• We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

  • By: Karen Joy Fowler
  • Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
  • Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (1,918 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves  By  cover art

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

By: Karen Joy Fowler
Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.75

Buy for $15.75

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

The New York Times best-selling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.

Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I was raised with a chimpanzee”, she explains. “I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion...she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her as a sister”. As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence.

In We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler weaves her most accomplished work to date - a tale of loving but fallible people whose well-intentioned actions lead to heartbreaking consequences.

©2012 Karen Joy Fowler (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"A novel so readably juicy and surreptitiously smart, it deserves all the attention it can get.... [Its] fresh diction and madcap plot bend the tone toward comedy, but it never mislays its solemn raison d’être. Monkeyshines aside, this is a story of Everyfamily in which loss engraves relationships, truth is a soulful stalker and coming-of-age means facing down the mirror, recognizing the shape-shifting notion of self." (Barbara Kingsolver, The New York Times Book Review)

"Fowler’s interests here are in what sets humans apart from their fellow primates. Cognitive, language and memory skills all come into playful question. But the heart of the novel - and it has a big, warm, loudly beating heart throughout - is in its gradually pieced-together tale of family togetherness, disruption and reconciliation. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is Fowler at her best, mixing cerebral and emotional appeal together in an utterly captivating manner." (The Seattle Times)

"Elegantly and humorously orchestrated.... Knitting together Rosemary’s at times poignant, at times hilarious scraps of uncovered memories, Fowler creates a fantastical tale of raw, animalistic love." (O, The Oprah Magazine)

What listeners say about We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    745
  • 4 Stars
    677
  • 3 Stars
    364
  • 2 Stars
    91
  • 1 Stars
    41
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    844
  • 4 Stars
    567
  • 3 Stars
    228
  • 2 Stars
    42
  • 1 Stars
    26
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    699
  • 4 Stars
    543
  • 3 Stars
    324
  • 2 Stars
    104
  • 1 Stars
    41

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

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

This was totally worth the credit.

The title, "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves," sums the book up perfectly. This story is about a family being broken apart in the most unusual way. The story is narrated by Rosemary, and her view of how this tragedy affected herself and the other members of the family. Fowler is able to write this story as if the story had happened to her, as if she were Rosemary. I checked more than once to make sure that this wasn't a memoir because she made it seem so believable from the 1st person narrative. I don't want to reveal much more of the story because I think it might be more enjoyable the less the reader knows about it to begin with. This is a beautiful and sad story, one that pulled at my heartstrings. The book does start off in a strange place, in the middle of the story, but don't let that put you off because it doesn't take long for her to go back to the beginning of all that happened. I also really appreciated the ending. Book endings can be funny business sometimes and I feel that this one was just about right. This story resonated with me and is one of my better reads/listens of the year. I would have no problem recommending it to anyone.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

59 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Impressive

Not familiar with Karen Joy Fowler, I found the beginning to be unimpressive. There was something off about the central character and I couldn’t figure out what. It seemed unrealistic. Then when the narrator begins telling the missing parts from her early life I realized that the beginning was a brilliant portrait.

The narrator of the book, Rosemarie, starts her book with the middle of her tale, then braids back and forth, threading episodes in her earlier years and later years. She explains each shift to the reader in a chatty conversational tone.

In a way the structure echoes the complexity of the story. It is both beautifully crafted and provocative. This is a story that is not about an ordinary family, yet it is about commonality.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

39 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Animals unite!

This is one of the best books I've read/listened in the past year - which is more of a compliment than it might sound like because I read/listen to about 20 books a month. The story was gripping and the characters were sympathetic in both their strengths and failings. I know some people were bothered by the description of animal torture (blithely referred to in our culture as "research"). I was deeply affected myself but I do think it is something we all need to hear about. Like a character in the book says, we might vaguely know that this is going on but until we are made uncomfortable with it nothing will ever change. And really, it does need to change (IMHO).

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Misleading & Manipulative

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Probably not. There are many needless descriptions of cruel experiments on animals. The flimsy "story" is an excuse for the author to rant about animal rights, and she undermines her cause by stacking the deck in her favor. There isn't much plot and the characters are thinly drawn. The nararrator is annoying and comes off like a lecturer rather than a storyteller.

What was most disappointing about Karen Joy Fowler’s story?

The author is kind of misleading. It starts off as a story about a troubled girl with family problems stemming from a missing sibling. None of the characters are very sympathetic and it was hard to care about anyone. The main character is abrasive and unreliable/deceptive. She makes a lot of academic references and name drops prominent scientists and researchers, so we know that she's supposed to be very very smart.

By the middle of the book the story falters and the book turns into a long lecture about experiments on animals. The details seemed gratuitous--she could have made her point citing a few cases, rather than going on and on. It seemed like a cheap shock tactic.

Any additional comments?

Please warn readers about the many graphic descriptions of animal cruelty. If I had known about that I wouldn't have bought the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

I Just Don't Understand What's To Like Here...

I read the reviews of this novel and it sounded interesting. This novel won a Pen/Faulkner Award and, yet, I did not enjoy it at all and did not find the writing particularly compelling on any level. What's wrong with me? My opinion: the characters are shallow, the storyline is disjointed (jumping from one time period to another throughout), the graphic descriptions of animal cruelty are gratuitous and unnecessary. How did this novel win an award? I kept trying to get involved but to no avail; I found it boring, transparently political and an annoying waste of time.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

This was a tough read for me.

I was way into the book before I realized that Fern was not a mentally handicapped child! Then when we get into the gore of how animals are treated and how disposable they are (not that I don't know this) I no longer wanted to continue. Good for some not for me!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

'Monkey-Girl' Finds Her Way Out of the Closet

I enjoyed this story of a woman who has had to come to terms with her very unusual upbringing; how it has affected her relationships with her parents and her brother, and her own ability to establish significant connections with other human beings. The author has managed to give each character depth, even the peripheral ones, and even the not-so-nice characters are sympathetic. Well-told.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Completely Beside Myself! Read This!

Wow. I'm completely beside myself. This book hooked me and delivered. It made me laugh, cry, and think. It taught me something new and changed my mind about some issues. It reminded me. It gave me hope.

Fern and Rosemary, are two sisters who are separated. As sister separations tend to do, this act unhinged the family, but there is hope for a brighter tomorrow. I can't say more without spoiling it for you, so just trust me on this one.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful Book but Robotically Read

If you could sum up We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves in three words, what would they be?

Brilliant and funny

Any additional comments?

I ended up reading rather than listening to this book. I don't like to write negatively about anyone--or think I don't--but the way this is read somehow keeps you from hearing the very clever humor and style.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The mysteries of families

Where does We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Unfortunately, I had heard an interview with the author about the book which provided a significant plot spoiler, but even knowing what I knew, I found the novel psychologically intriguing and suspenseful, as well as thought provoking. It verged on the didactic at times, but only to the extent that a central concern of the novel required it because it was integral to the characters.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful