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Junk

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Junk

By: Melvin Burgess
Narrated by: Katrina Baylis
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About this listen

"Everything is free. That's the secret. The only thing that isn't free is you. You do as you're told; you sit in your seat till they say, 'Stand.' You stay put till they say, 'Go.' Maybe that's the way you like it. It's easy. It's all there. You don't have to think about it. You don't even have to feel it. I sometimes wonder how this planet keeps on sticking to my feet. They did everything they could to pin me down: my mum, my dad, school. They put me in homes with kind guys and they put me in homes with bastards. They did things to me you can't even talk about. I'm okay. What about you"?

Melvin Burgess's most ambitious and complex novel to date is a multi-faceted and vivid depiction of a group of young people in the grip of drug addiction, told in many different voices, from the addicts themselves to the friends watching from the outside who try to prevent tragedy.

©2000 Melvin Burgess (P)2003 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd Literature & Fiction Entertainment

Critic reviews

"John Retallack's excellent adaptation of Melvin Burgess's controversial Carnegie Medal winning novel is splendidly unpatronising…a truly cautionary tale." ( Independent)
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Where does Junk rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Junk is an amazing book, building a very clear picture of the lives of it's characters however the voice acting brings it down because the actress uses northern accents for people who have lived their lives in the South West of England.

Would you be willing to try another one of Katrina Baylis’s performances?

If she can get the accents right, then possibly. Many of the characters are from the South West of England ( Gemma, Tar, Solly) and she gives them all Northern English accents for some reason. This is really irritating, especially for Solly who expressly tells you that he has lived his entire life in Bristol so why he has a Yorkshire accent is beyond me. Its either lazy preparation or not reading the book before narrating it.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

You can do, its riveting enough to do.

Great story, bad acting

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The narrator is absolutely dreadful. She reads like she’s reading a Children’s bedtime story instead of a book about drug use. She really spoils it with her ridiculous voices.
It’s a brilliant book but the audio version is terrible.

Read the physical book

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I haven't read junk for many years, so when I saw the audible I thought I'd get it as I remembered loving it. Sucked me straight in like it did when I read it, I can't explain why it's so good but it is. Real people doing real things. The good and bad sides of drugs. I cried a few times nearing the end. It's just a great read everyone should read it, whether you've done drugs or not and if your a child or an adult.

Brilliant book

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The narrator using different accents for the characters but none of them were a bristolian or south west accent which Tar and Gemma would have had so it took me ages to get used to them having cockney accents. It might have worked well having different actors for each character. The story is still amazing and true even today.

Amazing book but the voices were all wrong

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Loved this books since I first read it 15 years ago!
Amazing story and well written with fantastic characters.
It's a story I can finish then start up again straight away and be whisked back round on the turbulent adventure that follows the life of these trubbled characters!

Amazing story

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