California cover art

California

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

California

By: Edan Lepucki
Narrated by: Emma Galvin
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

The sunshine state lies in darkness. Los Angeles is in ruins, left to the angels now. And the world Cal and Frida have always known is gone.

Cal and Frida have left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable despite the isolation and hardships they face. Consumed by fear of the future and mourning for a past they can't reclaim, they seek comfort and solace in each other. But the tentative existence they've built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she's pregnant. Terrified of the unknown but unsure of their ability to raise a child alone, Cal and Frida set out for the nearest settlement, a guarded and paranoid community with dark secrets. These people can offer them security, but Cal and Frida soon realise this community poses its own dangers. In this unfamiliar world, where everything and everyone can be perceived as a threat, the couple must quickly decide whom to trust.

A gripping and provocative debut novel by a stunning new talent, California imagines a frighteningly realistic near future, in which clashes between mankind's dark nature and irrepressible resilience force us to question how far we will go to protect the ones we love.

©2014 Edan Lepucki (P)2014 Hachette Audio
Fiction Literary Fiction
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Safekeeping cover art
Touching Stars cover art
Moon of the Crusted Snow cover art
How to Survive a Summer cover art
The Salt Line cover art
The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight cover art
Schroder cover art
The Night the Lights Went Out cover art
Wynn in Doubt cover art
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes cover art
The Road cover art
Elantris (2 of 3) [Dramatized Adaptation] cover art
The Shadow of What Was Lost cover art
True Places cover art
Parable of the Sower cover art
Wicked cover art

Critic reviews

"An expansive, full-bodied and masterful narrative of humans caught in the most extreme situations." (Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk)
"Stunning and brilliant... By turns funny and heartbreaking, scary and tender, beautifully written and compulsively page-turning, this is a book that will haunt me." (Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply and Stay Awake)
"It's tempting to call this novel post-apocalyptic, but really, it's about an apocalypse in progress, an apocalypse that might already be happening." (Robin Sloan, author of Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore)

What listeners say about California

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

A bit boring...

Would you try another book written by Edan Lepucki or narrated by Emma Galvin?

Edan Lepucki - maybe. Emma Galvin - No.

Has California put you off other books in this genre?

No.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Emma Galvin?

No.

Any additional comments?

Perhaps it's unfair for me to comment as I am only (exactly) 2/3rds of the way through the book but... it's a bit boring. Too much talk about feelings and babies and love, not enough about why they are where they are! Yes, various disasters are elluded to but, so far, not fleshed out. This is to the 'apocalypse' genre what Twilight is to the Vampire genre. And, from the reviews I have read on Amazon, the story apparently fizzles out towards the end so I am not sure I'll bother finishing it. Besides which the narrator sounds like a bored and sullen teenager which doesn't help.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!