This riveting memoir recounts the author’s childhood in a fundamentalist and isolationist family and how she broke out of those narrow confines to go to college and graduate school. Narrator Julia Whelan’s performance is outstanding. She expresses author Tara Westover’s naïve trust in her father’s conviction that the world will end at Y2K; incredulity at the constant freak accidents of children being gashed, set on fire, or concussed while working in a junkyard (God will protect); and mortification at discovering her ignorance of the Holocaust and Martin Luther King in her freshman year at Brigham Young University. Whelan conducts a master class in the fear, dread, and self-doubt wrought by domestic violence as Westover recounts her older brother’s terrorizing all while spewing religious righteousness.
Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2018
Duration: 12 hrs
DD ISBN: 9780525528067
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
James Michener tells the real stories behind the man and his books. The recording is read with skill and consistency although the reader does little to enhance the robust, larger-than-life incidents related in the book. Due to the first-person narrative format, there is no opportunity for the narrator to change his voice. This makes some chapters monotonous as they go on and on in the typical Michener style. The listener may also become confused because the stories are not told chronologically. This is not a great choice for the audio format, but Michener fans may stick with it to the end.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 22 hrs
Publisher: Books on Tape
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
In a quest for a sense of inner contentment and self-worth, Gloria Steinem brings the reader on a journey of investigation and discovery. Steinem reads the text herself in a straightforward and friendly, but not intimate, presentation which is so easy to listen to it invites repetition--thus ensuring the painless relearning of the lessons of the book. It's difficult to tell from the reading that this audiobook is abridged; each section can stand alone. Nonetheless, the listener wished the book were unabridged. Steinem left me wanting to learn more.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 3 hrs
Publisher: Dove Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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