AudioFile Earphone Awards

“Its category as a young adult novel shouldn't keep grownups from listening to "Clap When You Land." The parallel first-person stories of two teenage girls who lose their fathers in the same plane crash from NY to the Dominican Republic -- and the revelation that their fathers were the same man, who had led a double life -- is tender and wise. Elizabeth Acevedo's poetic prose, and her narration, convey the grief and love of the families. Camino and Yahaira will live in your heart forever.”

“Little Family by Ishmael Beah is a powerful story of paradox of the effects of war and the determined human spirit to not only survive but to forge connection and community. Beah intricately develops his characters, while also conveying the landscape of their environment. This is an important perspective on coming-of-age that shouldn't be missed. Highly recommend.”

“Astounding! In the talented hands of Anna Solomon, the lives of three women in different eras come to life with equal vibrancy. A compelling look at the roles of women through time (ancient Persia, 1970s D.C., and Brooklyn in 2016), as well as what it means to have and use power and to feel safe in a relationship. So much material here for discussion. I cannot wait to put this into the hands of our readers!”

“It is not a typical summer, pool-side novel; but this is no typical summer. For anyone who has found in quarantine an occasion to move inward, reflect, and stir, this novel might be a welcomed companion. The insistent interiority of the narrator is simultaneously evasive, mournful, self-interrogating and playful: a tone that Eimear McBride captures stunningly in voicing her audiobook. Don't be fooled: the shortness of this read belies its lingering end.”

“This book is beautiful, intimate, breathtaking, and heartbreaking. It reads like a novel and yet gives a better sense of what was happening to Jewish families during the Holocaust than any history book I’ve read. I feel so invested in the Neumann family and their friends, as if I know them personally. More than anything, my takeaway from this book is the love and hope that was so clearly poured into it.”

“This is a towering, breathtaking, sweeping work of poetic and technical brilliance. Although much of Apeirogon resides in the current and past state of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the novel demonstrates how each person, each story, in this ultimately small section of the world represents but one point of an infinitely sided shape — how between all of us, even those locked in seemingly irreconcilable conflict, there pulses a vital connectivity, a path to understanding, forgiveness, and compassion.”

“I could not put this book down. Readers rarely have the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of someone with a disability and experience their lives in a meaningful way. We rarely see people with Down syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome depicted as truly feeling, flesh-and-blood people who experience love, lust, heartbreak, and disappointment, who face challenges as they strive for their dream. Zelda is my new hero! She is undaunted and unflappable as she grapples with her dreams and life experiences. Your journey with her will be all too brief, but it is one that will stay with you long after you read the last page.”

“I love N.K. Jemisin’s books, I love New York City, and I love this book about the soul and personification of New York. The City We Became might just be my favorite book to be published in 2020. This story is filled with tension, humor, and great characters, with a guest appearance near and dear to me. While this book is the beginning of a trilogy, it is completely satisfying as a stand-alone novel. Read it and be happy.”

“My usual policy (with a few notable exceptions) is that an audiobook is almost always better when read by the author, who brings, if nothing else, the emotional resonance of speaking words she has written. In no case so far has that paid off as grandly as with this book and this author, a born actress herself, not for her polish but for what feels like its opposite, a swervy, drolly impulsive style of speech that keeps surprising you mid-sentence—mid-word!—with shifts in rhythm and emphasis. its a good match for her tale—a grownup daughter recalling the once-famous Irish actress who was her mother—which follows no pat arc of a life but is deliciously full of sentence-by-sentence observations and odd bits of fully lived life, mostly in 1970s Dublin. A treat.”