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Gifts in Brown Paper Packages
- Narrated by: S.P. Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
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Gifts in Brown Paper Packages
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Should she take the leap through the window into the unknown? Seventeen-year-old Kyrie had no idea if she could survive it, but the notion of staying was much less appealing than the risks of the streets. A bullet that finds a fleeing target in the night, a baby held out of a high-rise window, and squatting in a rodent-infested apartment are just some of the experiences within Kyrie’s family dynamic perpetrated by her father’s actions and enabled by her mother’s acquiescence.
Gifts in Brown Paper Packages (Gifts) is a coming-of-age story commencing the night New York City teenager Kyrie Graves impulsively flees the verbal and physical abuse prevalent in her childhood home to tackle life and adulthood with no plan except survival. The night that Kyrie decides to exit her bedroom window one final time changes the course of her life.
Gifts is a story of a young girl’s survival driven by strength, personal growth, a journey to self-awareness, and ultimately acknowledging her truth. Through Kyrie’s lens, the listener is led through vivid episodic flashbacks from her adolescence through young adulthood in a journey ripe with experiences that are sometimes funny, often shocking and painful, and always genuine. Acceptance of her story and how it shapes her enables Kyrie to embrace the lessons, i.e., gifts, that strife and challenges offer despite their unpalatable aspects. Kyrie reveals her struggles, fears, and growth through this tale while displaying the perseverance that births her power and voice. Ultimately, Kyrie recognizes and accepts all the gifts, even the ones that come wrapped in brown paper packages!
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- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 71
The author of Break in Case of Emergency follows up her the “extraordinary debut” (The Guardian) with a moving novel about motherhood and marriage, adolescence and bodily autonomy, family and love, religion and sexuality, and the delicate balance between the purity of faith and the messy reality of life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Just OK - Considered Bailing
- By Madeleine Homan on 04-18-21
By: Jessica Winter
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Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
- By: Danielle Evans
- Narrated by: Daniel Deadwyler, Jeanette Illidge, Je Nie Fleming, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one's sense of identity and the choices one makes.
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4 out of 5 stars
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things we do to oursekves
- By Jamintel on 02-06-23
By: Danielle Evans
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Harley Loco
- A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk from the Middle East to the Lower East Side
- By: Rayya Elias
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
When she was 7, Rayya Elias and her family fled the political conflict in their native Syria, settling in Detroit. Bullied in school and caught between the world of her traditional family and her tough American classmates, she rebelled early. Elias moved to New York City to become a musician and kept herself afloat with an uncommon talent for cutting hair. At the height of the punk movement, life on the Lower East Side was full of adventure, creative inspiration, and temptation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What an amazing woman.
- By Canaan Voss on 06-12-24
By: Rayya Elias
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Snow
- A Love Story Birthed in the Streets (Snow, Book 1)
- By: Jessica N. Watkins
- Narrated by: Jay Miranda, Patrick Stevens
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 497
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 438
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 439
Azu Wilson gave his oldest daughter the name Snow because she was born amongst his snowfall on the city of Gary, Indiana in 2001. Then, Azu had just began to drop tons kilos of coke on the city, starting the birth of his empire. Fast forward 18 years later, Snow is Azu's favorite girl and only daughter. She has been doted on by her father. Now, she is off to college with her best friends, Tristan and Bae. They hope that their move out of the violent streets of Chicago to Tallahassee will bring positive change to the brutally savage lives they have lived.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Stop putting this Narrator on Urban Books.
- By Cookie C. on 01-23-20
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Black Sunday
- A Novel
- By: Tola Rotimi Abraham
- Narrated by: Liz Femi, Dele Ogundiran, Miebaka Yohannes, and others
- Length: 7 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 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, is drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth. Soon Bibike and Ariyike's father wagers the family home on a sure bet that evaporates like smoke.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Story - Awful accents
- By Tamara C-J on 02-15-21
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My Life as a Rat
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Sadie Alexandru
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 132
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Story4 out of 5 stars 132
My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age 12, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes, Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Heavy Topics & Satisfying Story
- By Oscar on 06-30-19
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The Stuff that Never Happened
- A Novel
- By: Maddie Dawson
- Narrated by: Teri Clark Linden
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4 out of 5 stars 78
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Don’t pass this one up.
- By Lauren on 03-10-20
By: Maddie Dawson
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Red's Hot Honky-Tonk Bar
- By: Pamela Morsi
- Narrated by: Savannah Richards
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4 out of 5 stars 35
Unruly Red knows she’s no one’s idea of a sweet old granny. But with one long-distance phone call, the fortysomething bar owner with the tattoos and tight jeans is suddenly responsible for two young grandchildren she hardly knows.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What a surprise
- By Donna on 02-07-18
By: Pamela Morsi
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A Nail Through The Heart
- A Poke Rafferty Thriller
- By: Timothy Hallinan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 520
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 442
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Story4 out of 5 stars 440
Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Ever been to Bangkok?
- By Richard Delman on 12-11-11
By: Timothy Hallinan
What listeners say about Gifts in Brown Paper Packages
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
- Robert O'Berry
- 07-21-24
Growing up in an abusive home.
This book to me is a powerful young lady that goes through trying times as a youth but her tenacity and strength keeps her propelling to the next level. Well written and the narrative hits home.
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