
Althea & Oliver
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jorjeana Marie
-
By:
-
Cristina Moracho
About this listen
What if you live for the moment when life goes off the rails - and then one day there's no one left to help you get it back on track?
Althea Carter and Oliver McKinley have been best friends since they were six; she's the fist-fighting instigator to his peacemaker, the artist whose vision balances his scientific bent. Now, as their junior year of high school comes to a close, Althea has begun to want something more than just best-friendship. Oliver, for his part, simply wants life to go back to normal, but when he wakes up one morning with no memory of the past three weeks, he can't deny any longer that something is seriously wrong with him. And then Althea makes the worst bad decision ever, and her relationship with Oliver is shattered. He leaves town for a clinical study in New York, resolving to repair whatever is broken in his brain, while she gets into her battered Camry and drives up the coast after him, determined to make up for what she's done.
Their journey will take them from the rooftops, keg parties, and all-ages shows of their North Carolina hometown to the pool halls, punk houses, and hospitals of New York City before they once more stand together and face their chances. Set in the DIY, mix tape, and zine culture of the mid-1990s, Cristina Moracho's whip-smart debut is an achingly real story about identity, illness, and love - and why bad decisions sometimes feel so good.
©2014 Cristina Moracho (P)2014 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
A Good Idea
- By: Cristina Moracho
- Narrated by: Alex McKenna
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Finley and Betty's close friendship survived Fin's ninth-grade move from their coastal Maine town to Manhattan. Calls, letters, and summer visits continued to bind them together, and in the fall of their senior year, they both applied to NYU, planning to reunite for good as roommates. Then Betty disappears.
-
-
An absolute must listen/read!
- By Mel on 03-05-17
By: Cristina Moracho
-
Luckiest Girl Alive
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Knoll
- Narrated by: Madeleine Maby
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve. But Ani has a secret. There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.
-
-
Strange, unnerving, confusing.
- By Candice on 12-06-15
By: Jessica Knoll
-
Hearts in Atlantis
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, William Hurt
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All the stories in this collection from Stephen King are related to the Vietnam War. King fans will recognize echoes of The Dark Tower series in the collection's first story, "Low Men in Yellow Coats." As the characters develop over the next four stories, King's version of the Vietnam War becomes one of his most frightening tales ever.
-
-
Touching, Funny - Amazingly well written and read.
- By Kindle Customer on 01-15-03
By: Stephen King
-
Marlena
- A Novel
- By: Julie Buntin
- Narrated by: Emma Galvin
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everything about 15-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts - first drink, first cigarette, first kiss - while Marlena's habits harden and calcify.
-
-
A Brilliant, Agonizing Portrait of a Young Woman
- By Sudi on 06-06-17
By: Julie Buntin
-
Girl in Pieces
- By: Kathleen Glasgow
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Kathleen Glasgow
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At 17 she's already lost more than most people do in a lifetime. But she's learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don't have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you. Every new scar hardens Charlie's heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge.
-
-
Touching, Sobering, Fascinating
- By Wendi on 05-31-17
By: Kathleen Glasgow
-
Running with Scissors
- A Memoir
- By: Augusten Burroughs
- Narrated by: Augusten Burroughs
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of being Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain.
-
-
NOT what I was expecting
- By Art H on 04-25-03
-
A Good Idea
- By: Cristina Moracho
- Narrated by: Alex McKenna
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Finley and Betty's close friendship survived Fin's ninth-grade move from their coastal Maine town to Manhattan. Calls, letters, and summer visits continued to bind them together, and in the fall of their senior year, they both applied to NYU, planning to reunite for good as roommates. Then Betty disappears.
-
-
An absolute must listen/read!
- By Mel on 03-05-17
By: Cristina Moracho
-
Luckiest Girl Alive
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Knoll
- Narrated by: Madeleine Maby
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve. But Ani has a secret. There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.
-
-
Strange, unnerving, confusing.
- By Candice on 12-06-15
By: Jessica Knoll
-
Hearts in Atlantis
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, William Hurt
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All the stories in this collection from Stephen King are related to the Vietnam War. King fans will recognize echoes of The Dark Tower series in the collection's first story, "Low Men in Yellow Coats." As the characters develop over the next four stories, King's version of the Vietnam War becomes one of his most frightening tales ever.
-
-
Touching, Funny - Amazingly well written and read.
- By Kindle Customer on 01-15-03
By: Stephen King
-
Marlena
- A Novel
- By: Julie Buntin
- Narrated by: Emma Galvin
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everything about 15-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts - first drink, first cigarette, first kiss - while Marlena's habits harden and calcify.
-
-
A Brilliant, Agonizing Portrait of a Young Woman
- By Sudi on 06-06-17
By: Julie Buntin
-
Girl in Pieces
- By: Kathleen Glasgow
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Kathleen Glasgow
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At 17 she's already lost more than most people do in a lifetime. But she's learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don't have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you. Every new scar hardens Charlie's heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge.
-
-
Touching, Sobering, Fascinating
- By Wendi on 05-31-17
By: Kathleen Glasgow
-
Running with Scissors
- A Memoir
- By: Augusten Burroughs
- Narrated by: Augusten Burroughs
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of being Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain.
-
-
NOT what I was expecting
- By Art H on 04-25-03
-
She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
-
-
Really disappointing narrator!
- By DrJessWill on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
-
This Is Where I Leave You
- By: Jonathan Tropper
- Narrated by: Ramon De Ocampo
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family - including Judd's mother, brothers, and sister - have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd's wife, Jen, whose 14-month affair with Judd's radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch's dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together.
-
-
Greatly entertaining, not for all audiences.
- By Jamie on 07-26-12
By: Jonathan Tropper
-
The Last Romantics
- A Novel
- By: Tara Conklin
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1981, the young Skinner siblings - fierce Renee, dreamy Caroline, golden boy Joe, and watchful Fiona - lose their father to a heart attack and their mother to a paralyzing depression, events that thrust them into a period they will later call “the Pause”. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that stretches before them, the siblings navigate the dangers and resentments of the Pause to emerge fiercely loyal and deeply connected. Two decades later, the Skinners find themselves again confronted with a family crisis....
-
-
Maybe the best book I ever read
- By Plundered treasure on 02-16-19
By: Tara Conklin
-
Good As Gone
- By: Amy Gentry
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirteen-year-old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night, witnessed only by her younger sister. Her family was shattered, but managed to stick together, hoping against hope that Julie is still alive. And then one night: the doorbell rings. A young woman who appears to be Julie is finally, miraculously, home safe. The family is ecstatic - but Anna, Julie's mother, has whispers of doubts. She hates to face them.
-
-
Worse than a waste of time
- By Wayne on 12-10-16
By: Amy Gentry
-
The Book of Unknown Americans
- A Novel
- By: Cristina Henríquez
- Narrated by: Various
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A boy and a girl who fall in love. Two families whose hopes collide with destiny. An extraordinary novel that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American. Arturo and Alma Rivera have lived their whole lives in Mexico. One day, their beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, Maribel, sustains a terrible injury, one that casts doubt on whether she’ll ever be the same. And so, leaving all they have behind, the Riveras come to America with a single dream: that in this country of great opportunity and resources, Maribel can get better.
-
-
The Book of Re-Opening my Heart
- By Syd Young on 01-04-15
-
Breaking Night
- A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard
- By: Liz Murray
- Narrated by: Liz Murray
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls' home. At age 15, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. She learned to scrape by, foraging for food and riding subways all night to have a warm place to sleep. Then, when Liz's mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny.
-
-
unbelievably inspiring
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-12
By: Liz Murray
-
Lights All Night Long
- A Novel
- By: Lydia Fitzpatrick
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: He's consumed by the fate of his older brother, Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women rocked the town's usual calm, and Vladimir found himself in prison. With the help of Sadie, who has secrets of her own, Ilya embarks on a mission to prove Vladimir's innocence.
-
-
Couldn't Stop Listening
- By Randi M. on 04-16-19
-
Vanishing Girls
- By: Lauren Oliver
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Elizabeth Evans, Dan Bittner, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before - before Dara kissed Parker, before Nick lost him as her best friend, before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred. Now the two sisters, who used to be so close, aren't speaking. In an instant Nick lost everything and is determined to use the summer to get it all back.
-
-
Do Not Get This
- By Najima Rainey on 03-13-15
By: Lauren Oliver
-
Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See
- By: Juliann Garey
- Narrated by: Dan Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her tour-de-force first novel, Juliann Garey takes us inside the restless mind, ravaged heart, and anguished soul of Greyson Todd, a successful Hollywood studio executive who leaves his wife and young daughter and for a decade travels the world giving free reign to the bipolar disorder he's been forced to keep hidden for almost 20 years.
-
-
Psychosis or Syphilis?
- By Vira on 04-02-13
By: Juliann Garey
-
Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm
- A Novel
- By: Laura Warrell
- Narrated by: Nicole Lewis
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 2013, and Circus Palmer, a 40-year-old Boston-based trumpet player and old-school ladies’ man, lives for his music and refuses to be tied down. Before a gig in Miami, he learns that the woman who is secretly closest to his heart, the free-spirited drummer Maggie, is pregnant by him.
-
-
satisfying
- By MLF on 10-19-22
By: Laura Warrell
-
Darling Days
- A Memoir
- By: iO Tillett Wright
- Narrated by: iO Tillett Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born into the beautiful bedlam of downtown New York in the eighties, iO Tillett Wright came of age at the intersection of punk, poverty, heroin, and art. This was a world of self-invented characters, glamorous superstars, and strung-out sufferers, ground zero of drag and performance art. Still, no personality was more vibrant and formidable than iO's mother's. Rhonna, a showgirl and young widow, was a mercurial, erratic glamazon. She was iO's fiercest defender and only authority in a world with few boundaries and even fewer indicators of normal life.
-
-
Can’t wait for more from this Author!
- By Team Hobson on 07-24-19
-
Here We Lie
- By: Paula Treick DeBoard
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Megan Mazeros and Lauren Mabrey are complete opposites on paper. Megan is a girl from a modest Midwest background, and Lauren is the daughter of a senator from an esteemed New England family. But in 1999, Megan and Lauren become college roommates and, as two young women struggling to find their place on campus, they forge a strong, albeit unlikely, friendship. The two quickly become inseparable, sharing clothes, advice and their most intimate secrets.
-
-
Easy read
- By Narelle on 02-14-18
Critic reviews
“A gorgeous, glorious, unforgettable novel about punk rock, bad decisions, falling in love, and the messy beauty of growing up. Althea and Oliver is a flawlessly-crafted straight shot to the heart.” (Sarah McCarry, author of All Our Pretty Songs)
“I can't wait to tell people about this one. It’s mind-blowingly good.” (Molly Templeton, WORD Books