-
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Aimee Bender
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 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
![Prime logo](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/Audible/Homestead/Prime_Logo_RGB.png)
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Butterfly Lampshade
- A Novel
- By: Aimee Bender
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night her single mother is taken to a mental hospital after a psychotic episode, eight-year-old Francie is staying with her babysitter, waiting to take the train to Los Angeles to go live with her aunt and uncle. There is a lovely lamp next to the couch on which she's sleeping, the shade adorned with butterflies. When she wakes, Francie spies a dead butterfly, exactly matching the ones on the lamp, floating in a glass of water. She drinks it before the babysitter can see.
-
-
Quite a Journey!
- By Anonymous User on 09-10-20
By: Aimee Bender
-
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
- Stories
- By: Aimee Bender
- Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie, Alex McKenna, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A grief-stricken librarian decides to have sex with every man who enters her library. A half-mad, unbearably beautiful heiress follows a strange man home, seeking total sexual abandon: He only wants to watch game shows. A woman falls in love with a hunchback; when his deformity turns out to be a prosthesis, she leaves him. A wife whose husband has just returned from the war struggles with the heartrending question: Can she still love a man who has no lips?
-
-
Lovely, Weird. Need More!
- By Erica Shanks on 03-05-24
By: Aimee Bender
-
Lessons in Chemistry
- A Novel
- By: Bonnie Garmus
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
-
-
Making my 3 adult daughters read this
- By Teresa H. on 04-07-22
By: Bonnie Garmus
-
Remarkably Bright Creatures
- A Novel
- By: Shelby Van Pelt
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Michael Urie
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
-
-
Hidden gem, incredible narration!
- By Christine T on 05-17-22
By: Shelby Van Pelt
-
Day
- A Novel
- By: Michael Cunningham
- Narrated by: Julianne Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
April 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart.
-
-
The writing is lovely.
- By D. W. Trimm on 12-01-23
-
Normal Rules Don't Apply
- Stories
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Paterson Joseph
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that listeners love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.
-
-
Playful jigsaw puzzle of stories
- By ReallyNelie on 02-24-24
By: Kate Atkinson
-
The Butterfly Lampshade
- A Novel
- By: Aimee Bender
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night her single mother is taken to a mental hospital after a psychotic episode, eight-year-old Francie is staying with her babysitter, waiting to take the train to Los Angeles to go live with her aunt and uncle. There is a lovely lamp next to the couch on which she's sleeping, the shade adorned with butterflies. When she wakes, Francie spies a dead butterfly, exactly matching the ones on the lamp, floating in a glass of water. She drinks it before the babysitter can see.
-
-
Quite a Journey!
- By Anonymous User on 09-10-20
By: Aimee Bender
-
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
- Stories
- By: Aimee Bender
- Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie, Alex McKenna, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A grief-stricken librarian decides to have sex with every man who enters her library. A half-mad, unbearably beautiful heiress follows a strange man home, seeking total sexual abandon: He only wants to watch game shows. A woman falls in love with a hunchback; when his deformity turns out to be a prosthesis, she leaves him. A wife whose husband has just returned from the war struggles with the heartrending question: Can she still love a man who has no lips?
-
-
Lovely, Weird. Need More!
- By Erica Shanks on 03-05-24
By: Aimee Bender
-
Lessons in Chemistry
- A Novel
- By: Bonnie Garmus
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
-
-
Making my 3 adult daughters read this
- By Teresa H. on 04-07-22
By: Bonnie Garmus
-
Remarkably Bright Creatures
- A Novel
- By: Shelby Van Pelt
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Michael Urie
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
-
-
Hidden gem, incredible narration!
- By Christine T on 05-17-22
By: Shelby Van Pelt
-
Day
- A Novel
- By: Michael Cunningham
- Narrated by: Julianne Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
April 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart.
-
-
The writing is lovely.
- By D. W. Trimm on 12-01-23
-
Normal Rules Don't Apply
- Stories
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Paterson Joseph
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that listeners love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.
-
-
Playful jigsaw puzzle of stories
- By ReallyNelie on 02-24-24
By: Kate Atkinson
-
The Secret Life of Sunflowers
- By: Marta Molnar, Dana Marton
- Narrated by: Kendra Murray
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Hollywood auctioneer Emsley Wilson finds her famous grandmother's diary while cleaning out her New York brownstone, the pages are full of surprises. The first surprise is, the diary isn't her grandmother's. It belongs to Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law.
-
-
Nothing like a expected…
- By LOVETOQUILT on 05-06-23
By: Marta Molnar, and others
-
The Measure
- A Novel
- By: Nikki Erlick
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?
-
-
heavy content
- By Cherece on 09-12-22
By: Nikki Erlick
-
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
- A Novel
- By: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- Narrated by: Arina Ii
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than 100 years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee - the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
-
-
An Enjoyable Cup of Coffee Awaits
- By cqgraphicdesign on 11-24-20
-
Yellowface
- A Novel
- By: R. F. Kuang
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.
-
-
I've never hated a character harder
- By ashelyn downs on 07-26-23
By: R. F. Kuang
-
The School of Essential Ingredients
- By: Erica Bauermeister
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once a month on a Monday night, eight students gather in Lillian's restaurant for a cooking class. Among them is Claire, a young woman coming to terms with her new identity as a mother; Tom, a lawyer whose life has been overturned by loss; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer adapting to life in America; and Carl and Helen, a long-married couple whose union contains surprises the rest of the class would never suspect.
-
-
Lovely, lovely book
- By Molly-o on 03-21-09
-
Weyward
- A Novel
- By: Emilia Hart
- Narrated by: Aysha Kala, Helen Keeley, Nell Barlow
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.
-
-
Awful, Problematic Story
- By Anonymous User on 04-23-23
By: Emilia Hart
-
The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
-
-
Boy, am I in the minority on this one.
- By Bonny on 11-04-13
By: Donna Tartt
-
The Lovely Bones
- By: Alice Sebold
- Narrated by: Alice Sebold
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place where she finds herself. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief. This story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful and touching narrative about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Kim on 12-10-09
By: Alice Sebold
-
Wicked
- The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
- By: Gregory Maguire
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heralded as an instant classic of fantasy literature, Maguire has written a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view. More than just a fairy tale for adults, Wicked is a meditation on the nature of good and evil.
-
-
It's not easy being green
- By PangaeaReads on 07-30-08
By: Gregory Maguire
-
Middlesex
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori
- Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.
-
-
Anything but middle.
- By Michael on 05-04-03
-
Ship of Magic
- The Liveship Traders, Book 1
- By: Robin Hobb
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 35 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships---rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. The fortunes of one of Bingtown's oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia. For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her---a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim.
-
-
Horrible Narrator
- By CP on 10-07-10
By: Robin Hobb
-
1Q84
- By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
-
-
WOW, WOW, WOW.
- By Amanda on 11-06-11
By: Haruki Murakami, and others
Publisher's summary
The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.
The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is a luminous tale about the enormous difficulty of loving someone fully when you know too much about them. It is heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad, and confirms Aimee Bender’s place as “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language” (San Francisco Chronicle).
Critic reviews
"Odd and oddly beautiful....moving"--The Washington Post
"Haunting....Bender's prose delivers electric shocks....rendering the world in fresh, unexpected jolts. Moving, fanciful and gorgeously strange."--People Magazine
"Charming and wistful....[Bender] harness[es] her exquisite, bizarre sensitivity, in this haunting examination."-- The Atlantic
Related to this topic
-
The Story of Arthur Truluv
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.
-
-
Sickly Sweet
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-18
By: Elizabeth Berg
-
Notes on a Banana
- A Memoir of Food, Love, and Manic Depression
- By: David Leite
- Narrated by: David Leite
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reminiscing about the people and events that shaped him, David looks back at the highs and lows of his life, from his rejection of being gay and his attempt to "turn straight" through Aesthetic Realism, a cult in downtown Manhattan, to becoming a writer, cookbook author, and web publisher, to his 23-year relationship with Alan, known to millions of David's readers and listeners as "The One", which began with (what else?) food.
-
-
Finished it in a day!
- By Kathryn on 08-23-17
By: David Leite
-
The Lost Family
- A Novel
- By: Jenna Blum
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1965 Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha’s to savor its brisket bourguignon and impeccable service and to admire its dashing owner and head chef Peter Rashkin, the most eligible bachelor in town. But Peter does not care for the parade of eligible women who come to the restaurant hoping to catch his eye. Running Masha’s consumes him, as does his terrible guilt over surviving the horrors of the Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha - the restaurant’s namesake - and two young daughters perished. Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming young model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter’s guard.
-
-
STIMULATES THE HEART, MIND AND IMAGINATION
- By Miss Manners on 07-01-18
By: Jenna Blum
-
The Good Goodbye
- By: Carla Buckley
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Suzy Jackson, Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two cousins, Rory and Arden, lie unconscious in a hospital burn unit. The fire, which broke out in their shared college dorm room, killed another student, and the police want answers. Tension between Rory and Arden's parents was already at an all-time high before the fire, owing to a recent financial crisis and the decline of the family business. As the parents huddle anxiously in the waiting room, carefully avoiding the subject of their own unraveling relationships, disturbing truths come to light.
-
-
I could not stop listening.
- By Amy Davis on 05-29-16
By: Carla Buckley
-
Garden Spells
- By: Sarah Addison Allen
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers.
Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.
Together again in the house they grew up in, the Waverley sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy - if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom - or with each other.
-
-
I so want to give it 5 stars...!!!!
- By Joihelene on 10-09-10
-
Tapestry of Fortunes
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cecilia Ross is looking for a change. She has decided to take time off from her job as a successful motivational speaker and sell her home. She moves in to a beautiful old house in St. Paul, Minnesota, complete with a big front porch, a wild garden, a chef's kitchen - and three roommates. The four women are different ages, but all are feeling restless, and want to take a roadtrip to find the people and things they miss.
-
-
Mellow story
- By Amazon Customer on 04-24-17
By: Elizabeth Berg
-
The Story of Arthur Truluv
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.
-
-
Sickly Sweet
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-18
By: Elizabeth Berg
-
Notes on a Banana
- A Memoir of Food, Love, and Manic Depression
- By: David Leite
- Narrated by: David Leite
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reminiscing about the people and events that shaped him, David looks back at the highs and lows of his life, from his rejection of being gay and his attempt to "turn straight" through Aesthetic Realism, a cult in downtown Manhattan, to becoming a writer, cookbook author, and web publisher, to his 23-year relationship with Alan, known to millions of David's readers and listeners as "The One", which began with (what else?) food.
-
-
Finished it in a day!
- By Kathryn on 08-23-17
By: David Leite
-
The Lost Family
- A Novel
- By: Jenna Blum
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1965 Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha’s to savor its brisket bourguignon and impeccable service and to admire its dashing owner and head chef Peter Rashkin, the most eligible bachelor in town. But Peter does not care for the parade of eligible women who come to the restaurant hoping to catch his eye. Running Masha’s consumes him, as does his terrible guilt over surviving the horrors of the Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha - the restaurant’s namesake - and two young daughters perished. Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming young model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter’s guard.
-
-
STIMULATES THE HEART, MIND AND IMAGINATION
- By Miss Manners on 07-01-18
By: Jenna Blum
-
The Good Goodbye
- By: Carla Buckley
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Suzy Jackson, Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two cousins, Rory and Arden, lie unconscious in a hospital burn unit. The fire, which broke out in their shared college dorm room, killed another student, and the police want answers. Tension between Rory and Arden's parents was already at an all-time high before the fire, owing to a recent financial crisis and the decline of the family business. As the parents huddle anxiously in the waiting room, carefully avoiding the subject of their own unraveling relationships, disturbing truths come to light.
-
-
I could not stop listening.
- By Amy Davis on 05-29-16
By: Carla Buckley
-
Garden Spells
- By: Sarah Addison Allen
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers.
Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.
Together again in the house they grew up in, the Waverley sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy - if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom - or with each other.
-
-
I so want to give it 5 stars...!!!!
- By Joihelene on 10-09-10
-
Tapestry of Fortunes
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cecilia Ross is looking for a change. She has decided to take time off from her job as a successful motivational speaker and sell her home. She moves in to a beautiful old house in St. Paul, Minnesota, complete with a big front porch, a wild garden, a chef's kitchen - and three roommates. The four women are different ages, but all are feeling restless, and want to take a roadtrip to find the people and things they miss.
-
-
Mellow story
- By Amazon Customer on 04-24-17
By: Elizabeth Berg
-
Breaking Night
- A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard
- By: Liz Murray
- Narrated by: Liz Murray
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls' home. At age 15, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. She learned to scrape by, foraging for food and riding subways all night to have a warm place to sleep. Then, when Liz's mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny.
-
-
unbelievably inspiring
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-12
By: Liz Murray
-
The Green Glass Sea
- By: Ellen Klages
- Narrated by: Julie Dretzin
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This first novel from Nebula Award-winning short story writer Ellen Klages was picked as a Junior Library Guild selection and named a Book Sense Number-One Children's Pick. It follows a young girl named Dewey, whose father is part of a super-secret project in 1943 Los Alamos. Dewey, a gifted scientist herself, slowly realizes the implications of "the gadget" her father is working on. She and Suze, another Los Alamos child, find comfort in each other's friendship.
-
-
Wonderful!
- By Rita on 12-08-08
By: Ellen Klages
-
When We Collided
- By: Emery Lord
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Evans, Raviv Ullman
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventeen-year-old Jonah Daniels has lived in Verona Cove, California, his whole life, and only one thing has ever changed: His father used to be alive, and now he is not. With a mother lost in a deep bout of depression, Jonah and his five siblings struggle to keep up their home and the restaurant their dad left behind. But at the start of summer, a second change rolls in: Vivi Alexander, the new girl in town.
-
-
Wow. This story is a feast
- By Julia Fairchild on 04-24-16
By: Emery Lord
-
How to Bake a Perfect Life
- A Novel
- By: Barbara O'Neal
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a novel as warm and embracing as a family kitchen, Barbara O’Neal explores the poignant, sometimes complex relationships between mothers and daughters - and the healing magic of homemade bread. Professional baker Ramona Gallagher is a master of an art that has sustained her through the most turbulent times, including a baby at 15 and an endless family feud. But now Ramona’s bakery threatens to crumble around her. Literally. She’s one water-heater disaster away from losing her grandmother’s rambling Victorian and everything she’s worked so hard to build.
-
-
Good Listen...
- By L.W. on 08-03-13
By: Barbara O'Neal
-
How to Be an American Housewife
- A Novel
- By: Margaret Dilloway
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington, Emily Durante
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways.
-
-
big disappointment
- By Kirsten on 04-12-12
-
The Opposite of Loneliness
- Essays and Stories
- By: Marina Keegan
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Probably buy the book too.
- By Soupergirl on 09-14-15
By: Marina Keegan
-
Marlena
- A Novel
- By: Julie Buntin
- Narrated by: Emma Galvin
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everything about 15-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts - first drink, first cigarette, first kiss - while Marlena's habits harden and calcify.
-
-
A Brilliant, Agonizing Portrait of a Young Woman
- By Sudi on 06-06-17
By: Julie Buntin
-
The Untelling
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Michele Blackmon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aria is no stranger to tragedy. Fifteen years ago, a family outing took the lives of her father and baby sister, leaving remaining members of this fractured family struggling with their own guilt - real and imagined. At 25, Aria believes she can reinvent herself through her planned marriage with all its promise of a family of her own. Her infertility changes her life as swiftly and irrevocably as the urban landscape around her.
-
-
Don’t waste your time!
- By shasha on 09-18-20
By: Tayari Jones
-
When You Call My Name
- By: Tucker Shaw
- Narrated by: Max Meyers
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Film fanatic Adam is 17 and being asked out on his first date—and the guy is cute. Heart racing, Adam accepts, quickly falling in love with Callum like the movies always promised. Fashion-obsessed Ben is 18 and has just left his home upstate after his mother discovers his hidden stash of gay magazines. When he comes to New York City, Ben’s sexuality begins to feel less like a secret and more like a badge of honor. Then Callum disappears, leaving Adam heartbroken, and Ben finds out his new world is more closed-minded than he thought.
-
-
Full impact of a heavy topic while keeping it within the genre.
- By GnomePatronus on 07-31-24
By: Tucker Shaw
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
Little Earthquakes
- By: Jennifer Weiner
- Narrated by: Johanna Parker
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rebecca Rothstein Rabinowitz is a plump, sexy chef who has a wonderful husband, a restaurant that's received citywide acclaim, a beautiful baby girl and the mother-in-law from hell. Kelly Day's life looks picture-perfect. But behind the doors, she's struggling to balance work, motherhood, and marriage, while dealing with an unemployed husband who seems content to channel-surf for eight hours a day....
-
-
More than your average "chick lit"
- By Tricia on 11-13-11
By: Jennifer Weiner
-
She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
-
-
Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Butterfly Lampshade
- A Novel
- By: Aimee Bender
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night her single mother is taken to a mental hospital after a psychotic episode, eight-year-old Francie is staying with her babysitter, waiting to take the train to Los Angeles to go live with her aunt and uncle. There is a lovely lamp next to the couch on which she's sleeping, the shade adorned with butterflies. When she wakes, Francie spies a dead butterfly, exactly matching the ones on the lamp, floating in a glass of water. She drinks it before the babysitter can see.
-
-
Quite a Journey!
- By Anonymous User on 09-10-20
By: Aimee Bender
-
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
- Stories
- By: Aimee Bender
- Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie, Alex McKenna, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A grief-stricken librarian decides to have sex with every man who enters her library. A half-mad, unbearably beautiful heiress follows a strange man home, seeking total sexual abandon: He only wants to watch game shows. A woman falls in love with a hunchback; when his deformity turns out to be a prosthesis, she leaves him. A wife whose husband has just returned from the war struggles with the heartrending question: Can she still love a man who has no lips?
-
-
Lovely, Weird. Need More!
- By Erica Shanks on 03-05-24
By: Aimee Bender
-
The Keeper of Lost Things
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Hogan
- Narrated by: Jane Collingwood, Sandra Duncan
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anthony Peardew is the keeper of lost things. Forty years ago he carelessly lost a keepsake from his beloved fiancée, Therese. That very same day, she died unexpectedly. Brokenhearted, Anthony sought consolation in rescuing lost objects - the things others have dropped, misplaced, or accidently left behind - and writing stories about them. Now, in the twilight of his life, Anthony worries that he has not fully discharged his duty to reconcile all the lost things with their owners.
-
-
Charming story with great narration
- By June J on 09-29-17
By: Ruth Hogan
-
The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic
- A Novel
- By: Breanne Randall
- Narrated by: Laura Horowitz
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sadie Revelare has always believed that the curse of four heartbreaks that accompanies her magic would be worth the price. But when her grandmother is diagnosed with cancer with only weeks to live, and her first heartbreak, Jake McNealy, returns to town after a decade, her carefully structured life begins to unravel.
-
-
What a Waste: Save Yourself!!!
- By Corrie on 10-29-23
By: Breanne Randall
-
Diary of a Void
- A Novel
- By: Emi Yagi, David Boyd - translator, Lucy North - translator
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that as the only woman at her new workplace—a manufacturer of cardboard tubes—she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can’t clear away her coworkers’ dirty cups—because she’s pregnant and the smell nauseates her. Except Ms. Shibata is not pregnant. But she has a nine-month ruse to keep up. Before long, it becomes all-absorbing, and with every stage of her “pregnancy,” the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve.
-
-
whiny lost woman
- By Pam Haynes on 12-01-23
By: Emi Yagi, and others
-
Everything Is Illuminated
- By: Jonathan Safran Foer
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man—also named Jonathan Safran Foer—sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
-
-
Astounding reading
- By bookworm123abc on 02-10-23
-
The Butterfly Lampshade
- A Novel
- By: Aimee Bender
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night her single mother is taken to a mental hospital after a psychotic episode, eight-year-old Francie is staying with her babysitter, waiting to take the train to Los Angeles to go live with her aunt and uncle. There is a lovely lamp next to the couch on which she's sleeping, the shade adorned with butterflies. When she wakes, Francie spies a dead butterfly, exactly matching the ones on the lamp, floating in a glass of water. She drinks it before the babysitter can see.
-
-
Quite a Journey!
- By Anonymous User on 09-10-20
By: Aimee Bender
-
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
- Stories
- By: Aimee Bender
- Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie, Alex McKenna, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A grief-stricken librarian decides to have sex with every man who enters her library. A half-mad, unbearably beautiful heiress follows a strange man home, seeking total sexual abandon: He only wants to watch game shows. A woman falls in love with a hunchback; when his deformity turns out to be a prosthesis, she leaves him. A wife whose husband has just returned from the war struggles with the heartrending question: Can she still love a man who has no lips?
-
-
Lovely, Weird. Need More!
- By Erica Shanks on 03-05-24
By: Aimee Bender
-
The Keeper of Lost Things
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Hogan
- Narrated by: Jane Collingwood, Sandra Duncan
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anthony Peardew is the keeper of lost things. Forty years ago he carelessly lost a keepsake from his beloved fiancée, Therese. That very same day, she died unexpectedly. Brokenhearted, Anthony sought consolation in rescuing lost objects - the things others have dropped, misplaced, or accidently left behind - and writing stories about them. Now, in the twilight of his life, Anthony worries that he has not fully discharged his duty to reconcile all the lost things with their owners.
-
-
Charming story with great narration
- By June J on 09-29-17
By: Ruth Hogan
-
The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic
- A Novel
- By: Breanne Randall
- Narrated by: Laura Horowitz
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sadie Revelare has always believed that the curse of four heartbreaks that accompanies her magic would be worth the price. But when her grandmother is diagnosed with cancer with only weeks to live, and her first heartbreak, Jake McNealy, returns to town after a decade, her carefully structured life begins to unravel.
-
-
What a Waste: Save Yourself!!!
- By Corrie on 10-29-23
By: Breanne Randall
-
Diary of a Void
- A Novel
- By: Emi Yagi, David Boyd - translator, Lucy North - translator
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that as the only woman at her new workplace—a manufacturer of cardboard tubes—she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can’t clear away her coworkers’ dirty cups—because she’s pregnant and the smell nauseates her. Except Ms. Shibata is not pregnant. But she has a nine-month ruse to keep up. Before long, it becomes all-absorbing, and with every stage of her “pregnancy,” the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve.
-
-
whiny lost woman
- By Pam Haynes on 12-01-23
By: Emi Yagi, and others
-
Everything Is Illuminated
- By: Jonathan Safran Foer
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man—also named Jonathan Safran Foer—sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
-
-
Astounding reading
- By bookworm123abc on 02-10-23
-
A Spark of White Fire
- Celestial Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Sangu Mandanna
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a universe of capricious gods, dark moons, and kingdoms built on the backs of spaceships, a cursed queen sends her infant daughter away, a jealous uncle steals the throne of Kali from his nephew, and an exiled prince vows to take his crown back.
-
-
Not for Me
- By Lucille Hernandez on 04-19-23
By: Sangu Mandanna
-
A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
- By: Sangu Mandanna
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sera Swan was once one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her magical Guild. Now she (slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps Aunt Jasmine run an inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests' shenanigans, tries to keep the talking fox in check, and longs for the magical future she lost.
By: Sangu Mandanna
-
Family Lore
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Acevedo
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Acevedo, Sixta Morel, Danyeli Rodriguez del Orbe
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake—a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led—her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.
-
-
Underwhelming.
- By Karina on 09-18-23
-
Oona Out of Order
- A Novel
- By: Margarita Montimore
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn 19, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens 32 years in the future in her 51-year-old body.
-
-
Awful
- By M. Esposito on 03-02-20
-
Land of Milk and Honey
- A Novel
- By: C Pam Zhang
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles. There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body. In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion.
-
-
Started strong
- By Harry on 09-29-23
By: C Pam Zhang
-
White Noise
- By: Don DeLillo
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event", a lethal black chemical cloud floats over the Gladneys' lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladneys - radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings - pulsing with life yet suggesting something ominous.
-
-
Designed to be analyzed by an English class
- By RI in Canada on 10-15-16
By: Don DeLillo
-
Garden Spells
- By: Sarah Addison Allen
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers.
Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.
Together again in the house they grew up in, the Waverley sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy - if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom - or with each other.
-
-
I so want to give it 5 stars...!!!!
- By Joihelene on 10-09-10
-
Like Water for Chocolate
- By: Laura Esquivel
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tita is the youngest daughter of Mama Elena, the tyrannical owner of the De la Garza ranch. As the youngest, she is expected to remain single and stay at home to care for her mother. So when Tita falls in love, Mama Elena arranges for Tita's older sister to marry Tita's young man.
-
-
Incredible book. Disappointing narration
- By Elizabeth on 01-03-14
By: Laura Esquivel
-
The Little Shop of Found Things: A Novel
- Found Things, Book 1
- By: Paula Brackston
- Narrated by: Marisa Calin
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Xanthe has always had an affinity with some of the antiques she finds. When she touches them, she can sense something of the past they come from and the stories they hold. When she has an intense connection to a beautiful silver chatelaine, she has to know more. It is while she’s examining the chatelaine that she’s transported back to the 17th century, where it has its origins. She discovers there is an injustice in its history. The spirit that inhabits her new home confronts her and charges her with saving her daughter’s life, threatening to take Flora’s if she fails.
-
-
unavoidable disappointing ending
- By Adam Tobi Smith on 11-12-18
By: Paula Brackston
-
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
- By: Sangu Mandanna
- Narrated by: Samara MacLaren
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos "pretending" to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.
-
-
The perfect cozy fall read!
- By Chloë Ester K. Cook on 10-04-22
By: Sangu Mandanna
-
Heartburn
- By: Nora Ephron
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.
-
-
Be the Heroine , Not the Victim
- By Cynthia on 07-12-13
By: Nora Ephron
-
Delicious!
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Reichl
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her best-selling memoirs, Ruth Reichl has long illuminated the theme of how food defines us, and never more so than in her dazzling fiction debut about sisters, family ties, and a young woman who must finally let go of guilt and grief to embrace her own true gifts.
-
-
I really enjoyed this book. Really well read.
- By Diane Cates on 04-17-18
By: Ruth Reichl
What listeners say about The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nomad 2009
- 03-22-18
Still unsure
I’m still unsure as to whether I enjoyed this book. It wasn’t what I was expecting for sure. I just don’t know if anybody really developed or if they just got older.
I definitely prefer narrations by somebody other than the author.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Trish_N
- 06-01-12
Not the best read, nor the best written book
Would you try another book from Aimee Bender and/or Aimee Bender?
First an Foremost, the Author Aimee Bender, should have used a professional voice talent to read the book. Her reading of the book came across as flat and monotone.
Next....Listening to, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, created conflicting emotions for me. I had a hard time with it; hearing about dysfunctional people or families without knowing that there will be a positive outcome is very, very difficult for me. On the other hand, it was much like watching a train wreck, I couldn’t look away.
While not wanting to give away the plot, I will say that it was hard for me to suspend disbelief; I often read fantasy and stories which use magic at their core. To me there were two parts to the story, one of a dysfunctional family delving into the relationships of married parents; the relationship between brother and sister with little in common, and the relationship of the children and their parents. All of the relationships in the story are dysfunctional. The other part of the story is the magical ability of the main character, Rose, who begins the story at the age of 9 and follows through her adolescence and to the age of 22.
While I am glad that I didn’t give up and that I did finish the story it was difficult I would have a very hard time recommending it to others to read or to listen to it. The pace of the story is slow and the characters were often unlikeable. The mother is self-absorbed and wouldn’t win any awards for mother of the year. The father is remote and guarded and not really present in the family. The brother is socially awkward and not written with any depth; he runs through the story more shadowy than any other character. Perhaps, this is deliberate, but I never ‘cared’ about the brother, so his storyline didn’t evoke a response as the plot twists occurred. As a matter of fact, lack of depth of all of the characters is one of the major reasons I wouldn’t recommend this book. All of the characters just seemed flat. By the end of the book the oddities and strangeness of the family makes more sense but it is too little too late.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
The most interesting aspect of the story was the concept of intuition regarding inanimate objects.
The least interesting, the character.
Would you be willing to try another one of Aimee Bender’s performances?
Definitely, I am not interested in hearing Aimee Bender reading another offering.
Was The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake worth the listening time?
I didn't feel that it was worth my time, I finished it because, well I always finish books either read or listening.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Terry
- 06-15-12
Might have been a great experience
My wife loved this book, so I tried it. Fool that I am, I failed to notice that it was "read by the author." Bender might be a good author, but her reading made the book sound like classified ads.
Authors reading their own books. Isn't there a proposition against that in California?
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
- BeWho
- 08-30-10
Couldn't finish it
It dragged. And dragged. And dragged. I think the story line was unique, but there was nothing there to capture me, nothing that made me want to keep listening. Add with that the reader's bland, intonation-less, and grating voice, and I simply couldn't finish.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Candace Glover
- 11-29-18
Sad reader left ya a bit depressed
The storyline was weird and interesting that well written. Left you hanging a lot. But the reader had such a depressed and monotone voice I always was very sad reading his book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sarah Bergstrom
- 04-25-12
Disappointing audiobook performance
What did you like best about this story?
The premise is intriguing and original.
What didn???t you like about Aimee Bender???s performance?
This audiobook should serve as a cautionary tale for authors who want to narrate their own books. There is more to an audiobook performance than simply reading the written words aloud. The flat narration makes the book seem dull and one-dimensional. It's difficult to hear a distinction between characters, and makes an otherwise interesting premise much less engaging.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bonny
- 10-27-11
Interesting idea, poorly executed
I'm not sure it's fair to be irritated with an author because they didn't write the book that I wanted to read, but that may be warranted with The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Rose Edelstein's ability to taste the emotions of the person who prepared her food was initially very interesting to me; I thought of it as a type of synesthesia and was looking forward to seeing how Aimee Bender explored the subject. That plot line gets dropped about halfway through the book; then the real strangeness starts, and the book becomes Rose's brother's story.
The only reason I remotely enjoyed this book was because of this one line, a statement by Rose's mother, "Sometimes, she said mostly to herself, I feel I do not know my children"..."That she might not actually know us seemed the humblest thing a mother could admit." I've been thinking about this a lot recently as my children have grown up and left home. We feel as if we know them so well as children because we willingly tend to all their physical and emotional needs over 18 years or so, and know so many aspects of their lives and thoughts, but lately I've had to remind myself that I need to know them as the adults they are currently and are becoming
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Peep's favorites
- 08-10-10
Partucularly Sad Lemons
I wish I had had the benefit of these reviews before I purchased and started listening to this book.
My first bit of irratation come from listening to Aimee Bender's annoying voice. I was at first hopeful that she was just going to read the dedication and intro info but then when I realized that she would be reading the entire book, I became particularly sad.
This sadness has become more pronounced as I continue to listen - I am two hours into the eight hour book and still cannot get interested. The plot is minimal, the writing style unisteresting. If there were a way to get my money refunded, I would ask for it on this book. I think I will just put it to the side and read something else.
Please, listen to the sample and read the other reviews before purchasing this book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lytrell Strayhorn
- 06-03-23
Not quite what I expected
The story seemed a bit all over the place. Very slow parts. I liked the concept but definitely not what I expected.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- jj13
- 09-05-23
This was a long novella
Like so many others, I see this as a book that had so much potential that feels wasted. Interesting concept, but it should have been a a short story instead.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!