Discover Top Full Audiobooks in Fiction, Coming of Age

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/630947 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Old Enough: A Novel

Author: Haley Jakobson

Narrator: Haley Jakobson, Jenna Kray

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 40 minutes

Release date: June 20, 2023

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 2

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 2

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction “Old Enough is full of growth, heartbreak, and winsome bisexual chaos.”—Vogue A debut novel “as astute, funny, and loving as your best friend from college”* about a young bisexual woman who is pulled between a new sense of community and loyalty to a friendship she’s outgrown *Isle McElroy Savannah 'Sav' Henry is almost the person she wants to be, or at least she's getting closer. It’s the second semester of her sophomore year. She’s finally come out as bisexual, is making friends with the other queers in her dorm, and has just about recovered from her disastrous first queer “situationship.” She is cautiously optimistic that her life is about to begin.   But when she learns that Izzie, her best friend from childhood, has gotten engaged, Sav faces a crisis of confidence. Things with Izzie haven’t been the same since what happened between Sav and Izzie’s older brother when they were sixteen. Now, with the wedding around the corner, Sav is forced to reckon with trauma she thought she could put behind her.   On top of it all, Sav can’t stop thinking about Wes from her Gender Studies class—sweet, funny Wes, with their long eyelashes and green backpack. There’s something different here—with Wes and with her new friends (who delight in teasing her about this face-burning crush); it feels, terrifyingly, like they might truly see her in a way no one has before.   With a singularly funny, heartfelt voice, Old Enough explores queer love, community, and what it means to be a sexual assault survivor. Haley Jakobson has written a love letter to friendship and an honest depiction of what finding your people can feel like—for better or worse.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/622040 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Ciao For Now

Author: Kate Bromley

Narrator: Natalie Naudus

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 5 minutes

Release date: June 6, 2023

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

“Hands down a standing ovation from me!” —Suzanne Park, author of So We Meet Again, on Here for the Drama A Most Anticipated Book of the Season by Goodreads, Distractify and Biblio Lifestyle! When an American interning at a fashion house in Rome butts heads with her professor's surly son, sparks fly! With her thirties rapidly approaching and a mountain of student debt looming over her, Violet Luciano’s dream of finishing design school and working in fashion has cost her everything. So when she lands an internship at an up-and-coming fashion brand in Rome, she brings her A game to Italy. With nothing left to lose, Violet plans to win the competition among the interns for the ultimate prize—a job at a New York label. But when a coffee run goes wrong and Violet accidentally destroys a stranger’s laptop, all of the apology Americanos in the world won’t help her. Because it turns out that the man from the café is Matteo, her professor’s eternally grumpy son, who thinks she’s a clumsy American…and maybe a stalker. Their animosity (and undeniable chemistry) grows as together they’re forced to face a summer of chic parties, adventures through Rome and sharing a home…with the person they can’t stand the most.    The more time she spends with him, the more distracted she finds herself. With her chance to win the competition slipping out of her grasp, Violet has to decide whether to say ciao to Matteo—or ciao to her dreams.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/610709 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Mosquitoes

Author: William Faulkner

Narrator: Nick Sullivan

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 58 minutes

Release date: May 30, 2023

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

Faulkner’s second novel follows a bohemian cast of artists, socialites, and dilettantes as they set sail on a four-day excursion aboard the Nausikaa. Faulkner’s quick wit and endless appetite for satire make this audiobook a fascinating exploration of character, as well as a rare glimpse into the author himself. The novel explores questions of sex and sexuality, as well as the societal role of the artist. Inspired by his own participation in the arts community in New Orleans, Mosquitoes is an engaging and delightful novel from one of America’s greatest writers.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/623543 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Adult

Author: Bronwyn Fischer

Narrator: Emma Love

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 41 minutes

Release date: May 23, 2023

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

An addictively gripping queer coming-of-age story about an all-consuming, insidious love affair between a college freshman and a mysterious older woman, from an unforgettable new voice in fiction.  Eighteen-year-old Natalie has just arrived at her first year of university in Toronto, leaving her remote, forested hometown for the big, impersonal city. Everyone she encounters seems to know exactly who they are. She reads advice listicles and watches videos online and thinks about how to fit in, how to really become someone, whoever that might be. And then she meets Nora, an older woman who takes an unexpected interest in her, and is drawn unstoppably into Nora’s orbit. She begins spending more and more of her time off campus at Nora’s perfect, tidy home. Natalie lies to her floormates about her absence, inventing a fake off-campus boyfriend, and carefully protects this sacred, adult relationship. This only deepens her obsession, even as she realizes Nora is hiding something. As the secrets multiply and the intensity of the romance threatens to overwhelm her, Natalie realizes that the new, adult identity she had imagined for herself is far from the one she’s actually growing into. Propelled by atmospheric, electric prose, The  Adult is about sex, yearning, poetry, and trying to find yourself in the expectations of others—and ultimately finding parts of yourself despite that. For readers of Michelle Hart and Alyssa Songsiridej, Bronwyn Fischer is an immensely talented new writer to watch.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/617979 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Small Worlds

Author: Caleb Azumah Nelson

Narrator: Caleb Azumah Nelson

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 7 hours 23 minutes

Release date: May 11, 2023

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 2

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin. WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2024 An exhilarating and expansive new novel about fathers and sons, faith and friendship from Caleb Azumah Nelson, the no.1 bestselling, award-winning author of Open Water The one thing that can solve Stephen's problems is dancing. Dancing at Church, with his parents and brother, the shimmer of Black hands raised in praise; he might have lost his faith, but he does believe in rhythm. Dancing with his friends, somewhere in a basement with the drums about to drop, while the DJ spins garage cuts. Dancing with his band, making music which speaks not just to the hardships of their lives, but the joys too. Dancing with his best friend Adeline, two-stepping around the living room, crooning and grooving, so close their heads might touch. Dancing alone, at home, to his father's records, uncovering parts of a man he has never truly known. Stephen has only ever known himself in song. But what becomes of him when the music fades? When his father begins to speak of shame and sacrifice, when his home is no longer his own? How will he find space for himself: a place where he can feel beautiful, a place he might feel free? Set over the course of three summers in Stephen's life, from London to Ghana and back again, Small Worlds is an exhilarating and expansive novel about the worlds we build for ourselves, the worlds we live, dance and love within. © 2023 Caleb Azumah Nelson (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/626691 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Big Free: A Novel

Author: Martha B. Boone

Narrator: Amy Brassette-Mckeon

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 35 minutes

Release date: May 9, 2023

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

A young female doctor faces the violence, debauchery, and larger-than-life characters of a New Orleans surgery in this funny and gritty medical novel. New Orleans, 1982. Voodoo spells, prostitutes, prisoners, and veterans who are adamant about the size of their manhood—it's all just another day at Charity Hospital, also known as The Big Free. It's a medical free-for-all with the toughest trauma surgery in America, and Elizabeth—fresh from medical school in Charleston, wearing pearls and pink plaid socks—is one of the first women to work there. Half of the doctors who start the surgery program never finish. Nothing in her proper Southern upbringing prepared Elizabeth for the gritty and gruesome world she now experiences on a daily basis. And even if she's tougher than anyone first expected, the question remains . . . will she make the cut? Full of drama, humor, and New Orleans flavor, The Big Free is a young doctor's coming of age story as only a true medical insider can tell it.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/620450 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Unbreakable Heart of Oliva Denaro: A Novel

Author: Viola Ardone

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 57 minutes

Release date: May 9, 2023

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

From the internationally bestselling author of The Children’s Train comes an unforgettable coming-of-age novel, set in 1960s Sicily and based on a true story, of how a young Sicilian girl defied centuries old tradition to win the right to control her own life. As provincial Sicily bursts into life with the jaunty hum of pop music and the heady scent of wild jasmine, fifteen-year-old Oliva Denaro dares to challenge convention, ignoring the taunts of peers, her mother’s scolds, and her own changing body. Spirited and carefree, she loves to run until her lungs burst: to feel the strength of her lithe limbs, to relish the freedom she cherishes, to honor the friends forced by propriety to conform. Though she knows she cannot stop growing up, Oliva resists the future. To her, becoming a woman means denying oneself. But adulthood comes all too quickly when the baker’s son sets his sights on her. Offered a blood orange, Oliva—haunted by her mother’s warning, “a girl who smiles has already said yes”—spurns the fruit. Yet, this act sets into motion an unwanted courtship that will force Oliva to fight for the right to choose her own path, even though the odds of winning are steep. While America and Europe are in the throes of social change, Sicily fiercely clings to its rigid traditions, including the custom of fuitina –by which kidnappings could be disguised as elopements– which is accepted and enshrined in law. Oliva’s battle for independence is based on the real-life story that would ultimately rock Italy–capturing the attention of both the Pope and the nation’s president—and transform life for all Italians. The Unbreakable Heart of Oliva Denaro is a lyrical tale of staggering beauty. Viola Ardone beautifully evokes a land and its people, customs, and passions, and breathes life into an unforgettable girl in all her intensity, desperation, perseverance, and bravery. Alternating between the lighthearted and the tragic, it is a classic coming-of-age novel—powerful, spellbinding, and liberating. Translated from the Italian by Clarissa Botsford

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/612603 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Steal Away Home

Author: Billy Coffey

Narrator: Chad Escue

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 8 minutes

Release date: May 9, 2023

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

“This is a powerful story of grief, love, forgiveness, and holy mystery, and I loved it. Billy Coffey is a master storyteller.” —Lauren K. Denton, USA TODAY bestselling author of The Hideaway Owen Cross grew up with two loves: one a game, the other a girl. One of his loves ruined him. Now he’s counting on the other to save him. Owen Cross’s father is a hard man, proud in his brokenness, who wants nothing more than for Owen to succeed where he failed. With his innate talents and his father’s firm hand guiding him, Owen goes to college with dreams of the major leagues—and an emptiness full of a girl named Micky Dullahan. Owen loved Micky from the first time they met on the hill between their two worlds: his middle-class home and her troubled Shantytown. Years later he leaves her for the dugouts and the autographs, but their days together follow him. When he finally returns home, he discovers that even peace comes at a cost. And that the hardest things to say are to the ones we love the most. From bestselling author Billy Coffey comes a haunting story of small-town love, blinding ambition, and the risk of giving it all for one last chance. “In one evening, a single baseball game, Coffey invites us into a lifetime. With lyrical prose and aching description we join Owen Cross on a journey of love, loss, faith, the unexpected—and America’s favorite pastime.” —Katherine Reay, bestselling author of The London House

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/616351 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Hula: A Novel

Author: Jasmin Iolani Hakes

Narrator: Mapuana Makia

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 44 minutes

Release date: May 2, 2023

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

Audiofile Magazine Earphones Award Winner • Named a Best Book of the Summer by Harper's Bazaar and ELLE “Stunning…an intricately built novel that spans decades, moving in and out of a collective voice, while also telling Hi’i’s deeply personal and devastating story of trying to find her way.” –Los Angeles Times “A full-throated chant for Hawai'i. . . . It’s impossible to come away unchanged.” —KAWAI STRONG WASHBURN, author of the PEN/Hemingway award-winning Sharks in the Times of Saviors Set in Hilo, Hawai’i, a sweeping saga of tradition, culture, family, history, and connection that unfolds through the lives of three generations of women—a tale of mothers and daughters, dance and destiny. “There’s no running away on an island. Soon enough, you end up where you started.” Hi'i is proud to be a Naupaka, a family renowned for its contributions to hula and her hometown of Hilo, Hawaii, but there’s a lot she doesn’t understand. She’s never met her legendary grandmother and her mother has never revealed the identity of her father. Worse, unspoken divides within her tight-knit community have started to grow, creating fractures whose origins are somehow entangled with her own family history. In hula, Hi'i sees a chance to live up to her name and solidify her place within her family legacy. But in order to win the next Miss Aloha Hula competition, she will have to turn her back on everything she had ever been taught, and maybe even lose the very thing she was fighting for. Told in part in the collective voice of a community fighting for its survival, Hula is a spellbinding debut that offers a rare glimpse into a forgotten kingdom that still exists in the heart of its people.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/616281 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Daydreams

Author: Laura Hankin

Narrator: Elena Rey, Tyla Collier, Laura Hankin, Briggon Snow, Stephanie Sheh, James Fouhey

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 14 minutes

Release date: May 2, 2023

Genres: Coming of Age

Publisher's Summary:

A deliciously entertaining novel about the stars of a popular teen show from the early 2000s—and the reunion special, thirteen years after their scandalous flameout, that will either be their last chance at redemption, or destroy them all for good. Back in 2004, The Daydreams had it all: a cast of innocent-seeming teenagers acting and singing their hearts out, amazing ratings, and a will-they-or-won’t-they romance that steamed up fan fiction forums. Then, during the live season two finale, it all imploded, leaving everyone scrambling to understand why. Afterward, the four stars went down very different paths. Kat is now a lawyer in Washington, DC. Liana is the bored wife of a famous athlete. Noah, the show’s golden boy, emerged unscathed and is poised to become a household name. And Summer, the object of Noah’s fictional (and maybe real-life) affections, is the cautionary tale. But now the fans are demanding a reunion special. The stars all have private reasons to come back: forgiveness, revenge, a second chance with a first love. But as they tentatively rediscover the magic of the original show, old secrets threaten to resurface—including the real reason behind their downfall. Will this reunion be a chance to make things right? Or will it be the biggest mess the world has ever seen? No matter what, the ratings will be wild.