Thirty Girls, Susan Minot
Thirty Girls, Susan Minot
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
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Thirty Girls

Author: Susan Minot

Narrator: Robin Miles

Unabridged: 11 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/11/2014

Synopsis

The long-awaited novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of Evening is a literary tour de force set in war-torn Africa.Esther is a Ugandan teenager abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to witness and commit unspeakable atrocities. She is struggling to survive, to escape, and to find a way to live with what she has seen and done. Jane is an American journalist who has traveled to Africa, hoping to give a voice to children like Esther and to find her center after a series of failed relationships. In unflinching prose, Minot interweaves their stories, giving us razor-sharp portraits of two extraordinary young women confronting displacement, heartbreak, and the struggle to wrest meaning from events that test them both in unimaginable ways. With mesmerizing emotional intensity and stunning evocations of Africa's beauty and horror, Minot gives us her most brilliant and ambitious novel yet.

About Susan Minot

Susan Minot is an award-winning novelist and short story writer whose books include Evening, which was adapted into the feature film of the same name starring Meryl Streep. She attended Brown University and received her MFA degree in creative writing from Columbia University.

About Robin Miles

Robin Miles, named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, has twice won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, an Audie Award for directing, and many Earphones Awards. Her film and television acting credits include The Last Days of Disco, Primary Colors, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order, New York Undercover, National Geographic’s Tales from the Wild, All My Children, and One Life to Live. She regularly gives seminars to members of SAG and AFTRA actors’ unions, and in 2005 she started Narration Arts Workshop in New York City, offering audiobook recording classes and coaching. She holds a BA degree in theater studies from Yale University, an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama, and a certificate from the British American Drama Academy in England.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Julie on July 06, 2015

This book and the impression it left on me have not been far from my mind since I finished it several days ago. I had a feeling of deja vu in the early pages, and realized I had picked up Thirty Girls and set it aside last year after only two or three chapters. I can't recall why it didn't speak to......more

Goodreads review by Jill on March 27, 2015

It may seem like a contradiction in terms to label a novel that focuses on real-life atrocities in Uganda as a “hopeful novel.” But indeed, there is a thread of hope that runs through Susan Minot’s new novel, based on the true-life tale of the abduction of 30 girls from St. Mary’s College boarding s......more

Goodreads review by Katie on August 13, 2013

This book is amazing. I am a huge Minot fan, and this is her best yet. The juxtaposition of privileged white travelers against the abducted girls is a brilliant move. it's impossible to read without getting angry, but the prose will wash over you like a warm bath. wonderfully disorienting. loved it.......more

Goodreads review by Lisa on April 10, 2014

Esther's story merits at least 4 stars, but the self-centered writer having an Eat Pray Love experience in Kenya and Uganda seriously hurts this book. I hate the idea of a white savior, and I really hate juxtaposing a heartbreaking story with an annoying one. Minot can write, and this would have bee......more

Goodreads review by Jenny on March 09, 2014

Some cruelties are so incomprehensible that our instinct for self-preservation often makes us want to shut knowledge of them out. “I hear their stories and feel bad,” a character says in Susan Minot’s new novel, Thirty Girls. “How does it help them if my head is filled with horrible images?” Another......more

Quotes

“This long-awaited novel combines the stories of a Ugandan girl abducted by a militant group and an American writer covering the violence. It’s heavy subject matter, to be sure, but Minot transcends the brutality with the overwhelming power of her prose.” Entertainment Weekly

“Daring…Minot’s clearly sculpted prose and capacity to penetrate and open the mind and heart challenge us to step outside our comfort zone.” O, The Oprah Magazine

“A novel of quiet humanity and probing intelligence…Minot tells her two stories in alternating chapters…The novel’s dramatic ending shows that brutality can happen to anyone. In Thirty Girls, Susan Minot takes huge questions and examines them with both a delicate touch and a clear-eyed, unyielding scrutiny.” New York Times Book Review

“Minot’s writing is so potent and the story told so tragic, the novel sears the mind.” New York Daily News

“Transfixing.” Washington Post

“Clear and searing…Pulls you in from the first page…A book that looks hard at trauma, love, and humanity.” Boston Globe

“Dreamlike…Though the shifting narratives start out highlighting the stark contrasts between the two worlds, they eventually collide as violence enters the privileged white enclave…A deeply affecting title that manages to express weighty sentiments and horrific events with subtlety and poetry.” Library Journal (starred review)

“Spellbinding Minot, a writer of exquisite perception and nuance, contrasts Esther’s and Jane’s radically different, yet profoundly transforming journeys in a perfectly choreographed, slow-motion, devastatingly revealing collision of realities. So sure yet light is Minot’s touch in this master work, so piercing yet respectful her insights into suffering and strength, that she dramatizes horrific truths, obdurate mysteries, and painful recognition with both bone-deep understanding and breathtaking beauty.” Booklist (starred review)

“With brilliantly effective understatement, the novel conveys Esther’s complex psychological evolution—the emotional blankness that allows her to survive horrendous experiences, as well as the feelings of shame and guilt that threaten to overwhelm her at times.” Publishers Weekly

“Unerring pacing and pitch-perfect accents characterize Robin Miles’ masterful presentation of this difficult, yet wonderful, story. Minot’s powerful, fact-based novel…does not sensationalize the brutality and heartbreak the characters experience, and Miles’ delivery blends understated emotion and crisp objectivity.” AudioFile

Awards

  • Publishers Weekly Pick of the Week
  • AudioFile Earphones Award
  • New York Times   Bestseller
  • New York Times Notable Book
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