Julia Whelan Audiobooks To Start Listening To
Perhaps you’ve heard of Julia Whelan — Grammy-nominated audiobook director and multiple award-winning narrator — or perhaps you just haven’t stepped into the wondrous world of audiobooks yet. Whelan dominates the audiobook scene and has narrated over 400 of them across several different genres. Whether she takes on a romance, memoir, or thriller, Whelan not only knows how to bring a story to life but also how to make it an experience that enhances all aspects of the narrative. If you’re curious to hear the critically-acclaimed voice that has so many listeners talking, then check out these 10 novels narrated by Julia Whelan.
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Add to BookshelfShit Cassandra Saw
by Gwen E. Kirby
Read by Julia Whelan, Sura Siu, Rob Shapiro, Jeremy Carlisle Parker and Rebecca Lowman
In Greek mythology, Apollo granted the Trojan priestess, Cassandra, the ability to give prophecies, only to later curse her into never being believed again — all because she refused his sexual advances. With an ensemble cast, Whelan is joined by Surs Siu, Rob Shapiro, Jeremy Carlisle Parker, and Rebecca Lowman in this collection of short stories that look at the daily violences and troubles women face through a modern, feminist lens. The women of these stories fight back by filling their mouths with fangs, turning into cockroaches, or vandalizing their enemy’s territory — all in an attempt to reclaim their power and safety.
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Happy Place
by Emily Henry
Read by Julia Whelan
Could there be anything worse than vacationing with your friends and your ex? Try pretending to still be dating said ex, too! Harriet and Wyn had been together for years but had only been broken up for five months. When their annual group trip to Maine comes up — and their best friends still don’t know the truth — they decide that they can spend one last week playing the part of two people still very much in love. But is it really acting if their feelings never really went away? Can this trip serve as a reminder of all the reasons they were meant to be?
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Evvie Drake Starts Over: A Read with Jenna Pick
by Linda Holmes
Read by Julia Whelan and Linda Holmes
Evvie Drake is about to leave her husband when she receives a phone call — he’s dead. A year after his fatal car accident, Evvie still lives in their home, and in the town she wanted to leave so badly — a secret she still hasn’t revealed to anyone. When former Major League baseball player, Dean Tenney, comes to this small town in Maine to battle a bad case of the “yips,” Evvie’s enormous, empty house now feels a little fuller with Dean staying in the attached apartment. Between the widow’s secret and the pitcher’s ailment, the two just might find a way to heal each other.
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Hangsaman
by Shirley Jackson
Read by Julia Whelan
In this gothic classic, Whelan takes on the role of Natalie Waite and her struggle with mental health. Natalie applies to a liberal arts college to escape her parent’s home and the life she knows she’s doomed to have if she stays — but the night before she leaves, she’s sexually assaulted. Determined to pretend it didn’t happen, Natalie moves forward with her life at college but is lonely and dissociates often — reimagining herself as other people, in other scenarios. But when another girl befriends Natalie, it’s not the start of a bright new chapter — it’s the end of a dark story.
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Malibu Rising: A Read with Jenna Pick
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Read by Julia Whelan
Getting inside the head of four different siblings — Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit Riva — Whelan is able to embody all of these characters and brings each one to life in their own unique way. When Nina throws — but doesn’t attend — her annual end-of-summer bash at her family’s Malibu beach house, she has no idea that, despite her absence, it’ll be one she never forgets. Her siblings have their own expectations of the party, all unaware that it would be the last in that house. Secrets explode throughout the night that will burn the Riva mansion down to the ground by dawn.
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The Assignment
by Liza Wiemer
Read by Emily Lawrence, Lincoln Hoppe, Julia Whelan, Andrew Eiden, Liza Wiemer and Full Cast
Based on true events, a history teacher assigns his students a debate: one side is to argue against the Final Solution (the horrific Jewish Genocide) and the other is to argue for it. Some students are appalled by this assignment and walk out of the classroom. But even once an alternative assignment is offered, the damage has already been done. When swastikas are drawn, and Hitler salutes are thrown up, Cade and Logan invoke the help of other students, their community, and the media to shed light on the anti-semitism that has unveiled itself at the school. While challenging the assignment means risking their grade, the bigger danger lies in their tolerance of it.
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Chemistry
by Weike Wang
Read by Julia Whelan
A woman is moments away from achieving it all. Not only is she about to graduate with a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, but her dream boyfriend is about to propose. But when he does, the stresses of school, life, and love reach a boiling point and overflow. The narrator leaves school and her boyfriend, needing time to reflect on the pressure she’s facing from her parents: her father who came to the US to get his own Ph.D. in physics and her resentful mother who followed him. Now realizing that she pursued this program to appease them, it’s time to discover who she is outside of academia, and how she wants to use her Ph.D. — if she finishes it at all.
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I Have Some Questions for You
by Rebecca Makkai
Read by Julia Whelan and JD Jackson
Podcaster and film professor, Bodie Kane, has been able to make a name for herself despite the childhood trauma that could have held her back — namely the murder of her boarding school roommate. When Bodie takes a step back into the past to teach a course at Granby, the school’s history continues to haunt her. Suddenly Bodie is reanalyzing the case — something she hadn’t dared to even think about before. When she begins to put together missing pieces and spot inconsistencies, she realizes that the police arrested the wrong person all those years ago. The real killer is still out there — and she might know exactly who it is.
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My Year of Rest and Relaxation
by Ottessa Moshfegh
Read by Julia Whelan
Through her psychiatrist’s enabling, a woman is able to get enough pills to sleep through an entire year — waking only to take trips to her local bodega for sustenance, accept visits from her obnoxious friend Reva, and watch films until her eyes glaze over. Whelan narrates the voice of an unnamed, young, and successful woman as she treats her inner wounds with a year of rest and relaxation — bringing a certain ambience to her Ambien-induced, languid life. But is this really a solution, or will she learn that while you might be able to sleepwalk away from your problems, you can’t hide from them.
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10
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Educated
by Tara Westover
Read by Julia Whelan
Whelan won two Audie awards for this astounding memoir — Autobiography or Memoir, and Best Female Narrator — and it’s easy to see why. In her memoir, Tara Westover recounts her family’s unorthodox way of life up in the mountains, which kept her out of a classroom — and away from the rest of civilization — until she was seventeen. Between her survivalist parents and her violent brother, Tara didn’t stand a chance at a normal life, let alone an education. But once determined to change this, she travels far and wide in search of the knowledge she craved and the education she deserved.
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