
The Bright Years
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Narrated by:
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Ferdelle Capistrano
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Joy Osmanski
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Lee Osorio
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By:
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Sarah Damoff
About this listen
A National Bestseller
One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they’re unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this family saga perfect for fans of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo.
“Outstanding...through Damoff’s beautiful, at times almost poetic narrative, we see hope through the darkness, and how love—and forgiveness—can make us whole.” —Elle
Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall.
When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them—or herself—while there’s still time.
Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life, debut that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.
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Great story telling
- By CAMT on 06-07-25
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Heartwood
- By: Amity Gaige
- Narrated by: Justine Lupe, Alma Cuervo, Rebecca Lowman, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground.
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The suspense
- By Amy B. McVey on 04-11-25
By: Amity Gaige
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The Poppy Fields
- A Novel
- By: Nikki Erlick
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Dan Bittner, Stacey Glemboski, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal. Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they will finally be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects. On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog.
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Not as good as The Measure
- By Jewels on 06-24-25
By: Nikki Erlick
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The Other Side of Now
- A Novel
- By: Paige Harbison
- Narrated by: Paige Harbison
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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With a leading role on a hit TV show and a relationship with Hollywood’s latest heartthrob, Meg Bryan appears to have everything she ever wanted. But underneath, her happiness is as fake as her stage name, Lana Lord. Following a tiny nervous breakdown at her thirtieth birthday party, she books an impromptu trip to Ireland. Specifically, to the village where she and her best friend Aimee always dreamt of moving. When Meg arrives, the people in town don’t just recognize her, they seem to know her. She quickly—reluctantly—realizes she has somehow slipped into an alternate reality.
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epilogue tied it up in a satisfying bow
- By Nick V on 06-20-25
By: Paige Harbison
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Julie Chan Is Dead
- A Novel
- By: Liann Zhang
- Narrated by: Yu-Li Alice Shen
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin And Buying Her A House #EMOTIONAL). When Julie discovers Chloe’s lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she’s always envied.
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Not for the over 35-year-old age group
- By Tracykae on 05-05-25
By: Liann Zhang
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Home of the American Circus
- By: Allison Larkin
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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After an emergency leaves her short on rent, thirty-year-old Freya Arnalds bails on her lackluster life as bartender in Maine and returns to her suburban hometown of Somers, New York, to live in the house she inherited from her estranged parents. Despite attempts to lay low, Freya encounters childhood friends, familial enemies, and old flames—as well as her fifteen-year-old niece, Aubrey, who is secretly living in the derelict home. As they reconnect, Freya and Aubrey lean on each other, working to restore the house and come to terms with the devastating events that pulled them apart.
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Julia Whelan makes this story feel like my best friend is talking to me.
- By Samantha on 05-23-25
By: Allison Larkin
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It's a Love Story
- By: Annabel Monaghan
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From the USA Today bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script, a novel about a former adolescent TV punch line who has left her awkwardness in the rearview mirror thanks to a fake-it-till-you-make-it mantra that has her on the cusp of success, until she tells a lie that sets her on a crash course with her past, spending a week on Long Island with the last man she thinks might make her believe in love.
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Funny love story
- By Patti M. Cox on 06-23-25
By: Annabel Monaghan
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All That Life Can Afford
- By: Emily Everett
- Narrated by: Alex Finke
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. But when she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach. Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Swept up by the sphinx-like elder sister, Anna soon finds herself plunged into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright.
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The narrator had a cold around chapter 15 or needs adenoid surgery the first 10 chapters were lovely
- By Czashka on 04-06-25
By: Emily Everett
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The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Weiner
- Narrated by: Dakota Fanning
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Hollywood star Dakota Fanning narrates the audio of one of the most anticipated books of the year, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner. A glimmering novel set in the world of 2000s pop music about sisters, motherhood, young love, and the dreams we chase. The audio edition includes an original song inspired by the novel.
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Looooong
- By Erin on 04-18-25
By: Jennifer Weiner
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Wild Dark Shore
- A Novel
- By: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrated by: Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.
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Good, but not awesome.
- By Shannon on 05-03-25
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The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau
- By: Kristin Harmel
- Narrated by: Madeleine Maby, Kristin Harmel
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, Annabel: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance. But one night in 1942, it all went wrong.
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Beautiful historical fiction story
- By Lori S. on 06-18-25
By: Kristin Harmel
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The Summer We Ran
- A Novel
- By: Audrey Ingram
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo, Andrew Gibson
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1996, teenage Tess Murphy’s mom gave her two rules to abide by: keep quiet and stay out of trouble. Her mother landed a new job as a cook at an affluent Virginia estate and didn’t want anything to risk the opportunity, least of all her outspoken daughter. What no one saw coming was Tess falling deeply in love with the boy next door, high-society Grant Alexander.
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Meh
- By Jennifer Burrows on 06-06-25
By: Audrey Ingram
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What Kind of Paradise
- A Novel
- By: Janelle Brown
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim, Helen Laser
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in an isolated cabin in Montana in the mid-1990s, Jane knows only the world that she and her father live in: the woodstove that heats their home, the vegetable garden where they try to eke out a subsistence, the books of nineteenth-century philosophy that her father gives her to read in lieu of going to school. Her father is elusive about their pasts, giving Jane little beyond the facts that they once lived in the Bay Area and that her mother died in a car accident, the crash propelling him to move Jane off the grid to raise her in a Waldenesque utopia.
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Wow
- By Lacey Murillo on 06-09-25
By: Janelle Brown
Such a good book for a book club
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Astonishingly beautiful!
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Expected Much More!!!
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This book isn’t afraid to explore the messy things in life like grief, addiction, family fractures, abandonment, secrets, but it also gives you moments of light. Of grace. Of love that fights to survive, even when it’s broken. I was especially moved by the way the story handles legacy and what we inherit emotionally, not just biologically and how healing sometimes skips a generation before finding its way home.
And the ending. That ending 😭 It absolutely wrecked me. In the most profound, beautiful, soul stirring way. It’s the kind of ending that makes you sit in silence, clutch the book, and just feel (and ugly cry) It was closure, it was forgiveness, and it was love in its purest form.
If you’ve ever loved a book that hurt and healed you at the same time, you’ll understand this one. The Bright Years is a masterclass in character driven storytelling. It’s about the ripple effects of trauma and the fierce, complicated, enduring love that ties families together, even when everything else falls apart.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 STARS)
Masterclass in character driven storytelling
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Engaging, Gut-wrenching, Beautiful
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As someone whose heart is tuned to stories of transformation, unity, and the deep, intricate humanity in us all, I approached The Bright Years with curiosity—and found myself completely absorbed. Okay, TBH, I initially decided to read it just because I wanted to impress my new friend and employee who had helped to edit the book (“Isn’t this magnanimous of me?”). But then once I got into it, it grabbed me and refused to let go. I had no idea I was delving into one of the most touching pieces of fiction I’ve ever read. What Sarah Damoff has created here is far more than a memoir. It’s a decades-spanning tapestry of memory and meaning, stitched with insight, cultural texture, and emotional honesty.
The narrative is multigenerational and stretches across eras—from the analog charm of the 1970s to the screen-lit chaos of the 2020s. With each passing chapter, it felt like walking through a memory museum—not just hers, but very much ours. Damoff masterfully captures the feel of each era, whether it’s the subtle grit of 1980s suburban Texas, complete with school field days and cassette tape heartbreaks, Y2K paranoia, and ten-cent texts (“Wait! We used to pay per text?!”). These weren’t throwaway references—they were contextual memory anchors that grounded her story in time and made it feel profoundly real. And don’t get me started about how she broke my heart with the Abbey Road/Revolver debate punctuated with a stab of “Here, There, and Everywhere”.💔😭
One of the deepest parts of my own reading experience was my longing—if I’m honest—for a Disney ending. Especially when it came to the painful, ever-present shadow of alcoholism. I found myself rooting for that clean arc of victory, the tidy bow, the triumphant last page, giving me hope that I might also end that way, fully victorious over all of my struggles. But Sarah doesn’t give us that. She gives us something far braver: the unfinished, often uncertain truth. She resists the temptation to paint recovery as a straight line, and instead offers a portrait that is more real than neat—layered, unresolved, and still sacred. I respected her immensely for that choice. Life rarely hands us clear finales; it hands us a series of challenges to love more deeply and live more honestly. Sarah gets that.
Her prose is luminous. Not flashy—eloquent. She doesn’t scream her brilliance; she unfolds it with poise and precision. I found myself re-reading lines like:
“Grief slipped into the room like a cat—unannounced, quiet, and suddenly everywhere.”
or
“We keep mementos like we keep scars—not because we want to relive the pain, but because proof of healing feels holy.”
That’s the kind of writing that stops you mid-sentence to breathe it in.
I always say my favorite thing about a slice of cake is its moistness. My favorite thing about a story? Its unpredictability. The Bright Years is rich in this way. It doesn’t follow the expected arc. It keeps you engaged, guessing, wondering—not just what will happen next, but why. Like the best conversations in life, it’s full of reveals and turns that make you want to go straight to your chiropractor to treat your whiplash. And Sarah delivers this—not like a first-time author feeling her way forward—but like a seasoned storyteller who knows that a life fully told doesn’t need embellishment, just honesty and craft.
Some were fascinating reveals, generating, “Oh, now I know who this character is!” or “Wow, I never saw that twist coming!“ or “Geesh, this part is hitting a little too close to home for me; I WAS that exact character myself for a while.” But more than once while I was listening to it while driving or running, I literally screamed out, “NOOOOO!!!!! Sarah, NOOOO!!” After finishing the book, I watched an interview where she shared that writing the book was also a process of discovery for her as she watched the characters unfold on the pages she was typing. Sarah, now I can only thank you for sharing with us your own pain and loss at those same sudden heartbreaking moments. I feel you.❤️🩹
What amazed me most, though, was Sarah’s profound understanding of human complexity. Every person in this book is layered. She gives us no villains, no saints—just people. Imperfect, luminous, struggling, courageous people. From childhood friends to aging parents to the ever-changing version of herself, Sarah holds each character with compassion and clarity. We walk with them in their heartbreak, their humor, their hesitant hope. She doesn’t flatten anyone. Instead, she reminds us what we too often forget: everyone you meet is living a story that would stop you in your tracks if you really heard it. (What is the term for that? Sonder?)
The Bright Years isn’t just a memoir. It’s a mirror, a meditation, a gift. It left me inspired, grateful, and more determined than ever to walk through my own bright years with open eyes and an open heart for all around me.
Highly, deeply, warmly recommended.
A Memoir That Shimmers with Truth: My Reflections on The Bright Years
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Quick read that was just ok for me
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A must read
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The walk though the years from Lilly, Jet and Ryan!
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Achingly beautiful
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