
The Prettiest Star
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Narrated by:
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Tiffany Morgan
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Charlie Thurston
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By:
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Carter Sickels
About this listen
Small-town Appalachia doesn't have a lot going for it, but it's where Brian is from, where his family is, and where he's chosen to return to die.
At 18, Brian, like so many other promising young gay men, arrived in New York City without much more than a love for the freedom and release from his past that it promised. But within six short years, AIDS would claim his lover, his friends, and his future. With nothing left in New York but memories of death, Brian decides to write his mother a letter asking to come back to the place, and family, he was once so desperate to escape.
Set in 1986, a year after Rock Hudson's death shifted the public consciousness of the epidemic and brought the news of AIDS into living rooms and kitchens across America, The Prettiest Star is part Dog Years by Mark Doty and part Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt. But it is also an urgent story now: It a novel about the politics and fragility of the body; it is a novel about sex and shame. And it is a novel that speaks to the question of what home and family means when we try to forge a life for ourselves in a world that can be harsh and unpredictable.
Contains mature themes.
©2020 Carter Sickels (P)2020 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Maria Griffiths is almost thirty and works at a used bookstore in New York City while trying to stay true to her punk values. She’s in love with her bike but not with her girlfriend, Steph. She takes random pills and drinks, but doesn’t inject anything except, when she remembers, estrogen, because she’s trans. Everything is mostly fine until Maria and Steph break up, sending Maria onto a cross-country trek. She ends up in the backwater town of Star City, Nevada, where she meets James, who is probably but not certainly trans, and who reminds Maria of her younger self.
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Soooo Good!!
- By storm baughman on 01-06-23
By: Imogen Binnie
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Southernmost
- By: Silas House
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In the aftermath of a flood that washes away much of a small Tennessee town, evangelical preacher Asher Sharp offers shelter to two gay men. In doing so, he starts to see his life anew - and risks losing everything: his wife, locked into her religious prejudices; his congregation, which shuns Asher after he delivers a passionate sermon in defense of tolerance; and his young son, Justin, caught in the middle of what turns into a bitter custody battle. With no way out but ahead, Asher takes Justin and flees to Key West, where he hopes to find his brother, Luke, whom he'd turned against years ago after Luke came out.
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Wonderful
- By Jane G. on 10-28-18
By: Silas House
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Serious Adverse Events
- An Uncensored History of AIDS
- By: Celia Farber, Mark Crispin Miller - foreword
- Narrated by: Caroline White
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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On April 23, 1984, in a packed press conference room in Washington, DC, the secretary of health and human services declared “The probable cause of AIDS has been found.” By the next day, “probable” had fallen away, and the novel retrovirus later named HIV became forever lodged in global consciousness as “the AIDS virus.” Celia Farber, then an intrepid young reporter for SPIN magazine, was the only journalist to question the official narrative and dig into the science of AIDS.
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Must read for critical thinkers
- By Anonymous User on 08-16-23
By: Celia Farber, and others
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Love Me Louder
- By: Christina Lee
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Noah Dixon is damaged goods. After an accident leaves him physically scarred and emotionally vulnerable, dating isn't in the cards, so he throws himself head-first into his retail job. When he's obligated to attend his best friend's engagement party on Fire Island, it dawns on him he's about to spend yet another weekend feeling totally invisible and alone among a swarm of gorgeous men.
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So beautiful
- By Real customer on 02-09-25
By: Christina Lee
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The Solstice Prince
- Realms of Love series, Book 1
- By: SJ Himes
- Narrated by: Joel Leslie
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Rescued from slavers, healer novice Jaime Buchanan finds himself alone and free in Pyrderi, a kingdom of magic, mythical creatures, and a culture as open and kind as his homeland was cruel and close-minded. Despite his rescue, Jaime is not left without scars, both mental and physical. Traumatized by his experience and hiding his gift, Jaime struggles to earn his place in the kitchens of Angharad Palace, the heart of Taliesin City. His former life as a student of the healing arts leaves him at a disadvantage in the kitchens, and his damaged state is becoming more apparent by the day.
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Pure Fluff
- By DKauffman on 05-07-18
By: SJ Himes
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An Unexpected Kind of Love
- When Snow Falls, Book 1
- By: Hayden Stone
- Narrated by: Gary Furlong
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Bookstore owner Aubrey Barnes likes his quiet, orderly London life, thank you very much. His shop may be struggling, his only employee is a menace, and his plumbing is one creaky pipe away from disaster, but he can handle it. Maybe. He cannot, however, handle the film company that's thrown his Soho street into chaos. And he definitely can't handle the charismatic American actor Blake Sinclair.
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Great if you want sex scenes
- By Anonymous User on 10-12-22
By: Hayden Stone
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You & I, Rewritten
- A Novel
- By: Chip Pons
- Narrated by: Kai Rubio
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Not to jinx it or anything, but the stars seem to finally be aligning for Will Cowen. After accepting a dream promotion at one of New York City's most renowned publishing houses and moving in with his oldest friend, he's ready to dive headfirst into this new chapter—that is, until he crosses paths with Graham Austin. No matter how hard he tries, he can't help but put the wrong foot forward in front of the all-business and inconveniently gorgeous heir to the publishing empire.
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No
- By Matthew L on 03-30-24
By: Chip Pons
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The Queer Art of Failure
- By: Jack Halberstam
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The Queer Art of Failure is about finding alternatives - to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives.
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More Disturbing/Fatalistic than Interesting
- By Oliver Kimsey on 05-16-21
By: Jack Halberstam
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Bad Feminist
- Essays
- By: Roxane Gay
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman ( Sweet Valley High) of color ( The Help) while also taking listeners on a ride through culture of the last few years ( Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown).
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"I am a mess of contradictions" - RG
- By Cynthia on 12-27-15
By: Roxane Gay
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Reading Lolita in Tehran
- A Memoir in Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Azar Nafisi
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi's living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov.
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A literary critique of Russian lit.
- By Amazon Customer on 04-15-16
By: Azar Nafisi
What listeners say about The Prettiest Star
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- Bre
- 11-18-24
A moving read
I absolutely loved this book. I just wished it ended differently, maybe a bit more closure. You definitely get sucked up into the story and your heart strings are more yanked than pulled.
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- Kevin Kraft
- 02-24-24
Beautiful and heartbreaking
This book is beautifully written. The characters are well developed. The narration is very well done. The story will break your heart.
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- Cheryl
- 07-27-24
Beautiful and haunting
The book took me back to the ‘80’s; I lived in southern Ohio then, and the story and the characters rang true. I did not care for the narrators, especially the female narration. The accent went in and out, and was more “soft southern” than the Ohio twang. I would recommend people read rather than listen to this book.
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- T. Ervin
- 06-13-20
Heart wrenching
A heart wrenching tale about a young gay man in the 80's told from 3 different perspectives. He leaves his small town home for New York so he can finally live his true life. While living his truth, he finds love, friendships, and death. He loses his soul mate to AIDS and is diagnosed with the disease himself. He decides to move back to his hometown to face the reality of what is ahead. You will hear the story of an unwelcoming small town and the struggles of this young gay man as he lives out his final days.
Four stars! Be prepared to be sad, angry, simply broken-hearted. A great book!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Dominic
- 05-25-20
Heartbreaking and transformative!
This is a book that will open hearts and raise consciousness. A beautiful meditation on the meaning of home, the tension between sorrow and rage, and what it means to be queer at a time when having a virus made you less than human. This book asks us to "Don't forget. Say their names."
The narrators do justice to the story as well. Highly recommend!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Stacey L. Jackson
- 07-29-22
Very Compelling Story
It's a great story. I personally could have done with a lot less use of the f word.
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- Denis Adair
- 12-09-24
A Beautiful Story
Perhaps this story is not for everyone. But for those of us who experienced these events, and lost family, friends, and lovers to AIDS, it will move you deeply. The story is uniquely written, and performed with great talent and compassion. No matter who you are, or what you know, I recommend you listen.
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- Mary M Dugan
- 10-02-20
important to remember
The performance has spots where the location or time or the story changes from one sentence to the next without pause or warning; not terrible, but it is distracting. The story itself is a hard one, so much bigotry and pain and ignorance during the AIDS crisis in the mid-80s and it's all here. There are few heroes in this book and lots of moments where hindsight grants the reader the opportunity to be judgmental. As the blurbs say, it's the story of one young man and his family and the small town he goes back to to die, but I think it's also important to remember the response of Ronald Reagan and his supporters: ignore the crisis, deny it's a crisis, blame the victims, invoke god's punishment, people die.
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2 people found this helpful
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- p b richards
- 08-12-20
Just Amazing
I was completely absorbed and could not stop listening. I'm certain that this book is going to win prizes.
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- Katelyn Miles
- 11-23-20
Great Book, So-So Performance
I loved this story. I loved the writing. I didn't love the performance. The same woman voiced the mother and the daughter which was hard to follow. The voices were not distinct enough so I had to keep looking at who was speaking, which fortunately it displays since the chapters are divided.
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