The Freak Observer
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The Freak Observer
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Narrated by:
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Jessica Almasy
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By:
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Blythe Woolston
About this listen
The Freak Observer is rich in family drama, theoretical physics, and an unusual, tough young woman - Loa Lindgren.
For eight years, Loa Sollilja's world ran like one of those mechanical models of the solar system, with her baby sister, Asta, as the sun. Asta suffered from a genetic disorder that left her a permanent infant, and caring for her was Loa's life. Everything spun neatly and regularly as the whole family orbited around Asta.
But now Asta's dead, and 16-year-old Loa's clockwork galaxy has collapsed. As Loa spins off on her own, her mind ambushes her with vivid nightmares and sadistic flashbacksa textbook case of PTSD. But there are no textbook fixes for Loa's short-circuiting brain. She must find her own way to pry her world from the clutches of death.
The Freak Observer is a startling debut about death, life, astrophysics, and finding beauty in chaos.
©2010 Blythe Woolston (P)2010 Audible, IncListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 274
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 186
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 187
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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4 out of 5 stars
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Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
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Please Ignore Vera Dietz
- By: A. S. King
- Narrated by: Lynde Houck
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 107
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4 out of 5 stars 91
Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone - the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to? Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: Smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Moving, disturbing, and humorous
- By Julie on 08-26-11
By: A. S. King
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This Raging Light
- By: Estelle Laure
- Narrated by: Sandy Rustin
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Lucille seems to have nothing going for her. With the bills piling in, the house falling apart around her, and her sister's growing distress, it is precisely the worst possible moment for Lucille to fall recklessly in love with her best friend's twin brother, Digby, who is practically engaged.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing Loving and Sexy
- By Princess Lucy on 12-28-17
By: Estelle Laure
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The Miseducation of Cameron Post
- By: Emily M. Danforth
- Narrated by: Beth Laufer
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,074
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 971
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 969
Cameron Post feels a mix of guilt and relief when her parents die in a car accident. Their deaths mean they will never learn the truth she eventually comes to - that she's gay. Orphaned, Cameron comes to live with her old-fashioned grandmother and ultraconservative aunt Ruth. When she’s eventually outed, her aunt sends her to God’s Promise, a religious conversion camp that is supposed to “cure” her homosexuality. At the camp, Cameron comes face to face with the cost of denying her true identity.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A very worthwhile Read!
- By TENA on 11-02-14
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The Last Time We Say Goodbye
- By: Cynthia Hand
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 515
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 464
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 467
The last time Lex was happy, it was before. When she had a family that was whole. A boyfriend she loved. Friends who didn't look at her like she might break down at any moment. Now she's just the girl whose brother killed himself. And it feels like that's all she'll ever be. As Lex starts to put her life back together, she tries to block out what happened the night Tyler died. But there's a secret she hasn't told anyone--a text Tyler sent that could have changed everything.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Such sweet sorrow
- By Lesaly on 04-26-15
By: Cynthia Hand
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I'll Be There
- By: Holly Goldberg Sloan
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Emily Bell believes in destiny. To her, being forced to sing a solo in the church choir - despite her average voice - is fate: because it's while she's singing that she first sees Sam. At first sight they are connected. Sam Border wishes he could escape, but there's nowhere for him to run. He and his little brother, Riddle, have spent their entire lives constantly uprooted by their unstable father. As Sam and Riddle are welcomed into the Bells' lives, they witness the warmth and protection of a family for the first time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Needs to be a film!
- By TreasureHunter on 06-25-16
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Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Emmie Lang
- Narrated by: Piper Goodeve, Peter Berkrot, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 809
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 710
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 710
Stopping a tornado was the first of many strange events that seem to follow Weylyn from town to town, although he doesn't like to take credit. As amazing as these powers may appear, they tend to manifest themselves at inopportune times and places. From freak storms to trees that appear to grow over night, Weylyn's unique abilities are a curiosity at best and at worst, a danger to himself and the woman he loves. But Mary doesn't care.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Accidental Wonder!
- By Brandy Pendergrass on 02-16-18
By: Ruth Emmie Lang
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Dear Zoe
- A Novel
- By: Philip Beard
- Narrated by: Cassandra Morris
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Beard's stunning debut is an epistolary novel written from 15-year-old Tess DeNunzio to her little sister Zoe. After Zoe's accidental death on September 11, 2001, a day so many others died, Tess' family is numbed by their personal tragedy. Already acutely aware of her odd place in a home where her mother and stepfather now have children of their own, Tess begins her letter as a means of figuring out her own life, from her two-hour-a-day hair and makeup ritual to her complicity in Zoe's death.
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5 out of 5 stars
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keeps you listening.
- By nas on 10-18-09
By: Philip Beard
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Future Home of the Living God
- A Novel
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 863
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 784
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Story4 out of 5 stars 784
The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backward, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Thirty-two-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.
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3 out of 5 stars
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“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum”
- By Mel on 11-27-17
By: Louise Erdrich
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The Girl in the Well Is Me
- By: Karen Rivers
- Narrated by: Michele O. Medlin
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 36
Longing to be one of the popular girls in her new town, Kammie Summers has fallen into a well during a (fake) initiation into their club. Now Kammie's trapped in the dark, counting the hours, waiting to be rescued. (The girls have gone for help, haven't they?) As hours pass, Kammie's real-life predicament mixes with memories of the best and worst moments of her life so far, including the awful reasons her family moved to this new town in the first place.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The girl that's writing this is me 😊
- By Tomeka on 06-10-16
By: Karen Rivers
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Like Family
- Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir
- By: Paula McLain
- Narrated by: Wendy Tremont King
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 72
This powerful and haunting memoir details the years Paula McLain and her two sisters spent as foster children after being abandoned by both parents in California in the early 1970s. As wards of the State, the sisters spent the next 14 years moving from foster home to foster home. The dislocations, confusions, and odd pleasures of an unrooted life form the basis of one of the most compelling memoirs in recent years - a book in the tradition of Jo Ann Beard's The Boys of My Youth and Mary Karr's The Liars' Club.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A famous writer describes her life growing up in foster care
- By Nancy C. on 12-21-18
By: Paula McLain
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The Story of Arthur Truluv
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,373
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,200
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,194
Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Sickly Sweet
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-18
By: Elizabeth Berg
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Son of a Trickster
- By: Eden Robinson
- Narrated by: Jason Ryll
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 140
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Story4 out of 5 stars 140
Everyone knows a guy like Jared: the burnout kid in high school who sells weed cookies and has a scary mom who's often wasted and wielding some kind of weapon. Jared does smoke and drink too much, and he does make the best cookies in town, and his mom is a mess, but he's also a kid who has an immense capacity for compassion and an impulse to watch over people more than twice his age, and he can't rely on anyone for consistent love and support, except for his flatulent pit bull, Baby Killer (he calls her Baby) - and now she's dead.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not Enough Fantasy. Too much pot.
- By Rena Tarlini on 09-07-19
By: Eden Robinson
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What Happened to My Sister
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Flock
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Nine-year-old Carrie Parker and her mother, Libby, are making a fresh start in the small town of Hartsville, North Carolina, ready to put their turbulent past behind them. Violence has shattered their family and left Libby nearly unable to cope. And while Carrie once took comfort in her beloved sister, Emma, her mother has now forbidden even the mention of her name. When Carrie meets Ruth, Honor, and Cricket Chaplin, these three generations of warmhearted women seem to have the loving home Carrie has always dreamed of. But as Carrie and Cricket become fast friends, neither can escape the pull of their families' secrets.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Breathtaking
- By Pink Amy on 03-11-24
By: Elizabeth Flock
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The Meaning of Maggie
- By: Megan Jean Sovern
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
As befits a future President of the United States of America, Maggie Mayfield has decided to write a memoir of the past year of her life. And what a banner year it's been! During this period she's Student of the Month on a regular basis, an official shareholder of Coca-Cola stock, and defending Science Fair champion. Most importantly, though, this is the year Maggie has to pull up her bootstraps (the family motto) and finally learn why her cool-dude dad is in a wheelchair, no matter how scary that is.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful narration
- By M. Jackson on 04-17-24
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Lottery
- By: Patricia Wood
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 535
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 230
Perry's IQ is only 76, but he's not stupid. His grandmother taught him everything he needs to know to survive: she taught him to write things down so he won't forget them. She taught him to play the lottery every week. And, most important, she taught him whom to trust. When Gram dies, Perry is left orphaned and bereft at the age of 31. Then his weekly Washington State Lottery ticket wins him 12 million dollars, and he finds he has more family than he knows what to do with.
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5 out of 5 stars
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lottery
- By hilobilly on 08-09-07
By: Patricia Wood
What listeners say about The Freak Observer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Vanessa
- 12-05-11
Narrator killed it
This is a great example of a narrator taking a book and making it unlistenable. Although I did find the story a bit weak, it had a lot of smaller stories that never really went anywhere.
The narrator took the dramatic pause and used it every sentence! It was completely distracting. I made it half-way then bailed and finished with a hard copy of the book.
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