The Heart and Other Monsters
A Memoir
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The Heart and Other Monsters
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Narrated by:
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Marina Pratt
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By:
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Rose Andersen
About this listen
"Impossible to put down. It haunts me still.” —Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir
A riveting, deeply personal exploration of the opioid crisis—an empathic memoir infused with hints of true crime.
In November 2013, Rose Andersen’s younger sister Sarah died of an overdose in the bathroom of her boyfriend’s home in a small town with one of the highest rates of opioid use in the state. Like too many of her generation, she had become addicted to heroin. Sarah was 24 years old.
To imagine her way into Sarah’s life, Rose revisits their volatile childhood, marked by their stepfather’s omnipresent rage and their father’s pathological lying. As the dysfunction comes into focus, so does a broader picture of the opioid crisis and the drug rehabilitation industry in small towns across America. And when Rose learns from the coroner that Sarah’s cause of death was a methamphetamine overdose, the story takes a wildly unexpected turn.
As Andersen sifts through her sister’s last days, we come to recognize the contours of grief and its aftermath: the psychic shattering which can turn to anger, the pursuit of an ever-elusive verdict, and the intensely personal rites of imagination and art needed to actually move on.
Reminiscent of Alex Marzano-Lesnevich’s The Fact of a Body, Maggie Nelson’s Jane: A Murder, and Lacy M. Johnson’s The Other Side, Andersen’s debut is a potent, profoundly original journey into and out of loss.©2020 Rose Andersen (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
A fierce memoir of a mother's murder, a daughter's coming-of-age in the wake of immense loss, and her ultimate mission to know the woman who gave her life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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True crime memoir
- By Julie on 11-03-17
By: Sarah Perry
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All of This
- A Memoir of Death and Desire
- By: Rebecca Woolf
- Narrated by: Rebecca Woolf
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 184
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 168
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 168
After years of struggling in a tumultuous marriage, writer Rebecca Woolf was finally ready to leave her husband. Two weeks after telling him she wanted a divorce, he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Four months later, at the age of forty-four, he died. In All of This, Woolf chronicles the months before her husband’s death—and her rebirth after he was gone. With rigorous honesty and incredible awareness, she reflects on the end of her marriage: how her husband’s illness finally gave her the space to make peace with his humanity and her own.
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5 out of 5 stars
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excellentt!
- By S. DAWN HANSCOM on 11-26-22
By: Rebecca Woolf
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Any Man
- A Novel
- By: Amber Tamblyn
- Narrated by: Glenn Davis, Robin Miles, Therese Plummer, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 490
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 447
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Story4 out of 5 stars 446
In this electric and provocative debut novel, Amber Tamblyn blends genres of poetry, prose, and elements of suspense to give shape to the shocking narratives of victims of sexual violence, mapping the destructive ways in which our society perpetuates rape culture, brilliantly brought to life through a multi-voice performance featuring Glenn Davis, Ben Foster, Marc Maron, Jason Ritter, John Roberts, Russ Tamblyn, Amber Tamblyn, January Lavoy, Phoebe Strole, Robin Miles, Thérèse Plummer, Dan Bittner, James Fouhey, and Michael Crouch.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I've been finished with this for hours
- By Bill on 06-29-18
By: Amber Tamblyn
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With or Without You
- By: Caroline Leavitt
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4 out of 5 stars 54
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.
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4 out of 5 stars
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not my cup of tea
- By Grekis on 12-23-20
By: Caroline Leavitt
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The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,028
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 889
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 882
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
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Lay Your Sleeping Head
- The Henry Rios Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Michael Nava
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than murder.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved It
- By Leah Brock on 06-20-20
By: Michael Nava
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In the Shadow of the Valley
- A Memoir
- By: Bobi Conn
- Narrated by: Bobi Conn
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 297
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 252
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 251
Bobi Conn was raised in a remote Kentucky holler in 1980s Appalachia. She remembers her tin-roofed house tucked away in a vast forest paradise; the sparkling creeks, with their frogs and crawdads; the sweet blackberries growing along the road to her granny’s; and her abusive father. An elegiac account of survival despite being born poor, female, and cloistered, Bobi’s testament is one of hope for all vulnerable populations, particularly women and girls caught in the cycle of poverty and abuse.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Hard Pass
- By Kathryn Liggett on 06-13-20
By: Bobi Conn
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She Wouldn't Change a Thing
- By: Sarah Adlakha
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 101
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
When 39-year-old Maria Forssmann wakes up in her 17-year-old body, she doesn’t know how she got there. All she does know is she has to get back: to her home in Bienville, Mississippi, to her job as a successful psychiatrist and, most importantly, to her husband, daughters, and unborn son.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Very Religious
- By Gabrielle Glendening on 11-18-21
By: Sarah Adlakha
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I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying
- Essays
- By: Bassey Ikpi
- Narrated by: Bassey Ikpi
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 405
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 360
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 360
In I’m Telling the Truth, but I’m Lying, Bassey Ikpi explores her life - as a Nigerian-American immigrant, a black woman, a slam poet, a mother, a daughter, an artist - through the lens of her mental health and diagnosis of bipolar II and anxiety. Her remarkable memoir in essays implodes our preconceptions of the mind and normalcy as Bassey bares her own truths and lies for us all to behold with radical honesty and brutal intimacy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Full, poignant, purposeful
- By Bree on 08-21-19
By: Bassey Ikpi
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Before the Storm
- By: Diane Chamberlain
- Narrated by: Abby Craden, Kris Koscheski
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 284
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 245
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 245
Laurel Lockwood lost her son once through neglect. She's spent the rest of her life determined to make up for her mistakes, and she has succeeded in becoming a committed, protective parent-maybe even overprotective. Still, she loosens her grip just enough to let Andy attend a local church social-a decision that terrifies her when the church is consumed by fire. But Andy survives...and remarkably, saves other children from the flames.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great book...HORRIBLE performance
- By Andrea on 03-10-15
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Man Alive
- A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man
- By: Thomas Page McBee
- Narrated by: Thomas Page McBee
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
What does it really mean to be a man? In Man Alive, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer that question by focusing on two of the men who most impacted his life - one, his otherwise ordinary father who abused him as a child, and the other, a mugger who almost killed him. Standing at the brink of the life-changing decision to transition from female to male, McBee seeks to understand these examples of flawed manhood and tells us how a brush with violence sent him on the quest to untangle a sinister past and freed him to become the man he was meant to be.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Worth a listen
- By Kade on 05-30-18
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The Last Post
- By: Renée Carlino
- Narrated by: Avery Caris, Stephen Dexter
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 47
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 42
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.
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3 out of 5 stars
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I really wanted to like this
- By Amazon Customer on 12-21-21
By: Renée Carlino
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The Book of Help
- A Memoir in Remedies
- By: Megan Griswold
- Narrated by: Megan Griswold
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 290
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 255
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 255
A hilarious and heartbreaking memoir-in-remedies by a self-described "professional soul-searcher" that details a journey of self-discovery through more than 160 tonics, seminars, regimens, and transformative therapies. With a voice that is at once intimate and hilarious, Megan captures the openness and honesty necessary for people to take a new path in life. Listeners will open the audiobook with curiosity about all the different healing therapies that Megan tries, but leave with a new understanding of themselves.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mr. Toad's Wild Ride has some serious competition!
- By Elisa R. Goodman on 02-15-19
By: Megan Griswold
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Angels Burning
- By: Tawni O'Dell
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
On the surface, Chief Dove Carnahan is a true trailblazer who would do anything to protect the rural Pennsylvanian countryside where she has lived all 50 of her years. Traditional and proud of her blue-collar sensibilities, Dove is loved by her community. But beneath her badge lies a dark and self-destructive streak, fed by a secret she has kept since she was 16.
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3 out of 5 stars
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It was just ok
- By ckal36 on 06-27-23
By: Tawni O'Dell
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Your Voice in My Head
- A Memoir
- By: Emma Forrest
- Narrated by: Emma Forrest
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 349
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 325
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 323
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great, quick read
- By Amazon Customer on 02-12-21
By: Emma Forrest
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I'm the One That I Want
- By: Margaret Cho
- Narrated by: Margaret Cho
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 161
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 76
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 77
I'm the One That I Want, based on her show of the same name, is filled with dead-on insights about the experience of being a woman with attitude, of flowing with the highs and lows of life, and of creating one's own identity and acceptance. It is every bit as hilarious, shocking, and irreverent as she is.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hilarious and deeply engrossing
- By Ling on 04-10-03
By: Margaret Cho
What listeners say about The Heart and Other Monsters
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
- Dorri Olds
- 02-21-21
Love, Pain, Grief, Mystery and Fascinating
Gorgeous prose, honesty, vulnerability - my attention never wavered. I had wanted to read a memoir. I googled around and found three. I couldn’t stand any of them! I have a short attention span and I quit all three before the end of their first chapters. Too much “telling” not enough “showing.” This book was just right. I could “see” everything cinematically. I’m so glad I found this 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
- WorkerReaderWriter
- 06-06-23
heartbreaking, deep, beautifully written
how to create a narrative out of such despair? this book is a testimony to how art can give shape to loss and grief and trauma. absolutely brilliant.
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