Narrator Jeannie Stith delivers this story’s introductory scenes with brutal harshness as Lia learns that her best friend, Cassie, has been discovered dead in a hotel room. The two best friends had been competitors in anorexia. Stith's staccato delivery is fitting for the embattled Lia, who hides her self-starvation and cutting from the perplexed adults who want to save her. Stith whispers Lia’s compulsive calorie counting and uses a muffled voice to deliver the haunting speeches that Lia believes are coming from Cassie’s restless spirit. In her text Anderson uses italics, parentheses, and cross-outs to create visual representations of Lia's torment; in the narration the tones used to differentiate these are somewhat distracting. Still, Stith takes listeners deep into Lia's dark and frightening fight for survival.
Young AdultPub Date: March 19, 2009
Duration: 7 hrs
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Myths come to life through Bahni Turpin and Robin Miles's stellar narration of this young adult fantasy. Marisol and her mother left their home in the Caribbean to live in Brooklyn. Marisol hopes to leave their island traditions and her family's magic behind. Genevieve grew up listening to her white father's mythical stories from her unknown mother's homeland. When the teens' lives collide, both discover secrets that change their views of their worlds. It's no surprise that both Turpin and Miles are Golden Voice narrators. Their skills bring Genevieve's and Marisol's stories to life as they capture the teens' personalities. Miles exquisitely delivers Marisol's Caribbean accent, while Turpin channels Genevieve's frustrations with her family and her own health. Simply magical.
(Verse fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
Duration: 6 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063395589
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Narrator Susannah Jones's high-speed pacing conveys Maeve's jangly thoughts and obsession with every potential scary outcome of her life--complete with research that feeds her anxiety. Jones does an equally fine job portraying minor characters. Whether calm, compassionate, or frustrated, these secondary characters allow listeners a bit of relief from Maeve's intensity. Maeve does have reason for concern as she moves in with her father and his family for six months. Her situation is complicated: Her father struggles with alcoholism, her stepmother is determined to have a home birth, her mother is working far away in Haiti with a new lover, and Maeve has broken up with her girlfriend. Jones builds the tension and then relieves it as Maeve develops honesty, courage, and love for her new girlfriend.
(Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2017
Duration: 7 hrs
Publisher: Audible, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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