My Absolute Darling
A Novel
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My Absolute Darling
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Narrated by:
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Alex McKenna
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Written by:
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Gabriel Tallent
About this listen
A brilliant and immersive, all-consuming audiobook about one 14-year-old girl's heart-stopping fight for her own soul.
Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At 14, she roams the woods along the Northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous. Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her father.
Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high-school boy who tells jokes, lives in a big clean house, and looks at Turtle as if she is the sunrise. And for the first time, the larger world begins to come into focus: Her life with Martin is neither safe nor sustainable. Motivated by her first experience with real friendship and a teenage crush, Turtle starts to imagine escape, using the very survival skills her father devoted himself to teaching her. The listener tracks Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage and watches, heart in throat, as she struggles to become her own hero - and, in the process, becomes ours as well.
Shot through with striking language in a fierce natural setting, My Absolute Darling is an urgently told, profoundly moving book that marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.
©2017 Gabriel Tallent (P)2017 Penguin AudioWhat the critics say
"The word 'masterpiece' has been cheapened by too many blurbs, but My Absolute Darling absolutely is one." (Stephen King)
"Alex McKenna's performance of Tallent's disturbing debut novel is likely to incite goose bumps and nightmares." (AudioFile)
What listeners say about My Absolute Darling
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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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
- Anonymous User
- 2020-05-18
Brutal
This book was the most disturbing, visceral exploration of child abuse I have ever read. It is the relentless destruction of a young girl by her monster father.
The tortured mind and body of this 14 year old victim is graphically portrayed from start to finish and the reader is swallowed up in her torment.
When the prospect of relief or hope appears, it is instantly smashed by the monster. Even in moments of Turtle being able to consider her deplorable state. her father takes up his influence within her so that she behaves like him or refuses to abandon her love for him.
Even in the end she seems doomed to be a tragic figure, only able to sniff at the edges of reality.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kathryn Wright
- 2022-02-22
Disturbing but compelling
The subject matter may be too disturbing for many but the author has tackled a very difficult subject and captured what many, thankfully, can’t fathom or understand. A horrifying tale of a father/daughter relationship and the very tangled mess of confused emotions of an abusive relationship. It’s about the absolute trusting and unconditional love of a child for its parent. Profoundly sad, dark and horrifying but a well written account of what many children experience daily. As difficult to put down as it was to read.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Roxie Gallinger
- 2018-03-24
Hmm
Not too sure what I thought of this book. You will have to judge it yoursrlf
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Lindsay
- 2017-10-05
just don't.
Once and if you can get past the horrid vocal fry, the story is pointless, nonsensical and repetitive.
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2 people found this helpful