Narrator Suehyla El Attar expertly voices nearly a dozen characters, all named Sarah, in this collection of inventive, funny, and disturbing stories about women navigating love, restlessness, self-doubt, and desire. Though each character is unique, they share a range of qualities: Many are queer, many are Jewish, and most are young women adrift in their careers and relationships. El Attar uses a slightly different voice for each. Her tone evokes dreaminess in a story about a lesbian couple who decide to become trees and bristles with prickly resentment in a story about a queer couple in the midst of conflict. Her subtle but striking vocal shifts add to the dizzying power of these stories, in which the characters' lives sometimes blur into one another.
Pub Date: March 9, 2021
Duration: 6 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781549129490
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Fans will welcome Free’s performance of this brief addition to the Murderbot universe.
Maintaining the same sardonic tone that works so well for the Murderbot Diaries audiobooks, Kevin R. Free narrates this story that, for once, isn’t told from Murderbot’s perspective. The crew of Perihelion, an intelligent research transport ship, is preparing for a mission aboard a space station. Peri sounds delightfully snotty in its interactions with Iris and the rest of the crew. The ship is implementing new strategies to keep its crew safe, and it’s being cagey about what inspired them—but we slowly realize that it’s because of Peri’s experience with a certain rogue SecUnit in a previous installment of the series. Sound effects, including beeping computers and whooshing air, add to the SF atmosphere.
Fans will welcome Free’s performance of this brief addition to the Murderbot universe.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
Duration: 53 mins
DD ISBN: 9781250489241
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
This uneven story collection can be difficult to follow on audio, making for a challenging listening experience.
Row's collection of 14 stories takes on academia, art, elitism, divorce, current events, and politics. Narrator Jim Meskimen takes an informal approach, portraying the various characters, from spouses to writers to edgy young folks, with distinctive vocal rhythms and effects. The variety in Meskimen’s performance can be distracting, and the stories vary in coherence, with an abundance of stream-of-consciousness passages and details that feel extraneous. In general, the stories share a satirical and scornful view of the cultural norms of the bourgeoisie.
This uneven story collection can be difficult to follow on audio, making for a challenging listening experience.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2026
Duration: 6 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063491670
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2026
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