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How to Survive a Summer
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
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Publisher's summary
A searing debut novel centering around a gay-to-straight conversion camp in Mississippi and a man's reckoning with the trauma he faced there as a teen.
Grad student Will Dillard has largely buried memories of the summer he spent at a camp intended to "cure" homosexuality. But when he finds out a horror movie based on the camp is hitting theaters, he's forced to face his past - and his role in another camper's death.
As he recounts the events surrounding his "failed rehabilitation", Will strikes out on an impromptu road trip back home to Mississippi, eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer. With a masterful confluence of sensibility and place, How to Survive a Summer introduces an exciting new literary voice from the American South.
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Anders is an angry, cynical man. A book critic known for his scathing reviews, he finds any excuse to dismiss, belittle, or insult. This afternoon is no more agitating than the next. Angers finds himself in a long line at the bank, waiting to reach a teller. Even after two men - wearing masks and carrying guns - take control of the building, Anders is unfazed. It's this behavior that lands him with a pistol against his stomach and a man screamingin his face. And when the bank robber, indignant over Anders' behavior, shoots the book critic in the head, his mind floats through the memories of his life, settling on one particular event....
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The Perfect Example
- By Sarah on 08-01-17
By: Tobias Wolff
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Our Story Begins
- New and Selected Stories
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Wolff here returns with fresh revelations - about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother - that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary. A retired Marine enrolls in college while her son trains for Iraq. A lawyer takes a difficult deposition. An American in Rome indulges the Gypsy who's picked his pocket.
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Great
- By chris on 04-11-08
By: Tobias Wolff
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Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
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Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
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Funerals for Horses
- By: Catherine Ryan Hyde
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Ella Ginsberg's brother, Simon, has disappeared. His clothing, shoes, and watch were found abandoned near a freight line track in Central California. His jockey shorts and wallet were never found. The police have no clue, and Simon's wife had no warning that anything was wrong. Ella takes off on foot across much of California and Arizona, thinking she can find Simon using nothing but her knowledge of the way he might think. Her search leads her to the Navajo Nation in Arizona.
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Funerals for Horses
- By Carolyn Ferrell on 03-26-18
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Double Feature
- A Novel
- By: Owen King
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Unraveling the tumultuous, decades-spanning story of the Dolan family’s friends, lovers, and adversaries, Double Feature is about letting go of everything - regret, resentment, ambition, dignity, moving pictures, the dead - and taking it again from the top. Combining propulsive storytelling and mordant wit against the backdrop of indie filmmaking, Double Feature brims with a deep understanding of the trials of ambition and art, of relationships and life, and of our attempts to survive it all.
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Worst book ever! Well maybe.
- By Randall on 08-11-17
By: Owen King
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The Last House on the Street
- A Novel
- By: Diane Chamberlain
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Architect Kayla Carter and her husband designed a beautiful house for themselves in Round Hill’s new development, Shadow Ridge Estates. It was supposed to be a home where they could raise their three-year-old daughter and grow old together. Instead, it’s the place where Kayla’s husband died in an accident - a fact known to a mysterious woman who warns Kayla against moving in. The woods and lake behind the property are reputed to be haunted, and the new home has been targeted by vandals leaving threatening notes.
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✫✫ 5 Stars ✫✫
- By ❤️Cyndi Marie❤️🎧Audiobook Addicts🎧 on 01-12-22
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Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
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Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
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Vivian Apple at the End of the World
- By: Katie Coyle
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Seventeen-year-old Vivian Apple never believed in the evangelical Church of America, unlike her recently devout parents. But when Vivian returns home the night after the supposed 'Rapture,' all that's left of her parents are two holes in the roof. Suddenly, she doesn't know who or what to believe. With her best friend Harp and a mysterious ally, Peter, Vivian embarks on a desperate cross-country road trip through a paranoid and panic-stricken America to find answers.
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juvenile
- By emily on 12-16-19
By: Katie Coyle
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She Got Up Off the Couch
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.
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Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
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Lifted by the Great Nothing
- By: Karim Dimechkie
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Max doesn't remember his mother, who was murdered by burglars before they emigrated from Beirut to New Jersey. He lives with his father, Rasheed, who is enamored of his concept of American culture - baseball and barbeques - and tries to shed his Lebanese heritage completely.
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Excellent
- By Cheyenne on 06-13-15
By: Karim Dimechkie
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The Undoing of Saint Silvanus
- By: Beth Moore
- Narrated by: Shannon McManus
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Only God knew why Jillian Slater agreed to return to New Orleans on the news that her father had finally drunk himself to death. It's not like they were close. She hadn't seen him - or her grandmother, the ice queen - in almost 20 years. But when Adella Atwater, the manager of her grandmother's apartment house, called and said her expenses would be paid if she'd fly in for the burial, a free trip to New Orleans was too intriguing to resist.
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Classic Beth, highly recommend!!
- By Susan on 12-22-16
By: Beth Moore
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What listeners say about How to Survive a Summer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sam
- 08-19-24
This is Mississippi
I have never read a story that speaks so deeply to the journey most LGBT people travel in the heart of the Deep South. This story is so poignant and touches on so many facets of southern living that many young people are still facing today. It’s like the author somehow wrote my biography as well as so many people I know. It’s a beautiful read and a must for any Mississippian.
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- Jessica Temple
- 06-11-17
Captures the Subtleties of People and Place
Novel captures the specifics of its characters and locations. Narrator's accent is perfect for it.
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2 people found this helpful
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- ZippyBippy
- 05-06-18
A story full of heart and healing
A sometimes hard-to-listen-to but deeply engrossing story of healing, acceptance and second chances. Will is the survivor of a gay conversion camp that he attended while a young boy in Texas. Because he learns that an exploitation movie is going to be made about his time at the camp, Will goes back to face his demons, in the hopes of putting his past behind him and maybe finding a future for himself. It's a real and honest journey.
A note about the narrator, Mr. Crouch. While listening to him, you forget that you are listening to ONE man read these VERY unique and different characters. His characters are so distinct, so easily identifiable and relatable...we feel as though we are in the same room, uneasily eavesdropping on conversations and inner monologues. Mr. Crouch puts us in rooms in which we have no business being. He's amazing, engrossing and talented! I'd love for him to narrate my own life story--if only it were interesting enough. Y'all should check out some of his other work, too.
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4 people found this helpful
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Performance
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- Kyle Potter
- 05-26-22
how to integrate your trauma
The protagonist considers how a traumatic summer relates to his family history as well as his future. enjoyable performance.
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- Jeff S.
- 06-20-17
I literally could not get through it!
What did you like best about How to Survive a Summer? What did you like least?
The narrator.
Has How to Survive a Summer turned you off from other books in this genre?
The stream of consciousness was absolutely impossible to follow.
What about Michael Crouch’s performance did you like?
Narration was good.
Do you think How to Survive a Summer needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
I hope not. Not until the author figures out what story they are trying to tell.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Control, Alter, and Delete
- 04-22-22
For me, it moved s l o w l y.
At first, I couldn’t quite understand what the book was about or where it was going. I’m sure it will make more sense with a second listen. Towards the end though, I kept thinking that we had reached the conclusion, but it k e p t g o i n g.
Crouch, as always, narrates superbly.
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- CozyWriter
- 06-09-18
An excellent performance of an unfixable book
The Washington Post described this novel as "a Hot Mess" and that might well be understatement. This story of internal redemption if not salvation, surrounding a quasi-horror story about a camp to "cure" gay kids, hidden deep in some toxic and mystical woods in Mississippi, ended up being three discrete stories, none of which were satisfactory.
The reader sits in anticipation of dark reveals to help explain the trauma these 20-something year-old adults faced at the camp as teens. As each layer of revelation is peeled away, the reader gets a shock of either, "What the heck did THAT mean?" or "THAT was it? I waited SIX HOURS and that was it?"
The book is overly long, completely muddled, and has more padding than a sumo wrestler costume. The transitions between present day and flashback are as sharp as a simple paragraph break which tends to pull the listener out of the story to figure out where we are in space and time. Causing a reader to mentally pull out of the story, to escape from the fantasy the author has constructed: that's bad.
The book could have easily ended around 6 hours, or again around 11. White has taken secondary story lines and told them in sequential order rather than sprinkling all in together to make a more enticing read.
The actions of the book: one character's obsession with dying AIDS patients as well as the severe abuses that the children in the novel suffer are placed too far away from current understanding. Even in flashback to an earlier less enlightened time, the scenes are nearly pornographic in their severe violence and hatred. It was painful to listen to and I admit hitting the fast forward button through more than one of the "bash the fag" scenes.
The worst sin off all in this book of writing NOs is that it in the last minutes, it's revealed that this is all a book about writing a book and everything we have experienced, including present-day, has happened in the flashback of a memoirist's eye.
This breaks rule #2 of creative writing 101, of never-using without good cause (surrounded by Losing your virginity (1) and It was all a dream! (3).) Unfortunately this book was no dream or it would have been better.
Next time, we hope White works with a take-no-prisoners editor who will cut out all the useless fluff. This book should have been at least 1/3 to 1/2 shorter. We hope he will write likeable characters (I found myself hating them all!) who have back story motivation for their actions (why in GOD'S name did he throw away his phone!?)
I might listen to his short story collection to see what that's like but it will be a while. My brain needs mental food after slogging through this sweaty morass of a book.
PEEFORMANCE: Five-star good! He handles every voice with aplomb. I even had to double check to make sure Crouch was the only reader in the book. He has the needed regional Southern accent down perfectly (Being from the south I can tell where someone is from - West Texas to West Virginia - by nuances of their voice.) It's correct and not TOO over done. If he narrated the New York phone book I'd buy it!
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2 people found this helpful