This summer, SYNC will be providing two free teen audiobooks each week from April 26th to July 25th. Each week will focus on a specific theme, pairing a classic YA title with a more modern YA title. These two titles will be available to download for free this week only (from 7/5 to 7/11) at the SYNC website. The eleventh week will start on Thursday, July 5th with The Invisible Girls . The theme for the eleventh week is “Hidden lives.”
After surviving breast cancer and the terrible treatment necessary to eradicate it, the author moved across the country to start a new life. There, she met, by happenstance, a Somali woman struggling to raise five daughters in an alien country. Thebarge decided to help them. These are the girls of the title. Narrator Kirsten Potter has an assured, gentle voice that captures the essence of the book and propels it forward. She enunciates the author’s message and gives it the gravitas it deserves without becoming maudlin. Potter tries her hand at portraying some characters, but mostly she’s content to use her voice as a subtle force that accentuates the nuances of the story while reminding us that this is an extraordinary tale.
Narrators Lauren Ezzo and Brittany Pressley create distinct, powerful portraits of 18-year-olds Biddy and Quincy, special education students who are placed in the same home. Biddy’s tenderness is lyrically expressed as she finds images to express her emotions. Quincy is sarcastic, sassy, and scornful of her new roommate. The unique gifts and strength of these characters are quickly apparent and compelling in Ezzo and Pressley’s alternating first-person narrations. Both narrators make dialect sing and the heroines’ poignant stories of abuse and prejudice sound genuine. The girls’ individual growth and mutual caring build believably until a violent experience unifies them and heightens the tension. Honest, haunting, at some times heartbreaking and at other times humorous, the story is ultimately triumphant.