Reckless Grace
A Mother's Crash Course in Mental Illness
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Leslie Langsdon
About this listen
Fourteen-year-old Rachel guards a collection of secrets for 10 years, journaling to vent her terror and loneliness.
Following Rachel’s fatal overdose years later, her mother, Carolyn DiPasquale, stumbles upon her daughter’s diaries. Shattered, she searches for answers, retracing her steps to figure out how parents and doctors missed three major mental illnesses.
What the single working mother recalls is a far cry from what happens, as dramatically revealed in tandem chapters gleaned from Rachel’s journals.
While the mother sprints from task to task, the daughter details the baffling emergence and frightening progression of bulimia, diabulimia, borderline personality disorder, her eventual substance abuse, and heart-wrenching reasons for not seeking help.
Despite her loss, DiPasquale hopes her story lights a path for victims of mental illness while awakening all listeners.
©2022 Carolyn DiPasquale (P)2023 WiDo PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
-
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult
- A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
- By: Maria Bamford
- Narrated by: Maria Bamford
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it. In Bamford’s “trademark blend of disarming intimacy and dark whimsy” (Publishers Weekly), Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult brings us on a quest to participate in something.
-
-
Hilarious and sincere
- By B. Bazzell on 09-06-23
By: Maria Bamford
-
Tell Me Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Minka Kelly
- Narrated by: Minka Kelly
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in this book, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy. Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer.
-
-
Had me until the white privileged and cis comments
- By Rachel Gilbert on 06-02-23
By: Minka Kelly
-
The Wreckage of My Presence
- Essays
- By: Casey Wilson
- Narrated by: Casey Wilson
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Casey Wilson has a lot on her mind and she isn’t afraid to share. In this dazzling collection, each essay skillfully constructed and brimming with emotion, she shares her thoughts on the joys and vagaries of modern-day womanhood and motherhood, introduces the not-quite-typical family that made her who she is, and persuasively argues that lowbrow pop culture is the perfect lens through which to examine human nature.
-
-
Would have been 5 stars without the political commentary
- By Leslie Francis on 05-14-21
By: Casey Wilson
-
It's Not All Downhill from Here
- A Novel
- By: Terry McMillan
- Narrated by: Terry McMillan
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Loretha Curry’s life is full. A little crowded sometimes, but full indeed. On the eve of her 68th birthday, she has a booming beauty-supply empire, a gaggle of lifelong friends, and a husband whose moves still surprise. True, she’s carrying a few more pounds than she should be, but Loretha is not one of those women who think her best days are behind her - and she’s determined to prove wrong her mother, her twin sister, and everyone else with that outdated view of aging wrong. It’s not all downhill from here.
-
-
terry McMillan is in her own way
- By Jestina M Spaine on 04-12-20
By: Terry McMillan
-
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies
- And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been There
- By: Tara Schuster
- Narrated by: Tara Schuster
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time she was in her late 20s, Tara Schuster was a rising TV executive who had worked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and helped launch Key & Peele to viral superstardom. By all appearances, she had mastered being a grown-up. But beneath that veneer of success, she was a chronically anxious, self-medicating mess. No one knew that her road to adulthood had been paved with depression, anxiety, and shame. Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies is the story of Tara’s path to re-parenting herself and becoming a "ninja of self-love".
-
-
Shallow romp through other authors works
- By MM in Los Angeles on 03-01-20
By: Tara Schuster
-
Morning in This Broken World
- A Novel
- By: Katrina Kittle
- Narrated by: Krystal Hammond
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grieving but feisty widow Vivian Laurent is at a late-in-life crossroads. The man she loved is gone. Their only daughter is estranged and missing. And the assisted-living facility where her husband died is going into quarantine. Living in lockdown with only heartache and memories is something Vivian can’t bear. Then comes a saving grace.
-
-
Great narration & likable characters
- By Thinker on 09-26-23
By: Katrina Kittle
-
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult
- A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
- By: Maria Bamford
- Narrated by: Maria Bamford
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it. In Bamford’s “trademark blend of disarming intimacy and dark whimsy” (Publishers Weekly), Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult brings us on a quest to participate in something.
-
-
Hilarious and sincere
- By B. Bazzell on 09-06-23
By: Maria Bamford
-
Tell Me Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Minka Kelly
- Narrated by: Minka Kelly
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in this book, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy. Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer.
-
-
Had me until the white privileged and cis comments
- By Rachel Gilbert on 06-02-23
By: Minka Kelly
-
The Wreckage of My Presence
- Essays
- By: Casey Wilson
- Narrated by: Casey Wilson
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Casey Wilson has a lot on her mind and she isn’t afraid to share. In this dazzling collection, each essay skillfully constructed and brimming with emotion, she shares her thoughts on the joys and vagaries of modern-day womanhood and motherhood, introduces the not-quite-typical family that made her who she is, and persuasively argues that lowbrow pop culture is the perfect lens through which to examine human nature.
-
-
Would have been 5 stars without the political commentary
- By Leslie Francis on 05-14-21
By: Casey Wilson
-
It's Not All Downhill from Here
- A Novel
- By: Terry McMillan
- Narrated by: Terry McMillan
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Loretha Curry’s life is full. A little crowded sometimes, but full indeed. On the eve of her 68th birthday, she has a booming beauty-supply empire, a gaggle of lifelong friends, and a husband whose moves still surprise. True, she’s carrying a few more pounds than she should be, but Loretha is not one of those women who think her best days are behind her - and she’s determined to prove wrong her mother, her twin sister, and everyone else with that outdated view of aging wrong. It’s not all downhill from here.
-
-
terry McMillan is in her own way
- By Jestina M Spaine on 04-12-20
By: Terry McMillan
-
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies
- And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been There
- By: Tara Schuster
- Narrated by: Tara Schuster
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time she was in her late 20s, Tara Schuster was a rising TV executive who had worked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and helped launch Key & Peele to viral superstardom. By all appearances, she had mastered being a grown-up. But beneath that veneer of success, she was a chronically anxious, self-medicating mess. No one knew that her road to adulthood had been paved with depression, anxiety, and shame. Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies is the story of Tara’s path to re-parenting herself and becoming a "ninja of self-love".
-
-
Shallow romp through other authors works
- By MM in Los Angeles on 03-01-20
By: Tara Schuster
-
Morning in This Broken World
- A Novel
- By: Katrina Kittle
- Narrated by: Krystal Hammond
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grieving but feisty widow Vivian Laurent is at a late-in-life crossroads. The man she loved is gone. Their only daughter is estranged and missing. And the assisted-living facility where her husband died is going into quarantine. Living in lockdown with only heartache and memories is something Vivian can’t bear. Then comes a saving grace.
-
-
Great narration & likable characters
- By Thinker on 09-26-23
By: Katrina Kittle
-
The Many Lives of Mama Love
- A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing
- By: Lara Love Hardin
- Narrated by: Lara Love Hardin
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No one expects the police to knock on the door of the million-dollar two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors’ credit cards. Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She finds that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. But Lara quickly learns the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates.
-
-
Well written and great story
- By A. Champ on 09-02-23
By: Lara Love Hardin
-
Group
- How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life
- By: Christie Tate
- Narrated by: Christie Tate
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The refreshingly original and “startlingly hopeful” (Lisa Taddeo) debut memoir of an over-achieving young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to group therapy and gets psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers - and finds human connection, and herself.
-
-
Unrealistic and Unethical
- By Kayla Okarski on 10-29-20
By: Christie Tate
-
Everything Nothing Someone
- A Memoir
- By: Alice Carrière
- Narrated by: Alice Carrière
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Carrière tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in Greenwich Village as the daughter of a remote mother, the renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett, and a charismatic father, European actor Mathieu Carrière. From an early age, Alice is forced to navigate her mother’s recovered memories of ritualized sexual abuse, which she turns into art, and her father’s confusing attentions—her childhood is spent in an adult’s world, with little-to-no boundaries or supervision.
-
-
This book is awful.
- By af_90 on 12-17-23
By: Alice Carrière
-
On Being Human
- A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard
- By: Jennifer Pastiloff, Lidia Yuknavitch - foreword
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pastiloff
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An inspirational memoir about how Jennifer Pastiloff's years of waitressing taught her to seek out unexpected beauty, how hearing loss taught her to listen fiercely, how being vulnerable allowed her to find love, and how imperfections can lead to a life full of wild happiness. Centered around the touchstone stories Jen tells in her popular workshops, On Being Human is the story of how a starved person grew into the exuberant woman she was meant to be all along by battling the demons within and winning.
-
-
What a beautiful memoir.
- By Ana McCarty on 06-11-19
By: Jennifer Pastiloff, and others
-
Dear Body
- What I Lost, What I Gained, and What I Learned Along the Way
- By: Brittany Williams
- Narrated by: Brittany Williams
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Raised in a turbulent home, Brittany Williams learned to use food as a coping mechanism to manage her feelings at a young age. When she was 14, a family member’s comment “no man will want you with a pudgy figure like that” forever changed the way she viewed her body and opened a door, new and alluring, into the world of self-loathing, self-punishment, and dieting. Told with Brittany’s unflagging honesty and trademark vulnerability, Dear Body describes the tensions of growing up in a body that often felt more like a traitor than a friend.
-
-
This is a FEEL BAD autobiography. There is no good here.
- By Meowwy Jane on 09-05-24
-
The Urgent Life
- My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival
- By: Bozoma Saint John
- Narrated by: Bozoma Saint John
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Bozoma Saint John's husband, Peter, died of cancer, she made one big decision: to live life urgently. Bozoma was no stranger to adversity, having lost her college boyfriend to suicide, navigated an interracial marriage, grieved a child born prematurely—a process that led to her and Peter's separation—and coparented the daughter who she and Peter shared.
-
-
I Really wanted to love it
- By Anonymous User on 03-06-23
-
Too Sensitive
- By: Rebecca Garifo Ph.D.
- Narrated by: Rebecca Garifo Ph.D.
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it take to see the truth? For us to save ourselves, even if it sets fire to everything we’ve ever known. To become brave enough, sick enough, and tired enough to let go. To stop fighting the battles that were never even ours to fight. To hand back responsibility for the lives we’ve been saving at the expense of our own. To let go and begin to heal. To love what we never thought possible, and become the person our childhood selves knew us to be all along.
-
-
You'll wish you could be her friend IRL!
- By CRB on 02-26-21
-
In My Own Moccasins
- A Memoir of Resilience
- By: Helen Knott
- Narrated by: Helen Knott
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helen Knott, a highly accomplished Indigenous woman, seems to have it all. But in her memoir, she offers a different perspective. In My Own Moccasins is an unflinching account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds brought on by sexual violence. It is also the story of sisterhood, the power of ceremony, the love of family, and the possibility of redemption.
-
-
eye opening
- By Mike Kramer on 08-06-24
By: Helen Knott
-
House on Olive Street
- By: Robyn Carr
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this touching work, four women—all writers—come together after a painful loss. Recently deceased Gabby Marshall leaves behind a letter asking her friends to complete her unfinished manuscript. Taking vacations from their own lives, the ladies settle at Gabby’s home and get to work.
-
-
Good story/liked the characters
- By Andrea on 04-08-13
By: Robyn Carr
-
Is Fred in the Refrigerator?
- Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life
- By: Shala Nicely, Jeff Bell - foreword, Reid Wilson - afterword
- Narrated by: Shala Nicely
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Narrated with wry wit, unflinching candor, and resounding insight, Shala takes listeners on a riveting journey into the dark and dimly understood inner workings of OCD and its frequent co-conspirator, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Thwarted repeatedly as she struggles to escape the clutches of these formidable foes, she finally stumbles upon an unexpected path to freedom. As she journeys into the heart of fear to reclaim her life, she weaves a self-compassionate road map to recovery: to living in an uncertain world and being happy anyway.
-
-
Very informative
- By Shay on 05-16-21
By: Shala Nicely, and others
-
We'll Laugh About This (Someday)
- Essays on Taking Life a Smidge Too Seriously
- By: Anna Lind Thomas
- Narrated by: Anna Thomas
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Popular humor writer Anna Lind Thomas had an epiphany after her essay about a humiliating fart went mega-viral: Everything’s funny...eventually. You’ll cry-laugh your way through the many grave offenses she’s endured....
-
-
Engaging and hilarious!
- By labnsabys on 11-18-21
By: Anna Lind Thomas
-
Strung Out
- One Last Hit and Other Lies That Nearly Killed Me
- By: Erin Khar
- Narrated by: Jayme Mattler
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This deeply personal and illuminating memoir about her 15-year struggle with heroin, Khar sheds profound light on the opioid crisis and gives a voice to the over two million people in America currently battling with this addiction. Growing up in LA, Erin Khar hid behind a picture-perfect childhood filled with excellent grades, a popular group of friends and horseback riding. After first experimenting with her grandmother’s expired painkillers, Khar started using heroin when she was thirteen.
-
-
Surface material
- By blythe mayfield on 03-06-20
By: Erin Khar
Related to this topic
-
He Came in with It
- A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness
- By: Miriam Feldman
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood, where generations enjoy deep roots in old homes, the O’Rourke family fits right in. Miriam and Craig are both artists and their four children carry on the legacy. When their teenage son, Nick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, a tumultuous decade ensues in which the family careens off the conventional course. Like the 10 Biblical plagues, they are hit by one catastrophe after another: violence, evictions, arrests, a suicide attempt, a near-drowning - even cancer and a brain tumor - play against the backdrop of a wild teenage bacchanal.
-
-
So Beautifully Written
- By Michael on 08-01-22
By: Miriam Feldman
-
Missing Parts
- By: Lucinda Berry
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up abandoned by her father and raised by a single mother, Celeste was determined to create the perfect family - but even perfect families have secrets. Her days are filled with a rewarding career, a devoted husband, and her four-year-old daughter. Celeste is the only one who knows the precarious house of cards her family is built upon - until the day her daughter falls critically ill. Then her world quickly spirals out of control, her secret threatening to destroy her marriage, family, reputation, and sanity.
-
-
SPOILER ALERT. Sigh...
- By Kelly on 10-08-20
By: Lucinda Berry
-
Something Spectacular
- The True Story of One Rockette’s Battle with Bulimia
- By: Greta Gleissner
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Greta Gleissner, a longtime professional dancer, dreamed her whole life of becoming a Rockette. Then she became one and she fell into the grips of a powerful eating disorder that began poison her life from the inside out. Something Spectacular is Gleissner's raw, personal chronicle of the devastating effects bulimia exacts upon her life during her time as a Rockette. As her disorder takes over, she begins to lead a dual life: happy-go-lucky on the outside; tortured by obsessive, self-destructive voices on the inside
-
-
A Good Memoir, Badly Narrated
- By NNN on 10-09-17
By: Greta Gleissner
-
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies
- And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been There
- By: Tara Schuster
- Narrated by: Tara Schuster
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time she was in her late 20s, Tara Schuster was a rising TV executive who had worked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and helped launch Key & Peele to viral superstardom. By all appearances, she had mastered being a grown-up. But beneath that veneer of success, she was a chronically anxious, self-medicating mess. No one knew that her road to adulthood had been paved with depression, anxiety, and shame. Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies is the story of Tara’s path to re-parenting herself and becoming a "ninja of self-love".
-
-
Shallow romp through other authors works
- By MM in Los Angeles on 03-01-20
By: Tara Schuster
-
Phantom Limb
- A Gripping Psychological Thriller
- By: Lucinda Berry
- Narrated by: Kate Marcin
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Emily and Elizabeth spent their childhood locked in a bedroom and terrorized by a mother who drank too much and disappeared for days. The identical twins were rescued by a family determined to be their saviors. But there are some horrors love can’t erase....
-
-
Not a fan of the ending.....
- By Dr. loLafolana on 08-10-20
By: Lucinda Berry
-
Hope and Other Luxuries
- A Mother’s Journey Through a Daughter’s Anorexia
- By: Clare B. Dunkle
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clare Dunkle seemed to have an ideal life - two beautiful, high-achieving teenage daughters, a loving husband, and a satisfying and successful career as a children's book novelist. But it's when you let down your guard that the ax falls. Just after one daughter successfully conquered her depression, another daughter developed a life-threatening eating disorder.
-
-
Potent and Real
- By Susie on 09-17-15
By: Clare B. Dunkle
-
He Came in with It
- A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness
- By: Miriam Feldman
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood, where generations enjoy deep roots in old homes, the O’Rourke family fits right in. Miriam and Craig are both artists and their four children carry on the legacy. When their teenage son, Nick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, a tumultuous decade ensues in which the family careens off the conventional course. Like the 10 Biblical plagues, they are hit by one catastrophe after another: violence, evictions, arrests, a suicide attempt, a near-drowning - even cancer and a brain tumor - play against the backdrop of a wild teenage bacchanal.
-
-
So Beautifully Written
- By Michael on 08-01-22
By: Miriam Feldman
-
Missing Parts
- By: Lucinda Berry
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up abandoned by her father and raised by a single mother, Celeste was determined to create the perfect family - but even perfect families have secrets. Her days are filled with a rewarding career, a devoted husband, and her four-year-old daughter. Celeste is the only one who knows the precarious house of cards her family is built upon - until the day her daughter falls critically ill. Then her world quickly spirals out of control, her secret threatening to destroy her marriage, family, reputation, and sanity.
-
-
SPOILER ALERT. Sigh...
- By Kelly on 10-08-20
By: Lucinda Berry
-
Something Spectacular
- The True Story of One Rockette’s Battle with Bulimia
- By: Greta Gleissner
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Greta Gleissner, a longtime professional dancer, dreamed her whole life of becoming a Rockette. Then she became one and she fell into the grips of a powerful eating disorder that began poison her life from the inside out. Something Spectacular is Gleissner's raw, personal chronicle of the devastating effects bulimia exacts upon her life during her time as a Rockette. As her disorder takes over, she begins to lead a dual life: happy-go-lucky on the outside; tortured by obsessive, self-destructive voices on the inside
-
-
A Good Memoir, Badly Narrated
- By NNN on 10-09-17
By: Greta Gleissner
-
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies
- And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been There
- By: Tara Schuster
- Narrated by: Tara Schuster
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time she was in her late 20s, Tara Schuster was a rising TV executive who had worked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and helped launch Key & Peele to viral superstardom. By all appearances, she had mastered being a grown-up. But beneath that veneer of success, she was a chronically anxious, self-medicating mess. No one knew that her road to adulthood had been paved with depression, anxiety, and shame. Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies is the story of Tara’s path to re-parenting herself and becoming a "ninja of self-love".
-
-
Shallow romp through other authors works
- By MM in Los Angeles on 03-01-20
By: Tara Schuster
-
Phantom Limb
- A Gripping Psychological Thriller
- By: Lucinda Berry
- Narrated by: Kate Marcin
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Emily and Elizabeth spent their childhood locked in a bedroom and terrorized by a mother who drank too much and disappeared for days. The identical twins were rescued by a family determined to be their saviors. But there are some horrors love can’t erase....
-
-
Not a fan of the ending.....
- By Dr. loLafolana on 08-10-20
By: Lucinda Berry
-
Hope and Other Luxuries
- A Mother’s Journey Through a Daughter’s Anorexia
- By: Clare B. Dunkle
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clare Dunkle seemed to have an ideal life - two beautiful, high-achieving teenage daughters, a loving husband, and a satisfying and successful career as a children's book novelist. But it's when you let down your guard that the ax falls. Just after one daughter successfully conquered her depression, another daughter developed a life-threatening eating disorder.
-
-
Potent and Real
- By Susie on 09-17-15
By: Clare B. Dunkle
-
With or Without You
- By: Caroline Leavitt
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After almost 20 years together, Stella and Simon are starting to run into problems. An up-and-coming rock musician when they first met, Simon has been clinging to dreams of fame even as the possibility of it has grown dimmer, and now that his band might finally be on the brink again, he wants to go on the road, leaving Stella behind.
-
-
not my cup of tea
- By Grekis on 12-23-20
By: Caroline Leavitt
-
Your Voice in My Head
- A Memoir
- By: Emma Forrest
- Narrated by: Emma Forrest
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Emma Forrest, a British journalist, was just 22 and living the fast life in New York City when she realized that her quirks had gone beyond eccentricity. In a cycle of loneliness, damaging relationships, and destructive behavior, she found herself in the chair of a slim, balding, and effortlessly optimistic psychiatrist--a man whose wisdom and humanity would wrench her from the dangerous tide after she tried to end her life.
-
-
Great, quick read
- By Amazon Customer on 02-12-21
By: Emma Forrest
-
Scars and Stilettos - 2nd Edition
- By: Harmony Dust
- Narrated by: Harmony Dust
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scars and Stilettos: At 13, after being abandoned by her mother one summer and left to take care of her younger brother, Harmony becomes susceptible to a relationship that turns out to be toxic, abusive, and ultimately exploitative. She eventually finds herself working in a strip club at the age of 19, and her boyfriend becomes her pimp, controlling her every move and taking all of her money. Ultimately, she discovers a path to freedom and a whole new life.
-
-
A religious book
- By Amazonbuyer on 10-12-21
By: Harmony Dust
-
The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
-
-
Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
-
An Apple a Day
- A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia
- By: Emma Woolf
- Narrated by: Emma Woolf
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I haven't tasted chocolate for over ten years and now I'm walking down the street unwrapping a Kit Kat. Remember when Kate Moss said, 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'? She's wrong: chocolate does. At the age of 32, after ten years of hiding from the truth, Emma Woolf finally decided it was time to face the biggest challenge of her life. Addicted to hunger, exercise and control, she was juggling a full-blown eating disorder with a successful career, functioning on an apple a day.
-
-
A memoir of a silver spoon, maybe.
- By S. covely on 06-05-16
By: Emma Woolf
-
How to Get Run Over by a Truck
- A Memoir
- By: Katie McKenna
- Narrated by: Katie McKenna
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
People often say, "I feel like I've been run over by a truck." Katie actually was. On a sunny morning bike ride in Brooklyn, 24-year-old Katie McKenna was forever changed when she was run over by an 18-wheeler. Being crushed under a massive semi wasn't something Katie should have survived. After 10 hours of emergency surgery, she woke to find herself in a body and a life that would never be the same.
-
-
Funny and an amazing story.
- By T. Thompson on 12-16-16
By: Katie McKenna
-
The Last Post
- By: Renée Carlino
- Narrated by: Avery Caris, Stephen Dexter
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Laya Marston’s husband, Cameron, a daredevil enthusiast, was the complete opposite of her, ready and willing to dive off a cliff-face or parachute across a canyon - and Laya loved him for it. But she was different: pragmatic, regimented, devoted to her career and to supporting Cameron from the sidelines of his death-defying feats. Opposites attract, right? But when Cameron dies tragically, Laya becomes lost in denial, living in the delusion that Cameron will come back to her.
-
-
I really wanted to like this
- By Amazon Customer on 12-21-21
By: Renée Carlino
-
Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?
- Confessions of a Gay Dad
- By: Dan Bucatinsky
- Narrated by: Dan Bucatinsky
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2005, Dan Bucatinsky and his partner, Don Roos, found themselves in an L.A. delivery room, decked out in disposable scrubs from shower cap to booties, to welcome their adopted baby girl - launching their frantic yet memorable adventures into fatherhood. Two and a half years later, the same birth mother - a heroically generous, pack-a-day teen with a passion for Bridezilla marathons and Mountain Dew - delivered a son into the couple’s arms.
-
-
A Parenting Book with Humor and Heart
- By The Reading Date on 02-05-14
By: Dan Bucatinsky
-
Something She's Not Telling Us
- A Novel
- By: Darcey Bell
- Narrated by: Vivienne Leheny, Carly Robins, Pete Simonelli, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlotte has everything in life that she ever could have hoped for: a doting, artistic husband, a small-but-thriving flower shop, and her sweet, smart five-year-old daughter, Daisy. Her relationship with her mother might be strained, but the distance between them helps. And her younger brother Rocco may have horrible taste in women, but when he introduces his new girlfriend to Charlotte and her family, they are cautiously optimistic that she could be The One. Daisy seems to love Ruth, and she can’t be any worse than the klepto Rocco brought home the last time.
-
-
Should be "Something Almost Happened"
- By Kimberly Wasilewski on 05-03-20
By: Darcey Bell
-
No Hiding in Boise
- By: Kim Hooper
- Narrated by: Devon Sorvari, Stephanie Willing, Hillary Huber, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Angie is awakened by a midnight call from an officer with the Boise Police Department and thinks there must be a misunderstanding. The officer tells her that her husband was involved in a shooting at a local bar, but how can that be when her husband is sleeping right next to her? But when she turns to wake him, he isn’t there. Tessa is the 23-year-old bartender who escapes to a backroom storage closet during the shooting. When it comes to light that five people were killed, she is burdened with the question of why she survived.
-
-
fantastic audio involving contemporary issues
- By Barbara S on 07-07-21
By: Kim Hooper
-
Lone Stars
- By: Justin Deabler
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.
-
-
Read for bookclub but fell in Love
- By Ericka Lawson on 09-11-22
By: Justin Deabler
-
The Stuff that Never Happened
- A Novel
- By: Maddie Dawson
- Narrated by: Teri Clark Linden
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annabelle McKay knows she shouldn’t have any complaints. She’s been in a stable marriage that’s lasted almost three decades and has provided her with two wonderful children and thousands of family dinners around a sturdy oak table. Other wives envy the fact that Grant is not the type of man who would ever cheat on her or leave her for a younger woman. The trouble is Annabelle isn’t sure she wants to be married to Grant anymore. The trouble is she’s still in love with someone else.
-
-
Don’t pass this one up.
- By Lauren on 03-10-20
By: Maddie Dawson