Emily Tremaine narrates a quirky coming-of-age story that has the feel of a memoir. Twenty-something Phoebe moves to New York City in the 1980s. While Tremaine's pacing can be halting and her phrasing a tad deliberate, her character portrayals are distinct and believable. In a youthful timbre and hesitant tone, she captures Phoebe's struggles with identity and self-reliance. Phoebe is deeply invested in her relationship with her friend, Carmen, whose social ease Phoebe aspires to. Most impressive is Tremaine's evocation of the novel's varied settings--Brown University, with its mostly privileged student population, and the East Village club scene, with its drug culture. The East Village is also where Phoebe works as the fortune-teller Astrid.
Pub Date: 2021
Duration: 8 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9781797120447
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
As a group of men bring their own emotional baggage to their football-obsessed reunion, R.C. Bray delivers his usual solid narration. He shifts his tones slightly but enough to put the listener in the motel with the men, revealing their foibles as the story progresses. The narrator's role in this book is a descriptive one, and Bray is a good guide. His narration becomes extra important because this is a rare instance when there almost isn't a protagonist. The author's well-written story--which alternates between serious and laugh-out-loud funny--uses quarterback Joe Theismann's 1985 injury, a broken leg, as a McGuffin.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781681680057
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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