Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

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.

The Agony of Bun O'Keefe

By: Heather Smith
Narrated by: Amanda Arcuri
Try for £0.00

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

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

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.

Summary

Little Miss Sunshine meets Room in this quirky, heartwarming story of friendship, loyalty, and discovery.

It's Newfoundland, 1986. Fourteen-year-old Bun O'Keefe has lived a solitary life in an unsafe, unsanitary house. Her mother is a compulsive hoarder, and Bun has had little contact with the outside world. What she's learned about life comes from the random books and old VHS tapes that she finds in the boxes and bags her mother brings home. Bun and her mother rarely talk, so when Bun's mother tells Bun to leave one day, she does.

Hitchhiking out of town, Bun ends up on the streets of St. John's, Newfoundland. Fortunately, the first person she meets is Busker Boy, a street musician who senses her naivety and takes her in. Together they live in a house with an eclectic cast of characters: Chef, a hotel dishwasher with culinary dreams; Cher, a drag queen with a tragic past; Big Eyes, a Catholic school girl desperately trying to reinvent herself; and The Landlord, a man who Bun is told to avoid at all cost.

Through her experiences with her new roommates, and their sometimes tragic revelations, Bun learns that the world extends beyond the walls of her mother's house and discovers the joy of being part of a new family - a family of friends who care.

©2017 Heather Smith (P)2017 Penguin Teen
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Range of Motion cover art
Whiskey & Ribbons cover art
The Spring Girls cover art
One for the Murphys cover art
Rockoholic cover art
American Street cover art
Lullabies for Little Criminals cover art
Muriel Avenue Sluts cover art
5 Years Later cover art
Winter Loon cover art
Marrow cover art
The One I Left Behind cover art
Sugar cover art
White Cat cover art
Maria in the Moon cover art
Allegedly cover art

Critic reviews

2017, Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design, Prose Fiction, First Prize (Tie)

2018, Amy Mathers Teen Book Award, Finalist

2018, Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People, Finalist

2018, Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards. Short-listed

2019, White Pine Award, Nominee

"Heather Smith's second novel burns with nostalgia, wonder and sadness… a quietly profound, starkly Canadian account of being unwanted by family and society." (Globe and Mail)

"Teens will truly dive into Bun’s mind and her surroundings through her understanding of the world… A nuanced, well-done novel about tough topics that deserves a place in most collections." (School Library Journal)

What listeners say about The Agony of Bun O'Keefe

Average customer ratings

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