My Brilliant Friend
The Neapolitan Novels, Book 1
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Narrated by:
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Hillary Huber
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By:
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Elena Ferrante
About this listen
Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times bestselling “enduring masterpiece” (The Atlantic) about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples
Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship.
This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between two women.
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 509
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 509
Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual mentor, William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful white man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation, as well as of his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A meandering audiobook...
- By Daniel on 09-03-04
By: Edward P. Jones
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The Lost Daughter
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 483
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 425
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 425
Leda, a middle-aged divorcee, is alone for the first time in years when her daughters leave home to live with their father. Her initial, unexpected sense of liberty turns to ferocious introspection following a seemingly trivial occurrence. Throughout the novel, Ferrante's language is as finely tuned and intense as ever, and she treats her theme with a fierce, candid tenacity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Subtle suspense. Riveting. Scary yet sentimental!
- By CK on 10-23-21
By: Elena Ferrante
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The Corrections
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,998
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,596
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,604
The Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century--a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.
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3 out of 5 stars
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"Grandly Entertaining"? Really?
- By Georgia Burns on 10-08-13
By: Jonathan Franzen
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2666
- By: Roberto Bolaño
- Narrated by: John Lee, Armando Durán, G. Valmont Thomas, and others
- Length: 39 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,110
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 843
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Story4 out of 5 stars 850
Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño's life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of Santa Teresa - a fictional Juárez - on the U.S.-Mexico border.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Best Book I Read or Listened to in 2009
- By William on 01-05-10
By: Roberto Bolaño
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The Warmth of Other Suns
- The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 14,038
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 12,406
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Story5 out of 5 stars 12,348
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Superior non-fiction
- By Lila on 05-20-11
By: Isabel Wilkerson
![La amiga estupenda [My Brilliant Friend] Audiobook By Elena Ferrante, Celia Filipetto Isicato cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/513t+ioLCDL._SL320_.jpg)
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La amiga estupenda [My Brilliant Friend]
- Dos amigas, no. 1 [Neapolitan Novels, Book 1]
- By: Elena Ferrante, Celia Filipetto Isicato
- Narrated by: Mercè Montalà
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 201
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 172
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 171
Con La amiga estupenda, Elena Ferrante inaugura una saga deslumbrante que tiene como telón de fondo la ciudad de Nápoles a mediados del siglo pasado y como protagonistas a Lenù y Lila, dos jóvenes mujeres que están aprendiendo a gobernar su vida en un entorno donde la astucia, antes que la inteligencia, es el ingrediente de todas las salsas.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Preciosa
- By Renee on 12-07-22
By: Elena Ferrante, and others
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The Sellout
- A Novel
- By: Paul Beatty
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,966
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,578
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,567
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Appreciated it, but didn't like it
- By Eugenia on 04-14-16
By: Paul Beatty
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- By: Junot Diaz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Staci Snell
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,919
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,288
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,305
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wondrous Book!!!
- By Robert on 06-22-12
By: Junot Diaz
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L'amica geniale
- Libro primo
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Anna Bonaiuto
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 335
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 297
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 297
Lila è scomparsa. Esagerata, come sempre, ha cancellato ogni traccia. Ed Elena, l'amica di tutta la vita, inizia a raccontare la storia del legame viscerale che le ha unite per sei decenni. Tra inconfessata rivalità e profondo affidamento, la ragazzina geniale e ribelle e l'amica studiosa attraversano gli anni dell'adolescenza, sullo sfondo di un rione della Napoli anni Cinquanta ritratta nella sua cruda epicità. Prima parte della tetralogia "L'amica geniale".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mi ha convinto. Appassionante.
- By Daniela on 10-10-15
By: Elena Ferrante
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Never Let Me Go
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 10,488
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,387
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Story4 out of 5 stars 8,400
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Be patient; it will pay off
- By Kc on 05-23-05
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
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Incidental Inventions
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 17
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 17
Elena Ferrante is the best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend, now an HBO original series. Collected here for the first time are the seeds of future novels, the timely reflections of this internationally beloved storyteller, the abiding preoccupations of a writer who has been called “one of the great novelists of our time” (New York Times).
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5 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyed her insightful writing
- By Even on 02-28-23
By: Elena Ferrante
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Troubling Love
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 98
Following her mother's untimely and mysterious death, Delia embarks on a voyage of discovery through the streets of her native Naples searching for the truth about her family. A series of mysterious telephone calls leads her to compelling and disturbing revelations about her mother's final days. A story about mothers and daughters and the complicated knot of lies and emotions that binds them, it is a must-listen.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Sadly boring
- By Oak on 02-23-25
By: Elena Ferrante
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Lincoln in the Bardo
- A Novel
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 10,405
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9,480
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Story4 out of 5 stars 9,436
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”
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5 out of 5 stars
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"Where might God stand?"
- By Mel on 02-17-17
By: George Saunders
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Underground Railroad
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: Aïssa Maïga
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall1.5 out of 5 stars 18
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Performance1 out of 5 stars 15
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Story1 out of 5 stars 14
Cora, seize ans, est esclave sur une plantation de coton dans la Géorgie d'avant la guerre de Sécession. Abandonnée par sa mère lorsqu'elle était enfant, elle survit tant bien que mal à la violence de sa condition. Lorsque Caesar, un esclave récemment arrivé de Virginie, lui propose de s'enfuir, elle accepte et tente, au péril de sa vie, de gagner avec lui les États libres du Nord. De la Caroline du Sud à l'Indiana en passant par le Tennessee, Cora va vivre une incroyable odyssée.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Wrong language.
- By Anonymous User on 11-24-22
By: Colson Whitehead
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Hurricane Season
- By: Fernanda Melchor, Sophie Hughes - translator
- Narrated by: Inés del Castillo, Tim Pabon, Ana Osorio
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 197
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 169
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 172
The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse - by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals - propels the whole village into an investigation of how and why this murder occurred. Rumors and suspicions spread. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melchor extracts some tiny shred of humanity from these characters that most would write off as utterly irredeemable, forming a lasting portrait of a damned Mexican village.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow
- By Anonymous User on 11-20-20
By: Fernanda Melchor, and others
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Austerlitz
- By: W. G. Sebald
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 243
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 213
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Story4 out of 5 stars 212
A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, Austerlitz follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.
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2 out of 5 stars
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To each their own
- By Sebastian Romero on 04-23-20
By: W. G. Sebald
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The Days of Abandonment
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 689
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 615
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 613
An IndiBound best seller, The Days of Abandonment shocked and captivated its Italian public when first published. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband, with two young children to care for. When she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.
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4 out of 5 stars
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D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
- By Margaret M. Cranston on 01-18-16
By: Elena Ferrante
What listeners say about My Brilliant Friend
Highly rated for:
Reviews - 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
- Amazon Customer
- 05-08-15
Fantastic story Fantastic narrator
The narrator pulls you into the story right off the bat. Can hardly wait to listen to the next volume in the series. Audible, please continue with the Italian version too. Can't praise this story highly enough. Highly recommend.
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20 people found this helpful
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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
- D. Brown
- 02-17-16
Charming tale
Loved this narration of this beautifully written story. I look forward to book 2
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Thiarnain
- 04-12-17
Captivating start ...enough to buy vol II.
Where does My Brilliant Friend rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I picked it up after H. Clinton's review: "It's just hypnotic. I could not stop reading it or thinking about it."
I only find it an average book. The theme of female friendship and description of a bygone era and foreign place captivated me enough to buy the second volume. Towards the end, however, it becomes repetitive.
What other book might you compare My Brilliant Friend to and why?
I would categorize it as a stream of consciousness novel which always bears the danger of becoming boring and repetitive after a while. It falls short of Maeve Binchy's books about friendship.
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
The reader has a calm, unchanging tone bordering on whining even in scenes when she claims to be angry, frustrated or disgusted. Surely the author could have picked more distinguishable names than: Nino, Gino, Reno, Lelia,Lenu, Maria, Marisa, Elisa, Melina, Pina and Pino to name but a few. It's hard to tell the characters apart since most are not well-formed or significant. The main character is mostly pronounced like Leila but then also as Lila - even in the same chapter. Which is it? An annoying oversight!
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
There are several scenes that contain brilliant psychological and philosophical insights and well-crafted sentences, the bigger part of the storyline and language overall is simple however.
Any additional comments?
The significance of the constantly repeated phrase "she said in Italian" or " she said in dialect" eludes me. Being an Italian speaker myself, I find the sentence structure in its translation from Italian into English stilted at times. A good script writer will make a brilliant movie of it.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- beka
- 05-03-20
it's worth it for the others in the series
just barrel through this however you need to. it's definitely my least favorite of the series but is also integral to setting the scene for the rest of the novels. i'm an artist and like to listen to thrillers while I'm working and this didn't hold my attention for that - but was a good listen while I was doing housework and cooking. it took me a while to get through it but I just finished the fourth book and I'm so glad I didn't give up. this narrator is in my top 5 all time narrators, truly, she could read probably anything and I'd listen.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- roundhouse_c
- 03-09-17
Just not my favorite type of novel
I really struggled to finish this so I won't plan on reading the following books. The reader was fine but her style just wasn't a style that helped me enjoy the story. I think the book could have at least a third shorter.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Sue
- 04-24-16
good story but didn't like the reader
A very long book that seemed even longer due to the annoying reader, whose voice was slow and dreamy and who barely modified her tone or pace to match the story. She also pronounced the "t' in " often"., which is grating to me. I struggled to get through the whole book.
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1 person found this helpful
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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
- Laurie
- 02-13-18
A marvel
A masterful weaving of very basic human emotions and the complexity of relationships that arise from them. The language in which the story is told (albeit translated) is often straightforward but breathtaking passages occur regularly, organically, reflecting perhaps how it feels to live. The narrator seemed to me nearly perfect for the telling.
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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
- 08-17-16
great book!
a story of maturation, of friendship, of finding yourself in the world around you. really enjoyed it.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- ellecycle
- 05-23-17
Quite interesting
I enjoyed the story and the multitude of characters. However, there are so many characters I found myself rewinding to keep them straight. Would have enjoyed more scenic descriptions.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Valerie
- 07-15-17
Mixed feelings
This is an intriguing story and I look forward to the next book in the series. There is something caustic abput the narrator's delivery and some unfortunate inconsistencies in pronunciation. The story held my interest.
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