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  • The Book of Goose

  • By: Yiyun Li
  • Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
  • Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (22 ratings)

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The Book of Goose

By: Yiyun Li
Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
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Summary

A propulsive, seductive new novel about friendship, exploitation and intimacy from the prize-winning author of Where Reasons End

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised – the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story.

As children in a backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves – until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.

A dark, ravishing tale winding from the rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school, to the quiet Pennsylvania home where Agnès can live without her past. The Book of Goose is a story of intimacy and obsession, friendship and rivalry perfect for fans of Elena Ferrante, Ottessa Moshfegh and Kamila Shamsie.

‘Beguiling … A shimmering, unsettling tale of exploitation and manipulation’ Daily Mail

‘Brilliant … A novel of deceptions and cruelty’ Spectator

‘For all its surface lushness, this is a novel of meticulous philosophical inquiry…resonant with echoes of… My Brilliant Friend, as well Elizabeth Strout… electrifying’ Observer

©2022 Yiyun Li (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
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Critic reviews

"The surface of Yiyun Li's prose is deceptively still, but just beneath the surface is sadness, pain and tragedy… Yiyun Li has grown into one of our major novelists." (Salman Rushdie)

"Li writes with a shimmering and deeply felt precision." (Guardian)

"Li is extraordinary…a storyteller of the first order…Li inhabits the lives of her characters with such force and compassion that one one cannot help but marvel at her remarkable talents." (Junot Díaz)

What listeners say about The Book of Goose

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A bit all over the place.

Worth listening to. There are many wonderful details and observations, about friendship, about writing, about perversity, about class. The prose is really good.
I wish there were more of Agnes's fairy tales.
The ending is unsatisfying, like life, I guess.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Astonishing tale told with wit and compassion

To my surprise and delight the author succeeded in transcribing her experience of growing up in rural China into a French setting. Her young characters embodied the intensity of adolescents, a melange of innocence and fierce rebellion.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Depth of innermost thoughts and quiet nonconformit

Depth of innermost thoughts and quiet nonconformity.

Ffs audible don't require at least 15 words from me, I wanted to quickly rate it.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Long and boring

It was tedious to listen to.. Was expecting the story to pick up but it just never did!

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