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Miss Harper Can Do It Audiobook
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(3.01) - 209 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
Twenty-four-year-old elementary schoolteacher Annie Harper is left behind in Tacoma, Washington, when her boyfriend, David, is shipped overseas. Wrestling with the complex emotions tied to his absence, she begins writing a confessional memoir, imagining it as a moving account of “the woman at home.” But instead of writing a touching account of life on the home front, a tale of integrity and patience peppered with earnest love letters and fat, juicy tears, Annie lives life without David in ways she didn’t anticipate. She spends more time with her best friend, Gus, begins volunteering at a local retirement center, and adopts a pet chicken. Even as she misses David enormously between his sparse e-mails and choppy phone calls, she struggles with conflicted feelings about their long-distance relationship, her own identity and family history, and the ideological underpinnings of a war that’s exerting such a force on her life. Told through raw, rough draft chapters of Annie’s memoir-in-progress, Miss Harper Can Do It is a funny and poignant story of what it means to be loyal versus what it means to be in love. In Annie, Berentson has rendered a quirky young woman who copes with loss and stress in unexpected ways, only wavering briefly on the brink of self-pity and never losing her sense of humor.
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"I really loved this! I think mostly because the narrator has random thoughts and a wild imagination that I relate to. The book is funny and at times poignant. Undecided as to whether I liked the ending and how some strange subplots continued escalating further into strangeness, but overall I really liked it. It's the story of a young teacher whose boyfriend is sent to Iraq. She starts to write "memoirs" of her time without him and how she copes and what she does in his absence."
— Shannon (4 out of 5 stars)
Miss Harper Can Do It Listener Reviews
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" I wanted to like this one -- set in Tacoma, fresh voice, seemed clever (a memoir in the making) ... and then I lost interest. "
— Linda, 1/25/2014 -
" I think I liked this book more than 2 stars, but it took me forever to read so I had to downgrade it. I almost gave up halfway through, but I just started to get an inkling that the ending may be different than what I thought so I stuck with it. My biggest complaint is the use of footnotes. That drove me crazy because I'd have to stop in the middle of a paragraph to read a footnote that sometimes was so long it continued onto the next page and then I'd have to flip back and resume where I had been reading. Very annoying. I also didn't find it as funny as Jane Berentson meant it to be. Though there were a couple of laugh out loud parts. "
— Marjie, 1/21/2014 -
" I thought this book was a bit boring in parts but Jane Berentson is a really witty and funny writer so that made up for any parts that would drag a bit. I also like that she adopts a chicken. "
— Kelli, 1/19/2014 -
" How will Miss Harper deal with her man at sea and her elementary school classroom at the same time? "
— Jennifer, 1/16/2014 -
" I loved this book for its quirkiness and moments of laughing out loud funny. I think it's more for the under 30 crowd as it's a little immature. "
— Mindy, 1/15/2014 -
" Miss Harper's boyfriend goes to Irag with the military. The book is written in memoir form by Miss Harper. It is about her life while he is gone, and the relationship ups and downs and changes. Funny, yet touching. A good quick read. "
— Dawn, 11/25/2013 -
" A nice quick light read! And, it is written by Corynn's friend...pretty cool. "
— Jessica, 11/8/2013 -
" Cute book. The ending was a little strange (the short stories), and abrupt, but overall cute. Wouldn't recommend paying the $25 for it... I'll just let you borrow mine. "
— Sarah, 11/7/2013 -
" I was surprised by the ending, but pleased. Read it in a day and a half. Liked that she was a teacher and that apparently many of us harbor similar random mental ramblings. "
— Jena, 9/22/2013 -
" I loved the first 80% of this novel. It was honest, funny, and very relatable. The last 20% let me down but it was still an enjoyable book "
— Katie, 8/5/2013 -
" I really, really enjoyed this book. To describe it as charming would be an understatement. But it's not all sweetness and light - it's dramatic and full of pathos too. Recommended. "
— Sarah, 6/19/2013 -
" Utterly unreadable. Gave up around page 30. "
— Heather, 8/13/2012 -
" I REALLY liked this book. And then I came to the last few chapters, and I didn't like the decisions the character made. But it was really a great, funny book. I would totally be friends with Annie Harper. "
— Kristin, 8/9/2012 -
" Miss Harper teaches third grade and her boyfriend has been deployed to Iraq. Through her writing, we see how she copes with his absence...by making connections with other people, including an elderly nursing home resident, her best male friend, and a pet chicken. "
— Jennifer, 6/11/2012 -
" This book was just ok, I skimmed a lot. I hate fiction books that use footnotes! Just put it in the body! I skipped an absurdly long foot note that went on for pages and missed on out a key component of the story! "
— Heidi, 4/19/2012 -
" Annie Harper is a 3rd grade teacher whose boyfriend gets shipped off to Iraq for a year. She decides to write her memoirs as therapy to get her through the year. Such a funny and easy read--very much like watching a romantic-comedy. "
— Marley, 1/25/2012 -
" Cute enough story---but the extensive use of footnotes was incredibly frustrating and distracting. "
— Ellie, 12/31/2011 -
" Too long and dull. Could have been finished in 5 chapters!!!! "
— Lisiafranze, 11/3/2010 -
" Started off great... the ending... I would have written it differently. Oops. "
— Cooper, 10/3/2010 -
" How will Miss Harper deal with her man at sea and her elementary school classroom at the same time? "
— Jennifer, 8/27/2010
About Jeannie Stith
Jeannie Stith is a professional voice-over artist. Her clients for professional and promotional voice work include Crayola, Barbie, Motorola, and Verizon. Also an Earphones Award–winning narrator, she has read more than a dozen audio books, including Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, Nightworld by L. J. Smith, and There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones.