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Unabridged Digital Audiobook
Runtime: 8 hours, 7 minutes
Ready by Mia Barron
It sometimes seems hard to believe, but everyone has secrets—even our parents. And in the audio edition of Good Riddance by Elinor Lipman, one woman is stunned to discover that her mother was far from the woman she always imagined—and she ends up caught up in confessions that she doesn’t want to hear.
The story begins when Daphne Maritch decides to clean out her too-small New York City apartment. While going through her things, she finds an annotated high school yearbook—not hers but one bequeathed to her by her late mother, who, as a young teacher, was apparently so honored to have the yearbook dedicated to her by the class of ’68 that she wanted to pass it on to her daughter. But when Geneva, the desperate documentary filmmaker down the hall, digs it out of the trash and decides to dig up the story behind it, Daphne’s quiet life turns upside-down.
What starts out as Daphne’s quest to prove to Geneva that there’s no dirt to dig up on her late mother—who was never anything but prim and proper—soon turns into a mission to save face for herself and her family. When the truth comes out, everything is shaken up: her feelings toward her mother, her relationship with her father, and her own identity. And as Geneva continues to push, Daphne becomes just slightly—and completely understandably—unhinged.
The battle between Daphne and Geneva is full of twists and turns and humor. Geneva is ruthless in her quest to turn the yearbook into a career-making documentary—and she forces Daphne to fight back in a way that she might not behave normally. It’s already pretty outrageous, but it’s made even more over-the-top by the characters and their situations. Daphne is a young divorcee who left her husband after realizing that he was using her to get at his trust fund. She’s living on alimony while taking online classes to be a chocolatier. And she finds herself teaming up with her young neighbor from across the hall, who also happens to be an actor on Riverdale. The story is definitely crazy—and, admittedly, not everything here makes sense—but it’s definitely an entertaining adventure through one character’s past…and into her future.
With its story about long-buried secrets made comical by some exaggerated characters and situations, Good Riddance is a fluffy but fun-filled read that will keep you wondering what will happen next.
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