Showing results by publisher "Audible studios" in Coming of Age

Orphaned at birth, Oliver Twist is born into the grimmest of 19th century English workhouses with a life of grinding poverty ahead of him. But the boy is a fighter and after being evicted from the workhouse for asking for 'more' and surviving a stint as an undertaker’s assistant, he walks many miles to London and finds a whole new life with a gang of young pickpockets led by the Artful Dodger and their guardian Fagin.

Originally published in 1982 as the first of Edmund White's trilogy of autobiographical novels, A Boy's Own Story became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. The audiobook's unnamed narrator, growing up during the 1950s, is beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, compelling him to seek out works of art and literature as solace-and to uncover new relationships in the struggle to embrace his own sexuality.

This quintessential coming-of-age novel describes the early life of Stephen Dedalus. It is set in Ireland during the 19th century, which was a time of emerging Irish nationalism and conservative Catholicism. Highly autobiographical in nature, the work is also notable for its being the first one in which Joyce uses innovative “stream of consciousness” writing style. A Portrait... follows Stephen Dedalus from his babyhood into early adulthood.

Nineteen-year-old Cromwell Dean is the rising star of electronic dance music. Thousands of people adore him. But no one knows him. No one sees the color of his heart. Until the girl in the purple dress. She sees through the walls he has built to the empty darkness within.

Eight-year-old Benjamin Franklin “B .F.” Windes decides to abandon home and trail his father’s path. Thus begins a trip of constant struggle with disease, severe weather, hardship, Indian attack, and death on his lone journey across much of what is now the United States. B. F. spends the next 11 years in gold rush towns in California - first as a barber, then as a physician’s assistant - before departing for the Caribbean at age 19, where he becomes a blockade runner during the American Civil War.

In a dorm room at her safety school, surrounded by corn-fed boys and contemptuous girls, Alice is losing her mind. Her first semester is spent clinging to middling grades between drunken hookups and roommate fights. The next brings sleepless nights, extreme weight loss, and effortless, compulsive energy, paused only by an unexpected summoning from the RA for evaluation.

"Girls like you aren't exactly welcomed at a place like this, so keep your head down and look the other way." Those were the exact words of my social worker when she dropped me in my newest hellhole, a place for "troubled teens". I didn't listen, and now I'm on their radar. Too bad for them, I don't follow rules. Too bad for me, they're determined to make sure I do. Inconceivably attractive and treated like kings...these are the boys of Brayshaw High.

Evie Boyd is desperate to be noticed. In the summer of 1969, empty days stretch out under the California sun. The smell of honeysuckle thickens the air, and the sidewalks radiate heat. Until she sees them. The snatch of cold laughter. Hair long and uncombed. Dirty dresses skimming the tops of thighs. Cheap rings like a second set of knuckles. The girls. And at the centre, Russell. Russell and the ranch, down a long dirt track and deep in the hills. Incense and clumsily strummed chords. Rumours of sex, frenzied gatherings, teen runaways.

Winner of the Whitbread Prize for best first fiction. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a coming-out novel from Winterson, the acclaimed author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. The narrator, Jeanette, cuts her teeth on the knowledge that she is one of God’s elect, but as this budding evangelical comes of age and comes to terms with her preference for her own sex, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household crumbles.

Nero is the king of Legacy Prep, living a life of power. Elle is the school's punching bag, living a life of fear.

“You don’t belong.” No words whispered in anger have ever rung more true. They’re the Kings of Brayshaw with the world at their feet, destined for greatness and in need of control. I’m the girl from the ghetto with nothing to offer and as defiant as they come. They say it doesn’t matter, that I’m one of them now, and nothing could ever change that. Not even me, should I dare try. But they’re wrong. They underestimate how far I’ll go to protect them. Trouble is coming...and they have no idea.

"Trust only those who earn it." A sentiment I follow without direction but holds more consequence than ever before. One decision, five lives, three futures. This is what's at stake. One night, one choice, four broken Brayshaws. That is where we're headed. Unless I stop it. I have to stop it. I have to remind him of what he's chosen to forget. My town. My choice. My ending.

Time. That's all I have now. A small room, a photograph, and time. They want me to trust them and confess my sins. They told me they wouldn't judge me - they lied. I thought we could convince the world that this wasn't a crime. We were wrong. Time doesn't stand still. The clock keeps ticking, the world is unconvinced, and now… Now he is gone.

The Miller family's move from Ohio to Montana was, for the most part, uneventful, except that Sadie Miller had to leave her beloved horse, the palomino named Paris. Still, she likes the Montana snows and her job at Aspen East Ranch, serving the ranch hands. Unexpectedly, Ezra appears, the man who seems to be perfect in every way and fully intends to marry Sadie. But does she love him back? And who is this fascinating Mark who helps to rescue a dying horse and shows up at the Amish hymn-sing though he is English?

I had an uncle who left his hometown and the family business there to become a fine actor. His talent was a minor one, but a pretty one. It lasted for 15 years and was gone. He came home with the ashes of it and died 20 years later, poor and, as it happened, drunk.

Kentucky was only ever going to be a summer job. Come fall, Blue Riley would be back in North Carolina, in college. But one job led to another, one town led to another, and one woman led to another. Now, after twenty years Blue faces the hardest question of all - is it time to go home?

They fell in love in high school and found their way back to one another despite the odds. But can first loves really be forever? For Reed Johnson the dream was always football. But then Nolan Lennox took over his heart. Is he willing to give up his first love just to keep his true love? Or will he be too late?

In the early 1970s, Poe is living a nomadic life, hopping trains, sleeping rough, and juggling to feed himself. He eventually settles in Philadelphia and masters his street act before ever-growing crowds. When one of his fellow buskers presents him with an opportunity—a bank heist—he should have refused, an innocent bystander is killed, and he splits town a felon.

In the golden city of Amsterdam, in 1705, Thea Brandt is turning eighteen, and she is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms. At the city’s theatre, Walter, the love of her life, awaits her, but at home in the house on the Herengracht, all is not well—her father Otto and Aunt Nella argue endlessly, and the Brandt family are selling their furniture in order to eat. On Thea’s birthday, also the day that her mother Marin died, the secrets from the past begin to overwhelm the present.

Against the mythical dreamscape of America, Auster brilliantly weaves the bizarre narrative of Marco Stanley Fogg, an orphan searching for love, his father, and the key to the riddle of his origin and fate.