9780063079953
Play Sample

Reprieve audiobook

  • By: James Han Mattson
  • Narrator: JD Jackson
  • Category: Fiction, Psychological
  • Length: 12 hours 16 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: October 05, 2021
  • Language: English
  • (4125 ratings)
(4125 ratings)
33% Cheaper than Audible
Get for $0.00
  • $9.99 per book vs $14.95 at Audible
    Good for any title to download and keep
  • Listen at up to 4.5x speed
    Good for any title to download and keep
  • Fall asleep to your favorite books
    Set a sleep timer while you listen
  • Unlimited listening to our Classics.
    Listen to thousands of classics for no extra cost. Ever
Loading ...
Regular Price: 4.99 USD

Reprieve Audiobook Summary

“Like Whitehead’s The Intuitionist, Alyssa Cole’s When No One Is Watching or Zakiya Dalila Harris’ The Other Black Girl, Reprieve straddles genres in the best possible way. . . . Sure to spark conversation and debate at book clubs across the land.” –LOS ANGELES TIMES

“An eventual American classic that is unrelenting in its beauty and incisive cultural critique.” – KIESE LAYMON

Recommended by New York Times * Los Angeles Times * NPR * Today * Esquire * O Quarterly * Boston Globe * Chicago Tribune * Harper’s Bazaar * Shondaland * Thrillist * The Millions * Crimereads * XTRA * Tor * Literary Hub * and more!

A chilling and blisteringly relevant literary novel of social horror centered around a brutal killing that takes place in a full-contact haunted escape room–a provocative exploration of capitalism, hate politics, racial fetishism, and our obsession with fear as entertainment.

On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize–a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house’s long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.

Those who were present on that fateful night lend their points of view: Kendra Brown, a teenager who’s been uprooted from her childhood home after the sudden loss of her father; Leonard Grandton, a desperate and impressionable hotel manager caught in a series of toxic entanglements; and Jaidee Charoensuk, a gay international student who came to the United States in a besotted search for his former English teacher. As each character’s journey unfurls and overlaps, deceit and misunderstandings fueled by obsession and prejudice are revealed, forcing all to reckon with the ways in which their beliefs and actions contributed to a horrifying catastrophe.

An astonishingly soulful exploration of complicity and masquerade, Reprieve combines the psychological tension of classic horror with searing social criticism to present an unsettling portrait of this tangled American life.

Other Top Audiobooks

Reprieve Audiobook Narrator

JD Jackson is the narrator of Reprieve audiobook that was written by James Han Mattson

James Han Mattson is the acclaimed author of The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is the recipient of awards from the Copernicus Society of America and Human-ities North Dakota. He was a featured storyteller on The Moth and has taught writing at the University of Iowa, the University of Cape Town, the George Washington University, the University of Maryland, Murray State University, and the University of California-Berkeley. He is currently the fiction editor of Hyphen magazine. He was born in Seoul, Korea, and raised in North Dakota.

About the Author(s) of Reprieve

James Han Mattson is the author of Reprieve

More From the Same

Reprieve Full Details

Narrator JD Jackson
Length 12 hours 16 minutes
Author James Han Mattson
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date October 05, 2021
ISBN 9780063079953

Subjects

The publisher of the Reprieve is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Fiction, Psychological

Additional info

The publisher of the Reprieve is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780063079953.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Gabby

February 15, 2022

I can see why people wouldn’t enjoy this if they went in thinking it would be a super scary horror or thriller. This is a quiet, thoughtful book that has some very powerful discussion in it. I personally really enjoyed it, I loved the characters and I appreciated the honesty in the writing and the dialogue. I especially loved Kendra and Bryan as characters! I made an entire reading vlog dedicated to this book for my Patreon, you can watch it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62536564

James

September 01, 2021

I intended to write a story about an English bookstore owner whose dull but stable existence is upended after he falls in love with a dazzling American actress but someone told me that was the plot of Notting Hill so I wrote this instead. Cheers!

Barbara

November 18, 2021

If you are an escape room enthusiast, this is the novel for you….maybe…well, you most likely won’t go to one in the future….or, maybe you will. So, “Reprieve” is a novel about a “full contact” escape room full of macabre and horror. The deal is, if you can get through the game at the Quigley House in Lincoln Nebraska(of all places), your team will win $60,000. Teams are made of 4, so each person goes home with $15,000! What a deal! All you must do, as you go through the 5 different cells, is realize it’s all make-believe. Oh, and you need to collect all your envelops to win. But how does one get these envelops?? Well, it’s gross. Plus, contestants are touched, prodded, shocked, hit, slapped with slime…need I go on? This is not one of those cozy mystery sorts of stories.The backstories of the four contestants take up most of the novel. From the start, we know that there was a murder on that night in the escape room. The four contestants are being interviewed by authorities to ascertain what really happened. Weaving into that event are the contestants’ reasons for being at the game. If I have a complaint, it’s that the backstories were a bit too much. In fact, getting involved in the character stories makes it a bit confusing as to what the relevance is to the main story. It started slow, with all these back stories. It took a while to weave it all together.Once the retelling of the night started, with the reader learning what happened in each cell, the story picked up. There is some cross-examination pieces that tie everything more together.It left me wondering, would I put myself through all that to get $15,000? Sounds easy, right? Well, read the book….PTSD is on the menu if you win or not. Of course, Halloween is not my favorite time of year, so, take my opinion with a large lick of salt.I listened to the audio production narrated by JD Jackson and produced by Harper Audio. Jackson did a fine job!

Angie

May 28, 2021

I'm in awe. I would say more, but I'm so devastated that I can't. And yet, the story somehow left me hopeful. That is its power, along with the masterful way Mattson combines a horror-murder mystery with brilliant social commentary on fetishization, racism, and heteronormativity. I'm just completely in awe. (I'm going to try to get some sleep now and hope that when I wake up, I will be less devastated so that I can articulate why I'm in awe.)

Nina The Wandering Reader

May 16, 2022

I can understand how many people were disappointed with this book seeing as they were not given much of what they were expecting in the summary: set in the 90's, contestants in a famous, full-contact, haunted house escape room are witnesses to a shocking murder. We are given detailed perspectives and backstories from three of those witnesses, a young Black girl who’s lost her father and has been uprooted from her home, a queer international student from Thailand who is using his studies as an excuse to hunt down his former English teacher, and a lonely hotel manager who is mislead by a toxic relationship. In spite of wishing with all my heart that this book centered more blood and scares–as I’m sure many readers were also wishing– this book still worked for me. Reading several negative reviews gave me an idea of what not to expect and I went into this book prepared to be underwhelmed. Instead, I found myself fully invested and loved how cleverly the story was woven together to reveal how the characters’ lives intertwined. This felt much more like a leisurely-paced mystery thriller than a horror novel. In fact, I’d like to think of it more as literary fiction with nods to horror pop-culture references. This is not a book of scares. It is heavy with social commentary on fear and race and fetishism. Many of the characters in this book are fallible, unlikeable, but very real. By the final page, I ended up loving this book. So I'm here to try to set you up for a more successful reading journey than some of your peers who probably gave up on this book. If you go into REPRIEVE expecting loads of horror, fast pacing, gore, and major plot twists, you will be disappointed. If you go into this book expecting the horrors of a haunted house/escape room attraction to be front and center in this story, you will also be disappointed.But if you are a lover of mystery and/or literary fiction with horror themes, fantastic character development, intricate story plot, and multiple perspectives, you might love this book as much as I did.

Blair

October 05, 2021

The first thing I’m going to say about Reprieve is that it isn’t a horror novel. I’m mentioning this because everything I’d heard about it, plus the cover, screamed horror to me, so I went in with very specific expectations. It’s actually better described as a sensitive study of three characters and the events that bring them together. It’s a deeper story, and less plot-driven, than I anticipated.Everything revolves around the Quigley House – which is referred to as an escape room in the blurbs of both the UK and US editions, though that phrase never appears in the book, where it’s an extreme haunted-house attraction or simply a haunt. The characters are Kendra, a horror-obsessed teenage girl who ends up working there; Jaidee, a student from Thailand who moves to the US in pursuit of the American dream and, more pertinently, a teacher he has a crush on; and Leonard, a sad-sack hotel manager who is tangentially, albeit crucially, connected to the owner of the Quigley House.Because the book opens with an extract from a courtroom cross-examination, we know a crime is committed at the Quigley House; that someone’s life is threatened at the very least. But this comes second to the backstories of our three main players. Kendra’s desperation to impress (and thus keep) her long-distance boyfriend; Jaidee’s struggles to assimilate, which lead him to develop harmful biases of his own in an attempt to claw back some sort of identity; Leonard’s destruction of a happy relationship through misplaced jealousy and paranoia – it’s a cocktail of insecurities and prejudices that ends up tying these people together. Kendra is a loveable heroine; Jaidee and Leonard are characters I both disliked and felt enormous sympathy for.I’ve ended up shelving Reprieve as horror anyway, because I enjoyed all its allusions and references to horror tropes, and after all, what is Kendra if not an atypical Final Girl? But I’m already forgetting the details of the plot, and the atmosphere didn’t make much of an impression either. The people are what will stay with me. I could have happily read much, much more about each of them.I received an advance review copy of Reprieve from the publisher through NetGalley.TinyLetter | Linktree

Jenny

September 16, 2021

A full contact haunted house story that tackles social horror, politics, race. (Not so much scary as it is gory.)

Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany)

July 01, 2022

Reading vlog: Can We Trust Books and Lala? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItBfp...Expectations with this one are going to be everything! It is a LITERARY book that is SOCIAL HORROR - more character study and social commentary than slasher. If you go in looking for a horror novel, you're probably going to be disappointed. It's a slow burn, which isn't going to be to everyone's taste. That said, I knew what I was getting and absolutely loved it! Reprieve brilliantly unpacks various nuances of racism, homophobia, white supremacy, and the fetishization of the other. The linking thread in the book is this extreme, full-contact haunted house/escape room where we know someone has died. We slowly get to see vignettes leading up to that death, interspersed with chapters about the involved characters. The majority of the book is really about the characters and their relationships to race, gender, and sexuality, not about the haunted house specifically. The book is set in rural 90's Nebraska and the main characters include a Black teen girl, her college-aged cousin, and that cousin's roommate who is a gay guy from Thailand.Through the book we see paternalistic and fetishizing versions of white supremacy, as well as violently dehumanizing versions, and the harm that comes from both. We see the intersection of racism and homophobia and how queer people who aren't white may experience racism from queer white people. We see how anti-Blackness can exist among people of color. You might assume they would support and identify with other marginalized groups, but that isn't necessarily the case. We see misogyny displayed across various intersections. There is a LOT going on in this book. The ending underscores the themes as all of these various pieces collide in tragic and violent ways. (view spoiler)[ A young Black man with a lot going for him becomes this horror cliche of the Black person dying first. And he is forced into that role by a white man who is puppeteering everything for his own advantage. There are so many levels to the racism that goes into him being chosen as the victim. And the epilogue where the Thai character finally admits his own culpability and racism is a gut punch. (hide spoiler)] I think this is a particularly important book as something written by a gay Asian (Korean) man who is engaging with this issue of anti-Blackness in Asian communities and recognizing that experiencing certain forms of oppression doesn't mean you can't also enact oppression on others. I loved this book and it's one I want to reread.

Liz

July 07, 2021

This book is incredible on so many levels its actually quite hard to know where to begin.With the basics I guess. If you are a fan of horror you'll love this. A creepy house, a dangerously addictive game to play where money can be won -if you can face down the scares and don't shout Reprieve. I mean how brilliant is that,especially given that the author has a keen eye for excellent characterisation and will make you love or detest the contestants before their challenge even begins. You also know this is a game that pulls no punches and not everyone will make it out alive..But Reprieve serves another purpose. Without giving too much away, this is also a blistering social commentary on the world we live in, on race and identity and the real bias of human interaction whether it is purposeful or not.I adored it. Reprieve is wildly entertaining and also hugely intelligent, written in a literary style that engages throughout and with an immersive, descriptive sense that gets inside your head. Hugely thought provoking whilst covering you in blood. I mean what else could you ask for from your horror novel.Highly Recommended.

ReadingWryly

November 02, 2022

I read this because I'd heard it referred to as Social Horror. It is. But it's subtle and nuanced, so don't go into it expecting it to slap you in the face, it tends toward the literary side. I also read this because I'd heard there was a locked room situation. There was. And though the escape room is integral to the story, most of the novel is not spent inside of it, so know that as well going in. I'm not quite sure how to talk about this. I felt such a roller coaster of emotions throughout. At first it read a bit slow. I can see a lot of people DNFing this and not getting far enough in to connect to it. I might have DNFed it myself if I hadn't been reading it specifically to review it, but I'm glad I didn't. Its one of those stories where I thought to myself, 'I'm not completely into it, but the writing feels polished and I'm sure he is going somewhere with this, so I suppose I'll hang in to see where it goes.' There was a lot of talk about horror books, as one of the protagonists is a horror addict, like many of us, and I found that incredibly relatable. Also, (FYI) this does spoil at least 3 King books, but they are well known ones. There were so many small things throughout that were so cleverly crafted. We focus on 4 or 5 characters who were all involved in a tragic event at a haunted house-esque escape room. But their narratives go back far enough to give the reader a real sense of who they are, their motives, and life goals. There were times when I rooted for them all and times when I hated them all, and I think that is the point of this. There is an underpinning discussion about what it means to be "other," (or more specifically non-white) but there is also gray area in the determination of the villain that feels very true to life. It's about blame, and humanity, and grace, and it forces the reader to look deeper into their own behavior. I would argue there is also some pathology involved that blurs the lines even further as well. A quote on the jacket by Rumaan Alam says, "The brilliance of James Hans Mattson's novel is in deploying the haunted house as a metaphor for our nation, where the true scare is a cultural reckoning with whiteness itself." Well said and apt. I have a lot of respect for this novel. I would recommend reading it, but create accurate expectations. This is not an Alice Feeney thriller, or a King Horror. It is something in and of itself.

Lou (nonfiction fiend)

October 05, 2021

Reprieve is a riveting novel spanning the horror, suspense and thriller genres that is refreshingly original, deeply disturbing and difficult to put down about a brutal, unprovoked killing that takes place at a haunted house. It's 1997 and Victor Dunlap, a bank manager and former Thailand-based English teacher agrees to participate in what most wouldn't even consider: a challenge whereby you must try to survive through the horrific torturous things the creators of Quigley House, a full-contact escape room style experience located in Lincoln, Nebraska, have in store for you, but its so emotionally draining that you will most likely be left with trauma for years to come. Full contact refers to the fact that those who work there are given full approval to physically engage with contestants as they vie to win a monetary prize. Owned and operated by puppet master extraordinaire John Quigley, who claims it to be safe, it has grown a large following in a specialised sector of the haunt market with people looking for more of a hands on terrifying experience rather than just the usual run of the mill paranormal themed experiences. But if there is one thing that proves it may not be as safe as suggested it's that a former participant had his throat slashed in front of the others and subsequently died while inside the niche attraction when 37-year-old hotel manager Leonard Grandton murdered black university student Bryan Douglas who had only taken part due to his 15-year-old cousin Kendra being employed there. The four-man team had included Victor’s fiancee, Jane Roth, a lover of all things Halloween but who drew the line at some of the "trials" she was put through at Quigley House including being restrained with handcuffs, shocked, muzzled with tape and even waterboarding, all for the thrills and the chance to win $60,000 if you can endure the torture. Jaidee Charoensuk, a university student whom Victor had taught in Kanchanaburi, was another member of the team, and Bryan took the last spot. Initially, everyone thought it was merely part of the act, but they swiftly realised it most certainly wasn't. How was this allowed to happen in a place people attend apparently for fun? This is an enthralling, utterly disturbing and compulsively readable thriller with a refreshingly original premise that confirms to me 100% that Mattson has based this classic horror on the horrifying nature of a real-life full contact haunted house that has been under a cloud of controversy known as McKamey Manor, run by the apparent sadist Russ McKamey. Many of the people who help operate it seem to get a kick out of degrading, dehumanising and terrifying the contestants, which is certainly an ethical concern, but as they have themselves agreed to it and signed legal waivers, what can be said?! It's a tension-filled, wickedly twisty and delicious deviant read that is endlessly thrilling as you race through the pages, but I must admit, all the money in the world wouldn't get me to agree to one of these experiences. The power those who work there have over participants gives them satisfaction which truly makes you question the nature and legality of these types of venues that are well known to cause PTSD. The story can also be viewed as an allegory based around guilt, sexuality and racism and the power these issues hold over us all. Highly recommended.

Cynthia

October 21, 2021

The Quigley House was a full contact haunted house that hosted a game where contestants had to get through terrifying obstacles in each room (cells) in an effort to claim a large monetary prize. In 1997, a horrific murder took place during one of these game segments. A member of a four person team was slaughtered right in front of the other contestants’ eyes. This isn’t the story of the horror that took place in that haunted house. This is the story of the people who let it happen.I cannot fathom the amount of insight one must possess to write a book as complex as this. James Han Mattson developed incredibly nuanced characters employed with greed, desire, obsession, prejudice, and naïveté. They do not recognize the driving forces of their behaviors. This is, perhaps, the most disturbing aspect of the story - how easily they deceive themselves, which proves frighteningly true to life. Mattson’s work demonstrated the power of subtle suggestion and manipulative persuasion with stunning clarity. This is a startling piece of literature that highlights all that is problematic within human nature and our culture.Although the reader knows who the killer and the victim will be within the first few chapters, making this narrative a question of why, not who, I still found my jaw dropping more than once as it all concluded. Furthermore, Mattson built the tension extremely well. He forced me to get to know all of the players in this game, which caused relentless heartache as I considered the victim’s looming fate. It hurt to get there. It hurt so much. This propulsive story is genuinely tragic and that isn’t simply because of a devastating murder. If the study of human behavior intrigues you, please pick this one up. But be prepared: This ingenious tale was merciless, yet it measured proportionately against the construct of our society. I am indelibly haunted and altered by Reprieve.

Beth, BooksNest

October 23, 2022

(4.5 stars)I bought this book expecting it to be a high-paced, action thriller, instead, though, it was a reflective novel and a critique of society but certainly wasn't without its fast-paced tension moments. Following three narrative perspectives, this book looks back at the lives of three people involved in a murder in a full-contact haunted house. We see their backstories, lives, personalities, and motives and slowly piece together how these characters wound up here. This book certainly has a lot to say and covers topics such as racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying, misogyny and so many more! James Han Mattson has created a diverse group of characters which gives him the space to discuss the racist treatment of these characters, as well as how these characters have become flawed in different ways with their own prejudices and discriminations. The horror side of this book came through in the haunted house, but also in the sad truths about our society. I found this a very compelling and fascinating read, I loved seeing how it all knitted together and whilst it wasn't what I expected, it did not disappoint.

Mary

April 24, 2022

Reprieve by James Han Mattson is one of those books where I don't really know what I just read, but I know that I liked it. It is described as social horror, which is a genre I had to look up to fully understand what it meant, and now that I do I can say that it is a clear representation. The weird thing is that I feel like a lot of this book went over my head and all of the characters were really hard for me to keep track of, and yet I can't say I didn't like it. I had no idea what to rate it, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew it deserved more stars than I was initially thinking. The plot ultimately leads to the murder and which contestant was killed, but the meat of this story is really about the different characters and a ton of various social stigmas. I really liked how the characters ended up tying together, but I am sure I missed some things as well.The writing style Mattson uses in Reprieve is very unique as well, which I think is something major that will make it not for every reader. It was interesting to see how this translated into the audiobook, and I think if I ever do a reread, I would read the actual book and make a LOT of notes. The narrator of the audio is JD Jackson, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about his narration. On one hand, I really liked it, but when I was looking at the book in comparison to how he was reading it, I think I missed out on a lot of inflections and emphases on certain words. This is a pretty long book, and the audio is at over 12 hours, so if you don't see yourself being able to sit down and read it, the audiobook would still be a good option. And do prepare yourself for lots of blood and gore. The Quigley House is downright terrifying, and I can tell you right now there is no way I would ever step foot in that place. I loved the escape room bit, but the things they had to do to get out are very graphic and disturbing. Reprieve is not a story for the faint of heart and that's for sure. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Queralt✨

July 02, 2021

I had a blast reading this. Quigley House is a full-contact haunted house where teams of 4 people attempt to go through five cells to win a pretty cash prize. It's all fun and giggles (though not really) until someone gets murdered. Reprieve tells you who has been murdered and who the killer is right off the bat, yet through snippets of the trial, interrogations, flashbacks, and following the characters you end up understanding how everyone ended up playing this crazy thing and why it ended this way.I have to say I became obsessed with the book since the instant I saw it in NetGalley and I'm SO glad this didn't disappoint. Highly recommend it.*book provided by NetGalley. honest review here.

Becky

August 12, 2021

Star review in the SF/F/H Spotlight issue of Booklist in August 2021: http://raforall.blogspot.com/2021/08/...Three Words That Describe This Book: thought provoking, immersive, high anxietyReadalikes: This is a rare treat of a novel that will be devoured by pulp horror fans of titles like The Dark Game by Janz or Kill Creek by Thomas, but will also be enjoyed by those who enjoy Victor LaValle and Colson Whitehead.

Frequently asked questions

Listening to audiobooks not only easy, it is also very convenient. You can listen to audiobooks on almost every device. From your laptop to your smart phone or even a smart speaker like Apple HomePod or even Alexa. Here’s how you can get started listening to audiobooks.

  • 1. Download your favorite audiobook app such as Speechify.
  • 2. Sign up for an account.
  • 3. Browse the library for the best audiobooks and select the first one for free
  • 4. Download the audiobook file to your device
  • 5. Open the Speechify audiobook app and select the audiobook you want to listen to.
  • 6. Adjust the playback speed and other settings to your preference.
  • 7. Press play and enjoy!

While you can listen to the bestsellers on almost any device, and preferences may vary, generally smart phones are offer the most convenience factor. You could be working out, grocery shopping, or even watching your dog in the dog park on a Saturday morning.
However, most audiobook apps work across multiple devices so you can pick up that riveting new Stephen King book you started at the dog park, back on your laptop when you get back home.

Speechify is one of the best apps for audiobooks. The pricing structure is the most competitive in the market and the app is easy to use. It features the best sellers and award winning authors. Listen to your favorite books or discover new ones and listen to real voice actors read to you. Getting started is easy, the first book is free.

Research showcasing the brain health benefits of reading on a regular basis is wide-ranging and undeniable. However, research comparing the benefits of reading vs listening is much more sparse. According to professor of psychology and author Dr. Kristen Willeumier, though, there is good reason to believe that the reading experience provided by audiobooks offers many of the same brain benefits as reading a physical book.

Audiobooks are recordings of books that are read aloud by a professional voice actor. The recordings are typically available for purchase and download in digital formats such as MP3, WMA, or AAC. They can also be streamed from online services like Speechify, Audible, AppleBooks, or Spotify.
You simply download the app onto your smart phone, create your account, and in Speechify, you can choose your first book, from our vast library of best-sellers and classics, to read for free.

Audiobooks, like real books can add up over time. Here’s where you can listen to audiobooks for free. Speechify let’s you read your first best seller for free. Apart from that, we have a vast selection of free audiobooks that you can enjoy. Get the same rich experience no matter if the book was free or not.

It depends. Yes, there are free audiobooks and paid audiobooks. Speechify offers a blend of both!

It varies. The easiest way depends on a few things. The app and service you use, which device, and platform. Speechify is the easiest way to listen to audiobooks. Downloading the app is quick. It is not a large app and does not eat up space on your iPhone or Android device.
Listening to audiobooks on your smart phone, with Speechify, is the easiest way to listen to audiobooks.

footer-waves