Hardmouth Audiobook By Amanda Goldblatt cover art

Hardmouth

A Novel

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Hardmouth

By: Amanda Goldblatt
Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens
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For 10 years, Denny's father has battled cancer. The drawn-out loss has forged Denny into a dazed, antisocial young woman. On the clock, she works as a lab tech, readying fruit flies for experimentation. In her spare time, only her parents, an aggressively kind best friend, and her blowhard imaginary pal, Gene - who she knows isn't real - ornament her stale days in the DC suburbs.

Now, her father's cancer is back for a third time, and he's rejecting treatment. Denny's transgressive reaction is to flee. She begins to dismantle her life, constructing in its place the fantasy of perfect detachment. Unsure whether the impulse is monastic or suicidal, she rents a secluded cabin in the mountains. When she discovers life in the wilderness isn't the perfect detachment she was expecting - and that she isn't as alone as she'd hoped - Denny is forced to reckon with this failure while confronting a new life with its own set of pleasures and dangerous incursions.

Morbidly funny, subversive, and startling, Hard Mouth, the debut novel from 2018 NEA Creative Writing Fellow Amanda Goldblatt, unpacks what it means to live while others are dying.

©2019 Amanda Goldblatt (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction Coming of Age Genre Fiction Action & Adventure Women's Adventure Adventure
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Recently I stumbled across this narrator while listening to another audio book and really enjoyed her narration. So, I specifically looked for other books she's narrated. She is great! This book, however, was unable to hold my attention. Good premise, but needs major editing, there is so much filler that is nonsensical, adding nothing to the plot. Once edited it will need fleshed out with content that actually tells the story. The characters are not well developed. Using many words is not the answer. Succinct descriptions of the character's personality and situations they face are usually all that are necessary. The author goes on and on about inconsequential whatnots that add nothing to the story or development of the characters. In other areas there is a lack of detail, to the point that you are left wondering if you missed something. It is very disjointed.
I highly recommend the narrator! But I am very glad this title was included in the Plus Catalog, so I didn't waste a credit, because I just cannot recommend the book.

Very slow, disjointed and rambling. The narrator is GREAT!

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This is really beautiful and interesting. Chelsea Stephens leaves so much space to listen and digest the truly interesting writing- an exploration of grief and thought, life and death. Highly recommended!

Something really different

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Too dark for my taste. I knew the story would get weird when she chose to go alone in the woods. I fast forwarded some parts and then just wanted to know what happened in the end.

Not for me

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