9780062911131
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Like a Love Story audiobook

  • By: Abdi Nazemian
  • Narrator: Lauren Ambrose
  • Length: 10 hours 50 minutes
  • Publisher: Balzer + Bray
  • Publish date: June 04, 2019
  • Language: English
  • (9883 ratings)
(9883 ratings)
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Like a Love Story Audiobook Summary

2020 Audie Awards(r) Finalist – Young Adult

Stonewall Honor Book * A Time Magazine Best YA Book of All Time

“A book for warriors, divas, artists, queens, individuals, activists, trend setters, and anyone searching for the courage to be themselves.”–Mackenzi Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue

It’s 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing.

Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images of men dying of AIDS.

Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance…until she falls for Reza and they start dating.

Art is Judy’s best friend, their school’s only out and proud teen. He’ll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs.

As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won’t break Judy’s heart–and destroy the most meaningful friendship he’s ever known.

This is a bighearted, sprawling epic about friendship and love and the revolutionary act of living life to the fullest in the face of impossible odds.

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Like a Love Story Audiobook Narrator

Lauren Ambrose is the narrator of Like a Love Story audiobook that was written by Abdi Nazemian

Lauren Ambrose received critical acclaim as Juliet in Shakespeare in the Park’s Romeo and Juliet. Other theater credits include Sam Shepard’s Buried Child at The National Theater in London and Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing on Broadway. She was nominated for two Emmy(r) awards for her work in Six Feet Under.

About the Author(s) of Like a Love Story

Abdi Nazemian is the author of Like a Love Story

Like a Love Story Full Details

Narrator Lauren Ambrose
Length 10 hours 50 minutes
Author Abdi Nazemian
Publisher Balzer + Bray
Release date June 04, 2019
ISBN 9780062911131

Additional info

The publisher of the Like a Love Story is Balzer + Bray. The imprint is Balzer + Bray. It is supplied by Balzer + Bray. The ISBN-13 is 9780062911131.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Hailey

June 08, 2020

4.5*I don’t really write reviews on goodreads anymore but wow was this an amazing, beautiful, important book. A great read to start Pride Month. I higgggghly recommend that you read it.

Chelsea

November 06, 2019

Wow. Wow wow wow. This book was incredible.

Thomas

June 20, 2019

Could YA books with queer characters of color be any more iconic? I loved Like a Love Story and I'm so happy it exists, alongside books like Benjamin Alire Saenz's Ari and Dante and Kelly Loy Gilbert's Picture Us in the Light and more. What sets this novel apart from other similarly fantastic YA reads is its masterful portrayal of the 1980s AIDS epidemic and the activism of that era. The novel follows Reza, a closeted Iranian teen, Art, the out and proud guy Reza falls for, and Judy, Art's best friend who excels at fashion design. Toward the beginning of the book, Reza dates Judy to conceal his sexuality. When this arrangement unravels the three must deal with the fallout, of Reza's sexuality, of Art and Judy's friendship, and more.Abdi Nazemian tackles so much in Like a Love Story and grounds it all in history so well. The fear Reza experiences about contracting AIDS and dying, Art and Judy's uncle Stephen's activism with ACT UP, the characters' love for Madonna - Nazemian shows how the historical oppression of queer people affects his characters in intimate and powerful ways. He honors so many complex, important topics like coming out as a person of color, what happens when a friend betrays you, death and grief, and more. He writes in a palatable, straightforward way that still gives space for all the feelings that come with loss and love.The focus on love is what made this book shine the most. Until the last 80 or so pages I considered giving it four stars, as Art and Reza's relationship gave me insta-love vibes and did not feel as developed or compelling compared to the romances in Aristotle and Dante and Picture Us in the Light. But, the last 80 or so pages tied all of the novel's threads together to reveal its beautiful center: love of art, love of activism, love of love. I got pretty emotional reading Nazemian's author's note and felt so inspired by and happy for him, how he took his experience as a queer youth of color and transformed it into such amazing art. I know that we have a lot more to fight for to advance equality and justice for the LGBTIA+ community. And, right now, I'm giving my queer heart a little break, a little moment, so it can sing a happy song for this book's existence and all the love it entails.

Madalyn (Novel Ink)

May 23, 2019

wowowowow, this is one of those stories that hollows you out completely and then makes you whole again. it’s a love letter to the queer community, and to past queer activists who have paved the way for all of us to live better lives today. I can’t think of a better read heading into pride month. ✨

Rachel Reads Ravenously

August 05, 2022

4 stars It’s New York City in 1989 and this story revolves around three teens: Reza, Judy, and Art. Reza recently moved to NYC from Canada and before that, Iran. He’s known for a long time that he is gay, but is too scared from the HIV/AIDS crisis to admit it. Then there’s Judy, a plus size aspiring fashion designer whose uncle is dying of AIDS. And Art, Judy’s best friend and the only out of the closet teen at school who is documenting the AIDS crisis with his camera. I really enjoyed this book, I think it’s a great story for teens and young adult readers to experience. A lot of us weren’t around when the events in this book take place and it paints a clear picture of what it was like for people growing up in the AIDS crisis. Now, having HIV is not a death sentence, but for many people it was and it was a very scary reality that people were living with. I loved all three main characters and their individual stories, Reza was my favorite of the three. One critical note of the audiobook, parts of Art’s POV were barely audible because the narrator spoke so softly, so I did miss a portion of what was said from him which was a tad bit irritating.

Eduardo

January 26, 2021

Amor é nosso legado!!!!!!!

BookChampions

March 09, 2020

2nd reading, and I love this book so much. Endless love.-----Truly one of the best books I've read all year, Like a Love Story has the potential for wide appeal, but perhaps its greatest strength is how unflinchingly queer it is. Abdi Nazemian writes a book that could be (and honestly should be) read by everyone, but it is above all a love letter to queer youth and anyone who ever was a queer youth.It's a history lesson about what it was like to be queer in the late 80s and early 90s, the way AIDS put a dark fearful cloud on so many human beings as they were coming-of-age. But while well-researched, this is fiction and it has a lovely fairy tale vibe without every losing any gritty human emotion.Here's a passage I adore: "Us. All of us. What we did. Our history. Who we are. They won't teach it in schools. They don't want us to have a history. They don't see us. They don't know we are another country, with invisible borders, that we are a people. You have to make them see. You have to remember it. And to share it. Please. Time passes, and people forget. Don't let them."Music (particularly Madonna) plays a huge role in the novel, and the scene when the characters go to a Madonna concert is one of the greatest scenes in the book, IMO. It actually moved me to tears as I thought about the first Tori Amos concerts I went to and how I felt so SEEN and LOVED during those shows. You can just tell that Nazemian has truly *lived* so many of the things of this book because of its honesty, and it's clear that this book is a labor of love.If I could control things, I would love to see this book reach the kind of readership The Hate U Give has found. Queer youth today face fewer challenges than Art and Reza face in the book, when falling in love with someone seemed, to many, to equal disease and death, (and certainly fewer than Stephen and Jimmy), but there is still such a long way to go. Too many queer youth still struggle with crippling depression and hurt themselves because they don't know how to accept themselves or belong to communities that don't see them. Many still equate being queer with loneliness and shame and even death. And so I'm so glad for all the love and hope in this novel, one that never lets go of the beauty and necessity of resistance.This is the best book for Pride Month that I could have possibly asked for (and maybe one of the best YA novels I've ever read for all the love it exudes). I don't often buy multiple copies for my classroom, but I will be buying more of this one. I want to share this with everyone.Let me end this short review (which falls far short of what this book means to me) with this incredible passage that needs to be sent out to every LGBTQ+ kid everywhere: "I'll tell you what we will never be deficient of. LOVE. We love art and beauty. We love new ideas and pushing boundaries. We love fighting against corruption. We love redefining archaic rules. We love men, and women, and men who dress like women, and women who dress like men. We love tops and bottoms, and top hats, especially when worn by Marlene Dietrich. But most of all, we love each other. Know that. We love each other. We care for each other. We are brothers and sisters, mentors and students, and together we are limitless and whole. The most important four-letter word in our history will always be LOVE. That's what we are fighting for. That's who we are. Love is our legacy."

Catherine

December 13, 2021

Express Yourself. Be True Blue. And thank your Lucky Star(s) for this beautiful and tragic book by Abdi Nazemian!(See how many Madonna references I wedged in there?!)This book IS Like a Love Story...but is so much more than that. A look at AIDS, at the height of catastrophe, with so much unknown. A story of acceptance (or the lack of acceptance) in a family. A love triangle meant to be broken and its fallout. And most importantly, what it takes to be yourself and risk absolutely everything and embrace the unknown to be the person you were absolutely born to be.I grew to love Reza, Judy, and Art so, and I miss these fabulous characters. I also will never be able to listen to the Queen of Pop (yes, I said it!) Madonna quite the same way again. 👑Those of you who occasionally dabble in YA...this one is worth your time and ALL the tears that come with it! 4 ⭐

Iris

November 14, 2020

Não é um livro fácil de digerir ou perfeito. Acho que é nas imperfeições que ele se torna tão grandioso. A história é linda. Triste, mas esperançosa. É muito sobre o que você faz enquanto está vivo, quem você ama e o que defende. Terminei muito emocionada, humanizando quase todo mundo e entendendo todas as decisões cheias de defeitos que levaram cada um ao seu destino. Uma história sobre amor, todo tipo de amor.

R.K.

November 30, 2020

So close to five but just couldn’t get there:Super developed character: Stephen: mentor character and activist who showed the gravity of any situation while offering comic relief. Reza: one of the 3 protagonists and POVs. Deals with being an immigrant, a POC, homosexual, and comes from a culture that violently opposes who he is (so a lot of internal conflict for a soft spoken character who wants to please his family above all else).Art: the extrovert gay character who uses confidence to mask his fear because the alternative is unthinkable. This leads him to moments of being a little hot headed but never without reason.Judy: the straight white middle class ally and best friend dealing with her own internal struggles. Niece of Stephen who teaches her the uphill battle his community faces.There are side characters like Reza’s mom, sister, step brother and step father. All of whom have moments of sympathy—well kinda. There are also the families of the other protagonists and various students and protestors who served a specific purpose and nothing beyond that. Plot: 3 high school seniors from different backgrounds living in NYC interact in a love triangle that tests their friendship during the height of the AIDS epidemic. It’s a compelling coming of age tale that involves three teenagers finding strength through Madonna’s music to freely express who they are during a time where that was potentially fatal.Writing style: captured unique voices for each character, and created some very emotional dialogue. Though the stakes were high there wasn’t much tension throughout the text. Actions and reactions but no buffer between where you believe things might go another way. It’s not a flaw, just a style that kept the focus more on the internal struggles of the 3 main characters and not the external struggles of the world.

Alfredo

September 02, 2019

Conte sua história. Agradeça às pessoas queer que vieram antes de você e lutaram para que você estivesse aqui, vivo e seguro. O ódio sempre é errado, o amor não. Ame, viva e se importe com quem está ao seu lado. Não deixe que apaguem quem você é. Tenha orgulho. Grite isso para o mundo inteiro.Esse livro é um manifesto sobre identidade, vivências queer e amor. Perfeito para quem gostou de "Dois garotos se beijando" e "A lógica inexplicável da minha vida". Leiam e espalhem.

여리고

January 15, 2020

Nazemian has graced us with his impeccable writing, poignant storytelling and a nuanced and meaningful read. So much honesty, courage and potpourri of emotions portrayed in a single book. RTC. Extending my deepest gratitude to Edelweiss and Balzer + Bray for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. However, this does not affect any opinions or feedback stated concerning the book whatsoever. TW: Homophobic slurs, racial slurs, heterosexism, violence "The most important four-letter word in our history will always be LOVE. That’s what we are fighting for. That’s who we are. Love is our legacy." I loved this book to bits. It is more than just a love story. It is more than just the value of friendship. It is more than just loving someone who your bestfriend also happens to love. It is more than just being an immigrant living in a Western country. This has all the markings of a grand and stellar debut. Nazemian had written this book as if his life depended greatly on it. He had put something of an essence into this story. He gave it its own life, instilled in it a longing to be heard not only by the members of the LGBT community themselves but also the people belonging to all genders. Emphasizing the impartiality between every person's identity and the normalcy of being a homosexual even amidst facing discrimination from people who are seemingly above reproach in a world full of contempt and obloquy are only what made up a quarter of the book alongside the persistence of fighting and standing up for equal human rights. This book delivers one hell of a blow to the universe for its bias and prejudice. "Maybe freedom always comes with pain." One of the main characters, Reza, comes from a different culture, one that does not tolerate homosexuality. He was born in Iran and brought along to another country before he finally settled in NYC because this was where his mother found new love after his father died in an uprising back in his motherland. He now is exposed to an affluent kind of living and has therefore all the resources he needs for himself. Well at least, while he is at home and at school. There is only one thing that always keeps him on edge; he likes boys and he wants to keep it a secret from anyone. Scared of the possibility of banishment from the family and AIDS taking over his system, he could only do so much as keep his infatuations in check and confine them deep within his mind, not letting them take control of his body. With trepidation hanging over his head, he resorted to having a seemingly intimate connection with a girl in his new school, all while searching for his own identity in the process. But then, along the way, he developed some kind of strange fascination to this guy at school. "I need to live, and to live, I can’t ever be what I know that I am." The guy's name is Art, another one of the main characters in the book. This one had a keen fondness for anything that has to do with art. He pours his love for it resolutely and shows it through the set of clothes he wore, the way he sticks colors in his hair, his love for Madonna, his dogged alluring stance he carries on perpetually, and being the only queer in an all heterosexual school. He has a family that does not quite understand him; a father who pampers his son with his riches so as to gradually make him just as competent as he is someday, a burgeoning venerable and an honest-to-goodness businessman, and a mother who incessantly weeps at the sight of her son divagating from his father's wishes but does not do anything about it. He has only ever felt accepted by a community of homosexuals involved in an activism along with his long-term best friend Judy. He makes a militant activist himself who fights alongside the gay community to preserve their gay rights movement and advocacy to attain some justice for themselves. “It’s the parents that have to change first. Because so long as parents are telling their kids that being gay is a sin, or that this disease is God’s way of killing gay people, or that celibacy is the only way not to die, or that they can get it from sitting on the wrong toilet seat, then nothing else matters. Because teenagers, well, I mean, we don’t tell grown-ups what we do because we already know how they’re going to react. We already know that they’ll either pretend we never said what we said, or ground us, or blame us. And you know, most people don’t really have parents like you.” Amidst these activists running amok stands Judy, the ever-supportive friend and an allegiant ally to the activists' cause. She is dearly connected with the other two main characters, one who she has developed a crush on and the other who she has been friends with ever since they were kids. She aspires to reach her desire to be a fashion designer when she grows up; that and to have a lifetime spent with Reza. Conflicts arise when love finds its way among the three of them, toppling relationships and building them back up again. "I love this about these guys, their ability to laugh through their anger, to find light even in injustice." There are several constants evident in the book that served as shared coping mechanisms which futher deepened the foundation of friendship and averted the fraying relationships from fully crumbling to pieces and instead gave way to a newfound bond that is both steady and impenetrable. Just like how their love for Madonna brought them even closer to each other, they also have Stephen, Judy's gay uncle, on the center stage of their friendship. Stephen stood as their anchor, their mentor and loving parent for most of the times they felt lost and indecisive. If there is one person in the world I would be given the chance to meet, it would be him. His character was made to be endearing and brave that somehow at some point while going through the motions in my life, I had thought of him and instinctively his appealing traits have become suddenly infectious that it got me living like I was him at those moments. "It feels like being reminded that the point of BEING alive is to FEEL alive." The only time I got slightly upset with this book, had it not ended up that way, was when I had reached the part somewhere towards the ending. There was something in it that left me out of sorts. I actually thought this one aspect in the book would remain as is until it ended but it led me towards a different and unfamiliar territory altogether. I think it may work out for some readers out there but damn, how could you do this to me, Abdi? (view spoiler)[It broke my heart in absolute half that Reza and Art did not end up together in the end. Weren't they meant for each other? I mean, just look at how lovely they look together! Those lovebirds, yes? (hide spoiler)] “The moral is, the dynamic of friendship changes when one friend finds romance. But change doesn’t mean it’s over.” Let me tell you a fun fact on how I actually felt upon and while reading this book. Allow me to visualize it to when someone picks a pulchritudinous rose. Now, imagine seeing a rose flower in the distance. Pretty enticing, right? Now you come near it because you just couldn't resist. Its dazzling petals are calling out to you. Wouldn't you feel somehow rueful just ignoring the way it's hissing at the sight of you? So you saunter towards it and pick it up deliberately. But you haven't noticed its thorns prickle at your skin. Then, realizing there's blood slithering all over the palm of the hand you used to grasp it, you suddenly gasp in utter pain and agony. But still, the hurt lingers. Soon after, you wail and whimper and weep some more. It doesn't stop you from holding the rose much longer though. You assess its beauty. You want to examine it more closely. There you go. You find that you can't stop yourself even though your hands still tremble in the aftermath. Suddenly, without so much as a hint of a warning, you get irritated but then you shake it off like it was not there in the first place. Eventually, you feel the urge to smell it. Woah, that ambrosial smell! It must have been a gift from the gods! But you try hard not to let it get to you. Soon you figure out that you are not as invulnerable as you think you are so you keep the delicate rose and put it into a small container under water just so it would live long because you know in your heart it spoke many life lessons unto you and made known a gallimaufry of emotions but otherwise the best feeling in the world. "I will myself to turn all my nerves into confidence, to release all the butterflies in my stomach into the cold city air, so that there will be only one butterfly left. Me." I found its plot weaved exquisitely with its lush prose and down-to-earth historical narrative. It had me taken aback, had me rooting for Stephen and his growing horde of gay activists, had me beaming with excitement, had me tittering uncontrollably, had me sniveling for eternity, had me vexed with how the characters were being treated at times, had put me on the same wavelength as theirs and had indisputably pulled at my heartstrings completely. This book is sheer beauty at its finest. If these things still do not make you want to read it, then I do not know what will. "We all come from love. And that’s where we’re going too. Where we are now, that’s the complicated part."

Marieke

June 22, 2021

As a teen in the 80s I knew people died of AIDS. But it felt far away. Until I saw Rene Klijn, a beautiful fragile Dutch guy singing on television. His performance (Mr. Blue) touched my whole being. And when he died in 1993 it hurt. Of course I knew facts about AIDS, I knew the prejudices, and I knew Freddy Mercury died of AIDS. But Rene Klijn made me really understand what AIDS did to your body, to your whole life, what people having AIDS went through. Don’t forget me. Not just me. Us. All of us. What we did. What we fought for. Our history. Who we are. They won’t teach it in schools. They don’t want us to have a history. They don’t see us. They don’t know we are another country, with invisible borders, that we are people. You have to make them see.I loved this story about friendship, accepting yourself, prejudices, and finding love. I don’t think it’s perfect, and I could tell you a couple of things I liked less, but ... I loved the messiness Reza, Art and Judy brought with them, Art and Judy both falling for Reza. I loved to read about their doubts, their (secret) dreams, wanting to be accepted, as a gay boy or as a firmer girl. I loved the references to the pop culture back then, even though I’ve never been a huge Madonna fan, but Cindy Lauper’s ‘Time after Time’ is iconic, and when the Communards were mentioned twice I couldn’t get ‘Don’t leave me this way’ out of my head. I loved Stephen’s part of the story and had a lump in my throat when he died. And when I finished the story I was crying.Although HIV is controllable these days, it’s still not curable and I believe, like Stephen said in the quote above, it’s important for teens to know where we came from, the fear, the suffering, people dying. If you haven’t yet, I’d suggest reading Where We Go from Here as well because that story gives a perfect inside of HIV nowadays.

Anyta

June 12, 2019

I feel like I fought and I loved and I lived through these dynamic, flawed characters.I feel like crying.I feel like loving and loving and loving. Like a Love Story gifts us every shade of the emotional rainbow.

Erin Entrada

July 07, 2019

This book will save the lives of young people in the queer community. I mean that literally and figuratively. A necessary addition to the LGBTQ+ canon that is being (and will continue to be) embraced by many—and rightly so. I’m happy this book is in the world.XOXO

Jananie (thisstoryaintover)

June 21, 2019

RTC!

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