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Imaginary Friend Audiobook, by Stephen Chbosky Play Audiobook Sample

Imaginary Friend Audiobook

Imaginary Friend Audiobook, by Stephen Chbosky Play Audiobook Sample
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Read By: Christine Lakin Publisher: Grand Central Publishing Listen Time: at 1.0x Speed 16.33 hours at 1.5x Speed 12.25 hours at 2.0x Speed Release Date: October 2019 Format: Unabridged Audiobook ISBN: 9781549143199

Quick Stats About this Audiobook

Total Audiobook Chapters:

136

Longest Chapter Length:

36:35 minutes

Shortest Chapter Length:

01:30 minutes

Average Chapter Length:

10:49 minutes

Audiobooks by this Author:

2

Other Audiobooks Written by Stephen Chbosky: > View All...

Publisher Description

From a New York Times bestselling author, a young boy is haunted by a voice in his head in this "epic horror" novel, perfect for fans of Stephen King (Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will).

Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her seven year-old son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night. At first, the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. Days later, he emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a treehouse in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again.

 

Twenty years ago, Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower made readers everywhere feel infinite. Now, Chbosky has returned with an epic work of literary horror, years in the making, whose grand scale and rich emotion redefine the genre. Read it with the lights on.

One of The Year's Best Books (People, EW, Lithub, Vox, Washington Post, and more)

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"OMG! This was so good! The only problem I had was the small print. That's why I bought the audiobook. I don't really like reading horror, but im so glad I picked this one. It had me on my tippy toes, wondering what was going to happen next. There were twist and turns you didn't see coming! "

— Hannah Dixon (5 out of 5 stars)

Quotes

  • “A fearsome, remarkably ambitious novel that breaks through the boundaries of the horror genre to become epic.”

    — Lincoln Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author
  • “[A] spooky, surreal thriller…You’ll feel locked in the battle between good and evil as Kate and Christopher fight for their lives.”

    — Good Housekeeping
  • “Chbosky’s true skill is in turning a book of absolute horrors—both fantastical and real—into an uplifting yarn.”

    — New York Times
  • “One of the most affecting accounts of parental devotion…A page-turning meditation on human suffering whose spiritual dimension does not become fully apparent until the entire story has been told.”

    — Washington Post
  • “Christine Lakin’s superb narration of this horror novel from the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower immerses listeners in the gruesome…Lakin is exceptional in portraying the story’s many characters…[and] as Christopher uncovers mysteries, Lakin’s multifaceted voice creates a mood of dread. Despite the work’s length, Lakin keeps listeners engaged. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”

    — AudioFile
  • “In Imaginary Friend, Chbosky squeezes horror from everyday life.”

    — NPR
  • “An immersive read that walks the line between dark fantasy and horror…A big, scary book.”

    — Booklist
  • “Excellent. A pleasing book for those who like to scare themselves silly, one to read with the lights on and the door bolted.”

    — Kirkus Reviews
  • “Imaginary Friend is not just a horror story; it’s also a deeply religious book…Ultimately, Imaginary Friend celebrates the best of human qualities: love, devotion, and goodness.”

    — The Millions
  • With Imaginary Friend, Stephen Chbosky has written another classic, setting a new high watermark for fantasy horror. It is the greatest story ever told of love and salvation in which a little child shall save them. It is as spine-tingling sinister as a Stephen King tome, as ghastly as any ghost story by Peter Straub, as gothic as any Neil Gaiman title. It should become a horror perennial, taken out at Halloween and Christmas or any other time a reader wants a proper fight.

    — Washington Independent
  • Chbosky brings deep humanity to his characters and creates genuinely unsettling tableaux, including a nightmarish otherworld that Christopher accesses via his treehouse.

    — Publishers Weekly
  • You won't want to miss this spooky, surreal thriller.

    — Good Housekeeping
  • The author of Perks of Being a Wallflower goes full Stephen King in his new supernatural thriller of epic proportions. . . This is my kind of Christmas novel!

    — LitHub
  • This is an immersive read. . . With its highly precocious young hero, the novel reads like a season of Stranger Things.

    — Booklist
  • It's not just horror that Stephen Chbosky is tackling: it's religion, too [which] makes the world-building all the more richer...not a light read, but it is a thrilling one.

    — Variety
  • Imaginary Friend is simply extraordinary reading experience -- it reminded me of discovering a classic Stephen King novel from two decades ago, but all funneled through Chbosky's utterly unique style. A tremendous read, every bit worth the wait.

    — Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of A Dark Matter
  • Imaginary Friend has bee a long time coming. And like a fine Bordeaux, it rewards that wait in countless ways. This is a fearsome, remarkably ambitious novel that breaks through the boundaries of the horror genre to become epic -- in all the best senses of the word.

    — Lincoln Child, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Verses for the Dead and City of Endless Night
  • Imaginary Friend is a sprawling epic horror novel that hearkens back to the classics of 1970s Golden Age, but, like Stranger Things, with a twinkle in its malevolent eye. Enormous, scary fun.

    — Dan Choan, bestselling author of Ill Will
  • Sure, this unputdownable book is the scariest thing I've read in a long time. Mysterious woods. Evil forces. Unseen worlds. But it's also, like everything Chbosky does, imbued with heart and soul. You'll fall in love with these characters. That's why they stay with you, like a haunting.

    — R. J. Palacio, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wonder
  • An unputdownable, extraordinary book. Stephen Chbosky manages to combine the heart and emotion that suffuses all of his work with Stephen King chills. The pages practically turn themselves.

    — Greer Hendrick & Sarah Pekkanen, #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Wife Between Us and An Anonymous Girl
  • Reminiscent of the epic novels of Stephen King. . . With multiple points of view that probe the thoughts and nightmares of characters from all over town, this is an immersive read that walks the line between dark fantasy and horror [and] reads like a season of Stranger Things. . . [Imaginary Friend] will sell itself to readers who have waited twenty years for a new novel from Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, 1999), but horror fans will also be curious. A big, scary book.

    — Booklist
  • A creepy horror yarn that would do Stephen King proud. . . The reader will want to be sure that no one is hiding behind the chair. . . That's the nature of a good scary story -- and this one is excellent. A pleasing book for those who like to scare themselves silly, one to read with the lights on and the door bolted.

    — Kirkus
  • If you grew up reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower, you won't want to miss this spooky, surreal thriller. . . You'll feel locked in the battle between good and evil as Kate and Christopher fight for their lives.

    — Good Housekeeping
  • If you aren't blown away by the first fifty pages of Imaginary Friend, you need to get your sense of wonder checked.

    — Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman and NOS4A2
  • Like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Imaginary Friend says that no matter how dark the places you have been or the things you have seen, no one and nothing and nowhere is beyond redemption. What is astonishing and laugh-out-loud genius is that Chbosky has disguised all this wisdom in an entertaining thriller. In true Stephen Chbosky style, he gives you the bran and the doughnut. Spiritual enlightenment and horror. I don't know how he did it. But he did it. It's a masterpiece.

    — Emma Watson, actor and activist
  • A haunting and thrilling novel pulsing with the radical empathy that makes Chbosky's work so special.

    — John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars
  • An epic work of horror. . . Ambitious and compulsively readable. . . a Grand Guignol exploration of what it means to have faith, even in the face of absolute hopelessness. . . His willingness to pursue and present answers to such meaningful queries is what elevates Imaginary Friend from a more than competent attempt at the horror genre to a formidable work on par with other genre operas that also tackle spiritual matters, like Stephen King's 1978 behemoth 'The Stand' or Justin Cronin's 'The Passage' trilogy. Imaginary Friend is a book that far outstrips the expectations of his chosen genre. . . a book full of it's own light.

    — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  • Chbosky's horror writing stands on its own. . . a gleeful meditation. . . the nine years Chbosky reportedly spent writing the book shows in his well-crafted scares, snappy pacing and finely turned plot. Imaginary Friend is well worth the time for those who dare.

    — TIME Magazine
  • Imaginary Friend is an all-out, not-for-the-fainthearted horror novel, one of the most effective and ambitious of recent years. . . To be sure, the underlying sensibility that characterized 'Wallflower' is present in the new book, particularly in its empathetic portraits of people struggling to recover from personal tragedy. . . Perhaps its most impressive aspect is the confidence with which Chbosky deploys the more fantastical elements of his complex narrative. . . A very human story with universal implications.

    — Washington Post
  • Twenty years after his smash hit novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky returns. . . an ambitious tale narrated through multiple perspectives, mashing together horror, fairy tales and the (rewritten) Bible. . . But Chbosky's true skill is in turning a book of absolute horrors -- both fantastical and real -- into an uplifting yarn. [This is] a book about so much -- fate, destiny, redemption, power. . . Chbosky has his eye firmly on humanity.

    — New York Times Book Review
  • THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROne of Fall 2019's Best Books (People, EW, LitHub, Vox, Bustle, Washington Post, Associated Press, and more)

Awards

  • A Literary Hub Pick of Most Anticipated Books of 2019
  • An Entertainment Weekly Pick of the 40 Biggest Titles of the Season
  • An October 2019 LibraryReads Pick
  • A New York Times Pick of the Month
  • A USA Today Pick of Books Not to Miss
  • New York Times bestseller
  • A Kirkus Reviews Pick of Scariest Books Written This Year
  • A BookPage Book of the Day selection
  • Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
  • A Variety Magazine Pick of Best Books of 2019
  • A 2019 Locus Recommendation
  • Longlisted for the Glass Bell Award
  • Finalist for the Locus Award

Imaginary Friend Listener Reviews

Overall Performance: 2 out of 52 out of 52 out of 52 out of 52 out of 5 (2.00)
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Narration: 5 out of 55 out of 55 out of 55 out of 55 out of 5 (5.00)
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Story: 1 out of 51 out of 51 out of 51 out of 51 out of 5 (1.00)
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  • Overall Performance: 2 out of 52 out of 52 out of 52 out of 52 out of 5 Narration Rating: 5 out of 55 out of 55 out of 55 out of 55 out of 5 Story Rating: 1 out of 51 out of 51 out of 51 out of 51 out of 5

    — Josue Feliciano, 2/11/2023

About Stephen Chbosky

Stephen Chbosky is the author of the multimillion-copy bestselling debut novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower and his second novel, Imaginary Friend, a New York Times bestseller and a Variety magazine pick of best books of the year. In 2012, he wrote and directed an acclaimed film adaptation of his novel, and he also directed the acclaimed 2017 film Wonder.

About Christine Lakin

Christine Lakin is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and acclaimed television actress, best known for her roles as Alicia “Al” Lambert on the hit family comedy Step by Step and as Joan of Arc on Showtime’s Reefer Madness.