herself and her formidable perfume bottle collection into a tiny bungalow in Los Angeles, mid-list author Astrid Dahl finds herself back in the Zoom writer’s group she cofounded, Sapphic Scribes, after an incident that leaves her and her career lightly canceled. But she temporarily forgets all that by throwing herself into a few sexy distractions—like Ivy, a grad student researching 1950s lesbian pulp who smells like metallic orchids, or her new neighbor, Penelope, who smells like patchouli.
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Hilarious!!
- By Marilyn on 05-22-24
By: Anna Dorn
What listeners say about You Exist Too Much
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ann Sahlstrom
- 01-11-24
The unvarnished honesty
There was so much I related with, although my demographic background differs. The red threads of trauma running through generations. Shame, love, impotence, care, longing
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- OwlLover
- 09-09-20
Interesting, but disjointed and hard to follow
This is a tremendously flawed and troubled character, and it is easy to understand how she has come to be as she is. This is not so much novel, or even short stories, so much as a piecing together. There are times that it is quite disjointed. There is no signal that the narrator is taking us elsewhere. She swings from one moment to the next and back again, and it can be disorienting. It feels like it could have been organized better. It is also tricky to follow the voice of the narrator because, at first she uses a more baby-like voice for secondary characters, but starts slipping into it with the main character, so it takes a while to figure out who is speaking. It may be easier to read than listen to.
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- Miss M
- 10-16-24
Wonderful, Rich and Entertaining Narrative
I really enjoyed exploring this main character’s world. It was profound and thought provoking but also funny at times and definitely entertaining.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-31-23
Interesting but tough to follow
The story was interesting and entertaining, but the order of events was difficult to follow at times
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- Amber S.
- 01-11-24
The main characters past /intergenerational trauma
This was really well thought through. I felt her relationships with her mother, father, girlfriends , boyfriend s… that was so intense. Her obsessions and self destructive tendencies were so hurtful. Her mom was hurtful and yet her mom has her own problems… this is a really great book.
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- Robert
- 04-08-24
Wow! Wow! WOW!
Such an excellent story and performance! It’s so well written, I was hooked from chapter 1!
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- Nicole Feleo
- 08-07-20
Relatable, rich story
This story is so fresh and realistic in its telling. The way the author writes the protagonist allows for a very long and nuanced look at a lived life – the many parts that make someone who they are as they grow. In real life, as in the story, the protagonist sees different setbacks and falls into old patterns. Meanwhile, so many traumatic instances from childhood and different past failures that inform current ones are being told.
My own lived experience with my mother was eerily similar to the fictional protagonists’. There was abuse that echoed my own very closely. I am a fairly privileged Southeast Asian woman who has always been heterosexual. Even so, in many ways, I identified with the protagonist consistently. In my own mistakes, in my journey, my relationships, etc.
While the character is frustratingly flawed, there are so many potential moments for redemption and hope. There is, in the end, that satisfying possibility as well. I enjoyed listening to this story, though I will agree that the narrator’s voice and accents were off-putting. The protagonist herself has moments where she makes incredible and horrific mistakes. Her mistakes, however, do not obscure her potential for redemption.
One other thing to address: I am glad to see a book that has nuance about first generation American citizens with immigrant parents. While there are many books out there that will gladly villainize Islamic and Arab culture, I am glad to see this was not one of them. While it is a part of her experience, it is not depicted as evil, monolithic, etc. The Middle East tends to be alluded to as a backwards place in a lot of places, but this book focuses on her individual experiences and proves that nuance matters.
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1 person found this helpful
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- If
- 06-16-22
Different, special, enchanting
I really liked it. The narrator was nothing I would expect, the voice a little like by a child but quickly it became very special, enchanting, keeping me in the story. The story was nothing I would expect, I haven’t even read the description I only loved absolutely loved the title and for the title I wanted to read the book for a long long time. But then it was such a good story. Took me to a world unfamiliar to me and yet so familiar. Will never forget it. Worth reading for sure. So much.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-13-23
Intriguing perspective
I really enjoyed the character development throughout the story and the insight into the mental health disorder.
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- K. Tannous
- 09-11-20
Narrator is distractingly bad
What could have been a wonderful book to get lost in turned into a painful slog because of a really poor narrating job. The narrator uses a quasi-Indian accent for Arabic speakers throughout the book, mispronounces Arabic words like Ramallah and teta. Other accents are equally bad—noticeably French and Spanish. It was appallingly bad, and I feel very sorry for the author of this book. This audio recording massacres her work. Is it possible to re-record with a more competent narrator? Haram.
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6 people found this helpful