The Folly of Realism
How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine
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The Folly of Realism
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Narrated by:
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Jacques Roy
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Alexander Vindman
About this listen
A bestselling national security expert delivers a chilling analysis of how Western indecision and apathy made possible the return of brutal Russian expansionism—with catastrophic consequences.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, six US presidential administrations of both parties pursued policies for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia that emboldened Russia, playing into its imperialist, centuries-long mythos of regional hegemony. The result: military aggression and full-scale invasion. It was all too foreseeable.
In The Folly of Realism, leading national security expert and bestselling author Alexander Vindman argues that America’s mistakes in Eastern Europe result from policymakers’ fixation on immediate, short-term problem-solving and misplaced hopes and fears. He proposes a new long-term, values-based approach that insists on the fundamentals of liberal democracy and a rules-based world order.
Enlivened by firsthand accounts and behind-the-scenes interviews with leading Washington and international policymakers and culminating in the shocking brutality of Putin’s invasions of Ukraine, the book exposes the follies of western foreign policymaking, sources of the dangerous return of Russian imperialism, and proscribes how it can be contained.
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5 out of 5 stars
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if you followed the election, you already know most of it, but it's still a great listen.
- By Tony on 03-22-25
By: Alex Isenstadt
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Where Tyranny Begins
- The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy
- By: David Rohde
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
In Where Tyranny Begins, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Rohde investigates the strategies Trump systematically used to turn the country's two most powerful law-enforcement agencies into his personal political weapons. Rohde also reveals how, during the Biden years, Justice Department non-partisan 1970s norms that Attorney General Merrick Garland reinforced inadvertently helped Trump, and could fail to deliver a trial and legal accountability by Election Day 2024.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Review of why we fired trump
- By ludlow on 09-24-24
By: David Rohde
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Ukraine
- The Forging of a Nation
- By: Yaroslav Hrytsak
- Narrated by: Greg Kolpakchi
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8
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Story5 out of 5 stars 8
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the world witnessed the “creative, freewheeling, darkly humorous, and deeply resilient society” that is contemporary Ukraine. In this timely and original history, a bestseller in Ukraine, the historian Yaroslav Hrytsak tells the sweeping story of his nation through a meticulous examination of the major events, conflicts, and developments that have shaped it over the course of centuries. Hrytsak weaves a rich and detailed tapestry of a country in continual transformation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Bumblebee
- By Moonpie on 08-28-24
By: Yaroslav Hrytsak
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Hubris
- The American Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine
- By: Jonathan Haslam
- Narrated by: Jonathan Haslam
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 6
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
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Story5 out of 5 stars 5
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 should not have taken the world by surprise. The attack escalated a war that began in 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea, but its origins are visible as far back as the aftermath of the Cold War, when newly independent Ukraine moved to the center of tense negotiations between Russia and the West. The United States was a leading player in this drama. I
By: Jonathan Haslam
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Murder the Truth
- Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful
- By: David Enrich
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
David Enrich, the New York Times Business Investigations Editor and the #1 bestselling author of Dark Towers, produces his most consequential and far-reaching investigation yet: an in-depth exposé of the broad campaign—orchestrated by elite Americans—to silence dissent and protect the powerful.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The current threat against journalists
- By Kirk Writes on 04-04-25
By: David Enrich
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The Plot to Destroy Democracy
- How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West
- By: Malcolm Nance, Rob Reiner - foreword
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,563
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,378
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,374
In the greatest intelligence operation in the history of the world, Donald Trump was made president of the United States with the assistance of a foreign power. For the first time, The Plot to Destroy Democracy reveals the dramatic story of how blackmail, espionage, assassination, and psychological warfare were used by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies to steal the 2016 US election. It will show how Russia and its fifth column allies tried to flip the cornerstones of democracy in order to reengineer the world political order that kept most of the world free since since 1945.
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5 out of 5 stars
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OH NOOOO
- By Red on 07-18-18
By: Malcolm Nance, and others
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Chokepoints
- American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare
- By: Edward Fishman
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 17 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story5 out of 5 stars 20
It used to be that ravaging another country’s economy required blockading its ports and laying siege to its cities. Now all it takes is a statement posted online by the U.S. government. In Chokepoints, Edward Fishman, a former top State Department sanctions official, takes us deep into the back rooms of power to reveal the untold history of the last two decades of U.S. foreign policy, in which America renounced the gospel of globalization and waged a new kind of economic war.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An economics textbook disguised as a thriller
- By Jesse Spevack on 03-26-25
By: Edward Fishman
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American Kompromat
- How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery
- By: Craig Unger
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 478
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 408
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 406
This is a story about the dirty secrets of the most powerful people in the world—including Donald Trump. It is based on exclusive interviews with dozens of high-level sources—intelligence officers in the CIA, FBI, and the KGB, thousands of pages of FBI investigations, police investigations, and news articles in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. American Kompromat shows that from Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, kompromat was used in operations far more sinister than the public could ever imagine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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10 star book
- By Victoria Eriksson on 01-31-21
By: Craig Unger
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The War Came to Us
- Life and Death in Ukraine
- By: Christopher Miller
- Narrated by: Christopher Miller
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
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Story5 out of 5 stars 2
This is the definitive, inside story of Ukraine's long fight for freedom. Told through Miller’s personal experiences, vivid front-line dispatches and illuminating interviews with unforgettable characters, The War Came To Us takes listeners on a riveting journey through the key locales and pivotal events of Ukraine’s modern history.
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Autocracy, Inc.
- The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 661
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 617
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 617
We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Triumphant Work -Puts It All Together With Laser Clarity
- By Sjhoffman on 09-19-24
By: Anne Applebaum
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The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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Story5 out of 5 stars 9
Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
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House of Trump, House of Putin
- The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia
- By: Craig Unger
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 806
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 701
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 695
It is a chilling story that begins in the 1970s, when Trump made his first splash in the booming, money-drenched world of New York real estate, and ends with Trump’s inauguration as president of the US. That moment was the culmination of Vladimir Putin’s long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and Mafia kingpins had ensnared Trump in, starting more than 20 years ago with the massive bailout of a string of Trump hotel and casino failures. This book confirms the most incredible American paranoias about Russian malevolence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Understanding Trump through his shady roots
- By Caty kindle 4 on 08-20-18
By: Craig Unger
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The Plot to Hack America
- How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election
- By: Malcolm Nance
- Narrated by: Gregory Itzin
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 861
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 765
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 760
In April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization's computer servers and conducted a theft that is best described as Watergate 2.0. In the weeks that followed, the nation's top computer security experts discovered that the cyber thieves had helped themselves to everything: sensitive documents, emails, donor information, even voice mails.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Short and Terrifying
- By Teadrinker on 03-19-17
By: Malcolm Nance
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The Sirens' Call
- How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
- By: Chris Hayes
- Narrated by: Chris Hayes
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 408
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 391
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 391
We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.”
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thoughtful and captivating
- By Nancy on 02-02-25
By: Chris Hayes
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One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Omar El Akkad
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 145
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 139
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Story5 out of 5 stars 139
As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding - Should be required reading
- By Steve Siegmund on 03-19-25
By: Omar El Akkad
What listeners say about The Folly of Realism
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Trace
- 03-15-25
Excelent insights
I like the insights, the clear writing of complex ideas, the factual detail. A must read.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dahlias
- 03-15-25
Good book, unlistenable narration
A well-written and important book rendered completely unlistenable by terrible narration. How did this happen?
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- MaxineMoore
- 03-12-25
listen
I did not enjoy a good book being read by a bad voice. I almost gave up on it and returned the book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 04-13-25
Defining Realism in the Context of American Modern History
I'm very appreciative of the writers personal experience and expertise with this book. Not only does this give context to current events, it gives the reader many insights to an otherwise mysterious processes.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Yelena Sirbiladze
- 03-12-25
Recommend for everyone!
Fair and balanced view of a person who knows the subject personally, and wants to improve peace all over the world.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Erin Phillips
- 03-29-25
Good work with solid background.
I liked his non partisan look at the situation. I don’t like that America needs to relearn its lessons over and over again.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 03-09-25
The book is well written by an author who is very qualified to give an analysis on this subject.
I loved the book and the content! Very well written…
The narrator uses a repetitive voice pattern that makes it difficult to listen to. It is a voice pattern suited for a short news story or documentary, but not for a book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michelle R.
- 04-18-25
Thought-provoking
I learned so much from this audiobook! I’m downloading the author’s other book right now. I applaud his courage.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nola
- 03-25-25
Great story
Reader sounded like he was pinching his nose during the whole read. the story was very interesting, but the reader was very distracting.
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