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The Terrible

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What to expect

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Terrible written and read by Yrsa Daley-Ward with Howard Daley-Ward as Roo.

'You may not run away from the thing that you are
because it comes and comes and comes as sure as you breathe.'

This is the story of Yrsa Daley-Ward, and all the things that happened - 'even the Terrible Things (and God, there were Terrible Things)'. It's about her childhood in the north-west of England with her beautiful, careworn mother Marcia, Linford (the man formerly known as Dad, 'half-fun, half-frightening') and her little brother Roo, who sees things written in the stars. It's about growing up and discovering the power and fear of her own sexuality, of pitch grey days of pills and powder and encounters. It's about damage and pain, but also joy. Told with raw intensity, shocking honesty and the poetry of the darkest of fairy tales, The Terrible is a memoir of going under, losing yourself, and finding your voice.

Critics Review

Elegant, daring, profound - confirms her abundant talent as a writer
Observer
Beautiful and harrowing . . . Daley-Ward writes with disarming honesty
Vogue
A major literary talent . . . speaks about the power and powerlessness that young women are subject to in a wholly fresh, clear-eyed way . . . you'll find it hard to come away from The Terrible without a stab of recognition in your chest
Stylist
Daley-Ward explores the connection between raw emotion and the mechanics of language with more wildness and tenacity than ever
Dazed
A rare combination of literary brilliance, originality of voice and a narrative that commands you to keep going until you've reached the last page . . . her prose is invigorating, razor-sharp and moves at the speed of light . . . Yrsa Daley-Ward is an explosive new talent and this book should not be missed
Evening Standard
The Terrible's raw yet lilting prose draws the reader in at once. Unpredictable shifts in form and structure - from prose to poetry and script - are refreshingly disorientating. This is both a defiant book and a defiantly inventive one.
The Times Literary Supplement
Daley-Ward is a stylish writer, as well as an unusual voice . . . she has a knack for distilling wild emotions into precise imagery, for selecting insightful impressions.
Sunday Times
Daley-Ward's beautiful prose wrapped its hands around my neck - I found myself doing stupid things like walking through New York at rush hour with my nose buried in her book.
The New York Times
The Terrible is a lyrical piece of writing that oscillates between prose and poetry . . . Daley-Ward's lines land like dandelion spores, these weightless things that are somehow simultaneously profound
Irish Times Magazine
Daley-Ward has cooked a broth of dizzying emotions and touching moments down to a nuanced and taut account . . . there are so many flourishes of imagination and pathos here, that it's impossible not to get caught up in the torrential pace of the narrative . . .the result is one of the year's genuine must reads
Irish Independent
Author Yrsa Daley-Ward
Narrator Yrsa Daley-Ward, Howard Daley-Ward
Duration 4 hours
Release Date
ISBN 9780141989563
Format Audiobook
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Genre Autobiography: writers, Memoirs
Collections Books by Women of Colour
Availability AU, GB, IE

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