So Much for That
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Narrated by:
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Dan John Miller
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By:
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Lionel Shriver
About this listen
Shep Knacker has long saved for “The Afterlife”: an idyllic retreat to the Third World where his nest egg can last forever. Traffic jams on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will be replaced with “talking, thinking, seeing, and being” — and enough sleep. When he sells his business for a cool million dollars, his dream finally seems within reach. Yet his wife Glynis has concocted endless excuses why it’s never the right time to go. Weary of working as a peon for the jerk who bought his company, Shep announces he’s leaving for a Tanzanian island, with or without her.
Just returned from a doctor’s appointment, Glynis has some news of her own: Shep can’t go anywhere because she desperately needs his health insurance. But their policy only partially covers the staggering bills for her treatments, and Shep’s nest egg for The Afterlife soon cracks under the strain.
So Much for That follows the profound transformation of a marriage, and Shriver delivers a compelling novel that presses the question: How much is one life worth?
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Annabel Ford has everything under control, devoting her time to her twin boys and keeping her household running smoothly. But when her husband of a decade announces that he's leaving, she's blindsided. And suddenly her world begins to unravel. Piper Whitley has always done her best to balance it all - raising her daughter, Fern, by herself while advancing her career as a crime reporter. Only now that she's finally met the man of her dreams, Fern's absentee father shows up, throwing everything into a tailspin.
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Great Book!!
- By femmefatale on 01-12-23
By: Emily Liebert
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May We Be Forgiven
- By: A. M. Homes
- Narrated by: Andy Paris
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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May We Be Forgiven, a darkly comic novel of 21st-century domestic life, stars Harold Silver, a historian who's always been jealous of his successful brother, George. But when the hot-tempered George is institutionalized for committing a violent act, Harold finds himself comforting his brother's wife and children. What follows is a scathing examination of a family so fractured it may never be whole again.
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Give this one a try!
- By JWB on 02-13-13
By: A. M. Homes
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Stories I'd Tell in Bars
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster, John Fletcher
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.
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self absorbed
- By D D H on 06-15-19
By: Jen Lancaster
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The Turner House
- By: Angela Flournoy
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over 50 years. Their house has seen 13 children grown and gone - and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a 10th of its mortgage.
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The narrator's performance made the difference.
- By KT on 06-11-15
By: Angela Flournoy
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Sweet Tea Tuesdays
- By: Ashley Farley
- Narrated by: Linda Henning
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When new next-door neighbors Georgia, Midge, and Lula first assembled on Georgia's porch in Charleston for sweet tea, they couldn't have known their gathering was the beginning of a treasured tradition. For 26 years they have met on Tuesdays at four o'clock, watching the seasons change and their children grow up, supporting each other in good times and in bad. With their ambitions as different as their personalities, these best friends anticipate many more years of tea time.
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Sweet story.
- By Gothic_Potato on 12-27-18
By: Ashley Farley
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Suddenly
- By: Barbara Delinsky
- Narrated by: Carol Monda
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
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In the idyllic small town of Tucker, Vermont, life flows at a rhythmic pace for pediatrician Paige Pfeiffer. But when Mara O'Neill, her best friend and medical partner, inexplicably kills herself, Paige's comfortable world is suddenly shattered. Temporarily caring for Mara's newly adopted baby daughter while she comes to grips with her grief, Paige clings to the hope that, in time, her orderly life will return.
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Parent guide! (not romance)
- By christine on 10-10-11
By: Barbara Delinsky
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Hope and Other Luxuries
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- By: Clare B. Dunkle
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
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Clare Dunkle seemed to have an ideal life - two beautiful, high-achieving teenage daughters, a loving husband, and a satisfying and successful career as a children's book novelist. But it's when you let down your guard that the ax falls. Just after one daughter successfully conquered her depression, another daughter developed a life-threatening eating disorder.
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Potent and Real
- By Susie on 09-17-15
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The Woman Who Stole My Life
- By: Marian Keyes
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
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In her own words, Stella Sweeney is just "an ordinary woman living an ordinary life with her husband and two teenage kids", working for her sister in their neighborhood beauty salon. Then one day she is struck by a serious illness that lands her in the hospital for months.
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First Part? Good. Second Part? Ugh!
- By Gillian on 08-31-17
By: Marian Keyes
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Isle of Palms
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- By: Dorothea Benton Frank
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
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Performance
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Dorothea Benton Frank is a treasure of American letters with numerous New York Times best-sellers to her credit and a portfolio full of critical acclaim. “Mixing high drama and high jinks” ( Booklist), her third Lowcountry novel follows the fortunes of the dysfunctional Abbot family. Looking to set her life aright, Anna Lutz Abbot returns to her South Carolina lowcountry hometown. And as she attempts to right past wrongs, Anna receives help and support from a quirky cast of lovable locals sure to endear themselves to listeners.
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A feel good story
- By Sheryl on 02-04-13
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This Is Not Over
- A Novel
- By: Holly Brown
- Narrated by: Madeleine Maby, Donna Postel
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Two very different women with this in common: Each harbors her own secret, her own reason why she can't just let this go. Neither can yield, not before they've dredged up all that's hidden, even if it has the power to shatter all they've built.
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Pettiness Turn Twisted!
- By Jenn on 01-19-17
By: Holly Brown
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A Thousand Acres
- By: Jane Smiley
- Narrated by: C. J. Critt
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a tangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father, Larry Cook, grows too old to manage the family's fertile thousand-acre farm. As each couple struggles with their own tragedies and challenges, they know their father is judging them in light of the weighty inheritance that hovers within their reach.
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good book bad reader
- By C. Carlson on 08-07-08
By: Jane Smiley
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A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.
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Painful and drawn out
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World-famous anthropologist Gray Kaiser has almost everything. She is brilliance, self-sufficient, and beautiful. But at 59, one thing is still missing from her life. She has never been in love. Her assistant Errol McEchern has loved her for many years, but she doesn't know.
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Rare weak novel from the wonderful Lionel Shriver
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Following the death of her worthy liberal parents, Corlis McCrea moves back into her family's grand Reconstruction mansion in North Carolina, willed to all three siblings. Her timid younger brother has never left home. When her bullying black-sheep older brother moves into "his" house as well, it's war.
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"Po-TAH-toes"?!
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What listeners say about So Much for That
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-09-21
Excellent!
Lionel Shriver is just plain genius! Her characters are so well drawn and her plots never fail to satisfy!
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- Sydmace
- 12-05-22
Starts out slow but wow!
Another tour de force in achingly intimate characters by Lionel Shriver. The two central couples - Shep and Glynis and Carol and Jackson - interweave a story that alights on almost every human touchstone: death, illness, love, family, insecurity, longing and hope. Oh and throw in a million dollars a couple times. Loved it
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Overall
- Linda
- 07-06-10
haunting...read this summer on the beach!!
I have become a big fan of MS Shriver. Her books are hilariously dark and witty. the narrator really performed well and brought these very plausible characters to life. especially interesting given the recent health care debate.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Tina
- 06-02-16
4.5 Stars
Would you listen to So Much for That again? Why?
Yes...I absolutely love and respect Lionel Shriver as an author. She is like Donna Tartt meets Ann Patchett with a dash of William Boyd. I feel as if she's able to write with a remarkable vocabulary without sounding pretension nor contrived. The stories flow even if the plot structure isn't set around something that the reader doesn't relate to (i.e. "Big Brother," "We need to Talk about Kevin," "The Post Birthday World"....) love them all!
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3 people found this helpful
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- Rebecca Ryan
- 09-23-22
Loved it!
A wonderfully interesting story, Not your usual topic. I loved the ending. I highly recommend it.
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- Jennifer
- 05-06-12
A Long-Form Rant Saved By Narrator (Barely)
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Shep Knacker has spent most of his adult life preparing for “The Afterlife”—his shorthand for early retirement in a Third World country where his nest egg will last longer. Numerous research trips with his wife Glynis have narrowed down the options to an island off the coast of Africa. Yet Glynis always finds one reason or another to delay The Afterlife. Impatient to pull the trigger (after all, he sold his handyman company for $1 million a few years back and has been miserably slaving away for the asshat new owner since then), Shep decides he is ready to start enjoying The Afterlife NOW—even if that means going without Glynis and their teenage son Zack. With one-way tickets in hand, Shep girds himself to do battle with Glynis to convince her that he isn’t willing to wait any longer, that The Afterlife must begin now. However, it turns out that Glynis has news of her own—she’s been diagnosed with a rare but deadly form of cancer called peritoneal mesothelioma. What can a good husband do? Of course, Shep delays The Afterlife. Yet as the months tick by and the balance of his retirement account dwindles steadily due to mounting medical bills, Shep begins to realize that The Afterlife might never be in his grasp.
MY THOUGHTS
You just never know what you are going to get with a Lionel Shriver book. After thrilling to the parallel universes in The Post-Birthday World and feeling depressed and disturbed after her stunning We Need To Talk About Kevin, I signed up for her latest book without hesitation. I so wish I’d listened to the reviews I’d read beforehand that said that the book felt more like a diatribe against the U.S. health-care system than a novel as So Much For That was a bit of a slog.
Shep’s best friend, Jackson, takes on the role of pissed-off ranter—launching on these epic rants about Mooches and Mugs (his favorite term for all the corrupt asshats who are sticking it to us idiots). These rants quickly grew tiresome, and I felt that Shriver let Jackson run on way too long. In addition, I thought the ending was unrealistic and uncharacteristic of Shriver. I honestly couldn’t believe how she ended the book. If there was ever a book made for an unhappy ending, this was it. Yet Shriver turned everything on its head and gave these very unlikable characters an almost fairytale ending that just didn’t jibe with the rest of the book. (Well, except for Jackson.)
That being said, Shriver is still is darn good writer. Her focus on little details and her way with words made this book tolerable. However, her writing skills often created vivid and graphic scenes that were almost too much for me to handle. At one point, when Shriver described some bodily functions plaguing Glynis, I felt my stomach turning with nausea. In addition, a subplot with Jackson’s botched surgery contained one too many graphic descriptions that almost turned me off of intimate relations forever. Let’s just say this: you’ll never look at an “Enlarge Your Penis” spam e-mails the same way again.
In the end, this book felt more like Shriver communicating an agenda rather than writing a novel. Still, the lady (yes … Lionel Shriver is a woman … it threw me off the first time I read her books) can write and that saved this from being a complete turn-off … but just barely.
ABOUT THE NARRATION
I thought Dan John Miller did an excellent job narrating what must have been a difficult and long read. His voice was gripping, and I didn’t mind spending more than 17 hours listening to him. In fact, his narration may have kept me in the book longer than if I had read it in print. (I definitely would have skipped over almost any Jackson rant in the print version.) In addition, Miller created different voices for each character, including Shep, Glynis, Jackson and Jackson’s disabled daughter Flicka. (I’ll confess, when I first heard his voice for Flicka, it was a real turn-off and almost seemed like a parody. Yet, as I listened, I grew accustomed to it and thought perhaps the voice brought the character to life in a way she might not have come to life in the print version.) It was amazing to me how Miller could morph into each character’s voices and I’d know immediately who was talking … even between Shep and Jackson.
RECOMMENDED FOR
People who have an axe to grind against Big Government, the health-care system, politicians and the “system” in general … you’ll find an ally in Jackson! I honestly don’t know that I’d recommend this book to anyone. It wasn’t an easy read/listen, the characters were often unlikeable, and the “plot” felt more like a chance for Shriver to communicate an agenda rather than craft a cohesive and gripping narrative. (I’m not saying I disagree with Shriver’s agenda and criticisms. I just felt she bludgeoned the reader with it.) Although Shriver can write, she has written better books than this one.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Sean
- 12-09-12
Needs editing
I have listened to a few Lionel Shriver books and she is an excellent writer, good descriptions, surprising metaphors etc. This book had an agenda to criticize the insurance-medical industry and the rant got old. The sixteen hours could have been trimmed to twelve to good effect. The book would have been cogent and compact. Although the narrator has a pleasing voice and good delivery he cannot do a female voice very effectively.
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- Frank Salomon
- 11-21-14
Twisting the satirical lancet
Lionel Shriver tends to zigzag across a line between tabloid appeal and knowing satire. She dashes on journalistic coarseness like sriracha sauce. She's usually on the edge of overdoing it. Not always; In her heartfelt recent novel Big Brother, which balances empathy against anger in considering obesity, a deeper part of her imagination rose to the surface. It was moving to find this part of her mind anything but coarse .
The new novel So Much for That, however, gives uninterrupted play to laughing scorn. You'll think of hard-edge satirists like Tom Wolfe and Martin Amis. So Much for That is a deep-black comedy about two couples, both being eaten alive by America's medical-financial machinery, but responding according to divergent passions and instincts. There's a secondary liebestod theme , love-and-death within marriage. It is worked against its grain so it won't look like cheap glitter amid the gathering blackness. But it kind of does anyway.
Being the sort of guy who likes vinegar and picante, I got some pleasure out of this book. But some things about it are pointlessly extreme. Some characters are ranters. Instead of stilling them with a jab of satire, the author sends us long passages of unedited blowviation. Editing, please. Greatness in satire is rage under perfect control.
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- Girlbos
- 04-05-12
Don't waste your time
Any additional comments?
I was expecting big things after
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Overall
- Leslie Grey
- 02-12-11
Grim, ugly, unrewarding story, narrated well
Our faces are pushed mercilessly into the repulsive medical details of several diseased characters. We must endure endless crankiness, selfishness, and self-congratulation by truly unpleasant and stunted personalities who are all unhappy about something. This was almost unendurable except I kept hanging on, thinking the rave reviews could not get it so wrong. Well they did. Ugh. Nasty people, nasty diseases, nasty plot resolution through deception. However the narration was very good; this mess was not Mr Miller's fault.
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