-
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $16.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Paris Wife
- A Novel
- By: Paula McLain
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet 28eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
-
-
Narration Issues
- By Sara on 10-06-15
By: Paula McLain
-
Blue-Skinned Gods
- By: S.J. Sindu
- Narrated by: Varun Sathi
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy is born with blue skin. His father sets up an ashram, and the family makes a living off of the pilgrims who seek the child’s blessings and miracles, believing young Kalki to be the 10th human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In Kalki’s 10thyear, he is confronted with three trials that will test his power and prove his divine status and, his father tells him, spread his fame worldwide. While he seems to pass them, Kalki begins to question his divinity.
-
-
Really sad but good
- By Vijay patel on 12-24-21
By: S.J. Sindu
-
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
- A Novel
- By: Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo, Julia Whelan, Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated.
-
-
I’m not crying, you’re crying
- By bridget on 07-16-18
-
A Well-Behaved Woman
- A Novel of the Vanderbilts
- By: Therese Anne Fowler
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alva Smith, her Southern family destitute after the Civil War, married into one of America’s great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Alva defied convention for women of her time, asserting power within her marriage and becoming a leader in the women's suffrage movement. In A Well-Behaved Woman, Therese Anne Fowler paints a glittering world of enormous wealth contrasted against desperate poverty, of social ambition and social scorn, of friendship and betrayal, and an unforgettable story of a remarkable woman.
-
-
An Illuminating Light on a Greatly Maligned Woman
- By VintageJunkie on 12-02-18
-
Save Me the Waltz
- By: Zelda Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when Fitzgerald was working on Tender Is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story, which parallels the narrative of her husband, throwing a fascinating light on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life and work. In its own right, it is a vivid and moving story: the confessions of a famous, slightly doomed glamour girl of the affluent 1920s, which captures the spirit of an era.
-
-
Gorgeous and Underrated
- By Caitlin on 11-20-18
By: Zelda Fitzgerald
-
Zelda Fitzgerald
- The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
- By: Sally Cline
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.
-
-
The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silvershirt on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline
-
The Paris Wife
- A Novel
- By: Paula McLain
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet 28eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
-
-
Narration Issues
- By Sara on 10-06-15
By: Paula McLain
-
Blue-Skinned Gods
- By: S.J. Sindu
- Narrated by: Varun Sathi
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy is born with blue skin. His father sets up an ashram, and the family makes a living off of the pilgrims who seek the child’s blessings and miracles, believing young Kalki to be the 10th human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In Kalki’s 10thyear, he is confronted with three trials that will test his power and prove his divine status and, his father tells him, spread his fame worldwide. While he seems to pass them, Kalki begins to question his divinity.
-
-
Really sad but good
- By Vijay patel on 12-24-21
By: S.J. Sindu
-
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
- A Novel
- By: Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo, Julia Whelan, Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated.
-
-
I’m not crying, you’re crying
- By bridget on 07-16-18
-
A Well-Behaved Woman
- A Novel of the Vanderbilts
- By: Therese Anne Fowler
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alva Smith, her Southern family destitute after the Civil War, married into one of America’s great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Alva defied convention for women of her time, asserting power within her marriage and becoming a leader in the women's suffrage movement. In A Well-Behaved Woman, Therese Anne Fowler paints a glittering world of enormous wealth contrasted against desperate poverty, of social ambition and social scorn, of friendship and betrayal, and an unforgettable story of a remarkable woman.
-
-
An Illuminating Light on a Greatly Maligned Woman
- By VintageJunkie on 12-02-18
-
Save Me the Waltz
- By: Zelda Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when Fitzgerald was working on Tender Is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story, which parallels the narrative of her husband, throwing a fascinating light on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life and work. In its own right, it is a vivid and moving story: the confessions of a famous, slightly doomed glamour girl of the affluent 1920s, which captures the spirit of an era.
-
-
Gorgeous and Underrated
- By Caitlin on 11-20-18
By: Zelda Fitzgerald
-
Zelda Fitzgerald
- The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
- By: Sally Cline
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.
-
-
The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silvershirt on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline
-
The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jake Gyllenhaal
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel of the Roaring Twenties is beloved by generations of readers and stands as his crowning work. This new audio edition, authorized by the Fitzgerald estate, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain). Gyllenhaal's performance is a faithful delivery in the voice of Nick Carraway, the Midwesterner turned New York bond salesman, who rents a small house next door to the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby....
-
-
Gyllenhaal is an incredible narrator
- By Lauren on 04-24-13
-
That Churchill Woman
- A Novel
- By: Stephanie Barron
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Paris Wife meets PBS’s Victoria in this enthralling novel of the life and loves of one of history’s most remarkable women: Winston Churchill’s scandalous American mother, Jennie Jerome.
-
-
A must read!
- By Sharon on 05-06-19
By: Stephanie Barron
-
The Queen of Paris
- A Novel of Coco Chanel
- By: Pamela Binnings Ewen
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style - the iconic little black dress - and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII - as discovered in recently unearthed wartime files.
-
-
Perceptive Biography and Narration
- By Susannah on 06-17-20
-
The Social Graces
- By: Renée Rosen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1876. In the glittering world of Manhattan's upper crust, women are valued by their pedigree, dowry, and, most importantly, connections. They have few rights and even less independence - what they do have is society. The more celebrated the hostess, the more powerful the woman. And none is more powerful than Caroline Astor - the Mrs. Astor.
-
-
Disappointing Effort
- By HistoryNerd on 05-11-21
By: Renée Rosen
-
The Kennedy Debutante
- By: Kerri Maher
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1938. The effervescent "It girl" of London society since her father was named the ambassador, Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy moves in rarified circles. Eager to strike out on her own, Kick is soon swept off her feet by Billy Hartington, the future duke of Devonshire. But their love is forbidden, as Kick's devout Catholic family and Billy's staunchly Protestant one would never approve their match. And when war breaks like a tidal wave across her world, Billy is ripped from her arms as the Kennedys are forced to return to the States.
-
-
Not just a piece of fluff!
- By Rosemary on 10-06-18
By: Kerri Maher
-
The Help
- By: Kathryn Stockett
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women - mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends - view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.
-
-
What a great surprise!
- By Jan on 12-02-09
By: Kathryn Stockett
-
Mistress of the Ritz
- A Novel
- By: Melanie Benjamin
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing bad can happen at the Ritz; inside its gilded walls, every woman looks beautiful, every man appears witty. Favored guests walk through its famous doors to be welcomed and pampered by Blanche Auzello and her husband, Claude, the hotel’s director. Until June 1940, when the German army sweeps into Paris, setting up headquarters at the Ritz. Suddenly, with the likes of Hermann Goëring moving into suites once occupied by royalty, Blanche and Claude must navigate a terrifying new reality. One that entails even more secrets.
-
-
2nd half was good
- By Amazon Customer on 07-05-19
By: Melanie Benjamin
-
The Chaperone
- By: Laura Moriarty
- Narrated by: Elizabeth McGovern
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
> The Chaperone is a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922, and the summer that would change them both. Only a few years before becoming a famous actress and an icon for her generation, a 15-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita to make it big in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle is a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip.
-
-
Can’t an artist keep their current day politics to themselves?!
- By Loonasea on 09-12-20
By: Laura Moriarty
-
Saving Ceecee Honeycutt
- A Novel
- By: Beth Hoffman
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, "packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart." It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.
-
-
Comfort Food For The Soul
- By Karen on 02-17-10
By: Beth Hoffman
-
Rules of Civility
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the last night of 1937, 25-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society - where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
-
-
Such a pleasant surprise
- By Elena on 05-11-12
By: Amor Towles
-
American Duchess
- A Novel of Consuelo Vanderbilt
- By: Karen Harper
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Karen Harper tells the tale of Consuelo Vanderbilt, her “Wedding of the Century” to the duke of Marlborough, and her quest to find meaning behind “the glitter and the gold”.
-
-
Surprisingly interesting life
- By labradoodler on 07-24-19
By: Karen Harper
-
The Phantom of Fifth Avenue
- The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark
- By: Meryl Gordon
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1906, Huguette Clark grew up in her family's 121-room Beaux Arts mansion in New York and was one of the leading celebrities of her day. Her father, William Andrews Clark, was the second richest man in America. Huguette attended the coronation of King George V. And at 22, with a personal fortune of $50 million, she married a Princeton man and childhood friend. Two-years later the couple divorced. After a series of failed romances, Huguette began to withdraw from society. What happened to Huguette that turned a vivacious, young socialite into a recluse?
-
-
The OTHER Huguette Clark Book
- By Teadrinker on 03-24-15
By: Meryl Gordon
Publisher's Summary
THE INSPIRATION FOR THE TELEVISION DRAMA Z: THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING
"When I saw that Amazon Prime was unveiling its original pilot for Z, a biographical series based on Therese Anne Fowler's novel about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, I raised a wary eyebrow. . . But I was wrong, oh me of little faith. . . [I]t's an enveloping period piece, perfectly cast, and I would like to see the pilot green-lighted into a series so that we can see this romance go up like a rocket with one loud champagne pop and strew debris across mansion lawns and luxury hotel lobbies in its transcontinental path." —Vanity Fair
I wish I could tell everyone who thinks we're ruined, Look closer…and you'll see something extraordinary, mystifying, something real and true. We have never been what we seemed.
When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the "ungettable" Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn't wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner's, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick's Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.
What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel—and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.
Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby's parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott's, too? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda's irresistible story as she herself might have told it.
More from the same
What listeners say about Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- LP
- 04-01-13
Attraction to the disillusioning 20's comes alive!
Fowler's story told from Zelda Fitzgerald's first-person perspective is captivating but made even more so by Jenna Lamia's reading. I could not stop listening. I was enchanted by Zelda's "southern gentility" (made perfect by Lamia's interpretation of Zelda) and for the first time sympathized with a typically misunderstood character in the drama that is F. Scott Fitzgerald's life. Zelda's "villianized" character in literary history finds a little redemption in Fowler's story that certainly sympathizes with its female protagonist. As a listener, I was helplessly drawn into the glitz and glamour of the "Jazz Age" as Zelda and Scott must have been -- even as I knew what the ending of the 20's would bring. A convincing, throbbing portrayal of the woman and the times. A must-read, a must-listen!
24 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- L.W.
- 03-30-13
Great! From the first page to the last.....
First of all the writing is just great. Swept into their youth...confidence and insecurity in that swooshing action. I loved this aspect of their story. Yes it has it's tragedy also. It was so well written you could hardly feel it. These are characters you can appreciate. I could understnad why she/they stayed together. Something about that era was just so bi-polar!
I hope you will appreciate this book. I was so thrilled with the narration....I haven't heard that voice since "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt". In my opinion she is the Southern voice. Loved it....hope you do too.
33 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andrew
- 04-17-13
Could have been so much more.
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Not to just any friend, but I would recommend it to someone with interest in Paris, Jazz Age, Fitzgerald and/or Southern Lit. I never saw Zelda's charisma until Hemingway arrives. In fact Zelda's character is only relative to the men she meets.
What was most disappointing about Therese Anne Fowler’s story?
The Fitzgerald-Hemingway relationship. I realize that it is first person narrative, which is Zelda and she had her sanity issues so you never know how faithful the narrative is, but in the afterward the author seems to exonerate her from this condition. The author's implication that there was more than just friendship between the authors seemed a bit OTT.
Which character – as performed by Jenna Lamia – was your favorite?
Zelda first and Hemingway second. Fitzgerald a distant last.
Could you see Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
Zelda- Emma Stone
Hemingway- James Franco
Fitz- Ryan Gosling
Hadley- Mireille Enos
Any additional comments?
Most of my comments might seem negative, but I looked forward to listening to this novel every day. The author writes very well. The characterizations needed a little bit more attention in my opinion.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- serine
- 04-03-16
Historical fiction at its best!
This novel, which focuses on the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, began as any typical historical fiction novel, introducing the reader to Zelda and her famous husband to-be, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I often listen to historical fiction when I jog at the gym to make the time pass. Since this novel was fairly standard, I decided it wasn't captivating enough to use as a workout book. So, I listened each night before bed. Eventually I came to realize that what I was reading was a thoughtful, fictionalized portrayal of a woman who was living a life that mirrors that of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's as relayed in The Yellow Wallpaper. This 1920-1940s glimpse into fame, love, frustration, and madness was deeply satisfying to read.
When Zelda was young, she viewed the world in an impractical manner, as many young people do. The author captures her transition from young naive girl to confused woman, always trying to navigate social rules, family ties, inner drives and impulses, love, the darkness within herself, and a desire to break free from it all. This book provides a very rich description of the obstacles that stood in her way, some of them self imposed and some of them barbaric external forces.
Zelda's life was inextricably tied to Ernest Hemingway and some other famous people from the 1920s literary, art, music, and feminist scenes. That served as an added bonus to make this novel even more captivating. I will think about this book for a long time to come.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Annie M.
- 04-24-13
Illuminating...and Depressing
What made the experience of listening to Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald the most enjoyable?
This is not a book that I'd characterize as "enjoyable." Athough ti will say, off the bat, it is very well-written, extensively researched, and well narrated.
I've been an ardent fan of both Fitzgeralds (I listen to Tim Robbins' beautiful narration of THE GREAT GATSBY at least once a year) since high school and have read almost everything each has written, including Scott's writer's notebooks. As a youth, I was entranced by the legendary love between Scott and Zelda. As I grew older and learned more, I became less enchanged with these icons of the Jass Age. "Z" pretty much made sure I'd never again hold these people in any kind of esteem--at least as people (as opposed to artists).
"Z" was exhaustively researched and it re-defines the common myth that Zelda was a self-centered, impetuous, mentally ill cyclone who took her husband along with her as she plummeted from Jazz Age darling to insitutionalized failure. This is the myth.
Fowler shows Zelda as the woman she actually was--artistic, beautiful, trend-setting, kind, and absolutely dominated by her pathologically insecure, relentlessly alcoholic husband. "Z" is also a reminder of how lucky I am to be a woman in today's world, as opposed to in Zelda's time, when a flapper could be independent and pursue dreams of her own--until she married, that is.
I now must confess I had a lot of trouble getting through this book, but not because it was poorly written or badly narrated. It was simply depressing. I'd put it down. And then find myself picking it back up, much like the old maxim about a train wreck you can't turn away from.
I was grateful to the author for the opilogue that allowed us to see Zelda find some recognition on her own through her paintings. If you are interested, there are several websites that showcase much of her art and one can see for oneself that she was, indeed, a talented woman.
Scott Fitzgerald comes out of this book as such a sorry human being. Talented, yes. But so driven toward his own place in literary history, he put his own name to short stories written exclusively by his wife. That is just one of the many terrible things he did to Zelda during their marriage. It was so sad to read about this stuff.
He's yet one more example that with great genius, often there comes great neuroses.
What did you like best about this story?
I like the fact that the legend of Scott and Zelda is put to rest and the truth is out. I am so glad to see Zelda get a hearing of sorts. I wonder what she might have achieved, had she been born in more liberated times--and had she been allowed to develop her many talents to their fullest.
Have you listened to any of Jenna Lamia’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I listened to Ms. Lamia's performance of THE HELP. Her narration of "Z" compares favorably. She has the Southern accent down pat. And she made me hate, despise, abhor Ernest Hemingway. Which is really saying a lot, if you know how much I love his work.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
As mentioned above, I found this a tough book to read, simply because it relentlessly showcases two amazingly gifted people--who disintegrate in slow motion. It's just so sad.
Any additional comments?
An interesting read, in light of Baz Lurhman's renditio of THE GREAT GATSBY, due in theatres May 10.
20 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dell
- 04-22-13
Awesome Read!!!
What made the experience of listening to Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald the most enjoyable?
The story connects you to Zelda Fitzgerald and leaves you wanting to read more even when it ends. I never re-read books however; I can see myself re-reading this one.
What does Jenna Lamia bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I just adored the narrator for this book. She nailed all the characters very well. I am now searching for more of her narrations.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 09-30-17
I can't bare to finish
After reading Paris Wife, I was intrigued about the era and the famous creatives. I had high hopes for this book, but 1/3 of the way into it I find it's just so terribly boring. The southern drawl of the reader, while perhaps accurate, is also difficult to listen to.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- BBKK
- 04-13-18
I loved it
What made the experience of listening to Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald the most enjoyable?
Narrator was just as good as the story
What did you like best about this story?
The life she had
Which character – as performed by Jenna Lamia – was your favorite?
Zelda
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The love they never lost
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nicole
- 04-04-18
Incredible
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
yes- it grabbed me from the first moment and i was in the world of zelda the entire time
What other book might you compare Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald to and why?
i wouldn't
Have you listened to any of Jenna Lamia’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
no - she's great she really made me feel like zelda was talking to me
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Behind every man there is a woman and she get's lost because he is blocking her view
Any additional comments?
loved it
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sevamari
- 03-18-17
Zelda
loved reading about such a fascinating woman and what a crazy life she led.
2 people found this helpful