A Girl's Story

Written by Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer

Narrated by Tavia Gilbert

A famed memoirist revisits a time in her life when she was young and the man she had given herself to had left—and discovers the origin of her writing life in the process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamscape Media
• Release date: Apr 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781666550191

Annie Ernaux

Born in 1940, Annie Ernaux grew up in Normandy, studied at Rouen University, and later taught at secondary school. From 1977 to 2000, she was a professor at the Centre National d’Enseignement par Correspondance. Her books, in particular A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, have become contemporary classics in France. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.  

Reviews for A Girl's Story

[NoelReneCisnerosPeña · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Annie Ernaux reconstruye la vida de una chica, que es ella, de 1958 a 1963, de sus 18 a sus 23 años. Sus primeras experiencias amorosas y sexuales, su bulimia, la aspiración a ser escritora, están aquí, a través de la lente de una mujer que ve todo ello cincuenta años después, un acercamiento casi desprendido.

[Star Gater · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for accepting my request to audibly read and review A Girl's Story.

Author: Annie Ernaux; Alison L. Strayer
Published: 04/21/20
Narrator: Tavia Gilbert
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs

This is tricky. In the summer of 1958, Annie dreamed of marriage. Fifty years later, she tells the story of the night that formed her life. The standards for women were defined by their first intimate moment or was it? Contraception? Abortion? Kiss and telling? Egads.

A Girl's Story is about all those things and more. Was she conditioned to be naive? Are girls today? She spells out, fifty years later, how she felt and how she was treated. She wants in the most eloquent, yet simple ways for life to go as she was taught.

He plans to leave in the morning, will say goodbye. She gets up early fearful she has missed him. I felt incredibly sorry for her.

This is not for everyone. It's complicated, a thinker, and dark. It's for smart people. Like fine wine, best in little sips. It's not mass market. Many times, I would listen and let the scene resonate.

I can't remember if there was profanity. I didn't write it down.