Audiobooks by Alexandra Robbins

The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids

The bestselling author of Pledged returns with a groundbreaking look at the pressure to achieve faced by America's teens In Pledged, Alexandra Robbins followed four college girls to produce a riveting narrative that read like fiction. Now, in The Overachievers, Robbins uses the same captivating style to explore how our high-stakes educational culture has spiraled out of control. During the year of her ten-year reunion, Robbins goes back to her high school, where she follows heart-tuggingly likeable students including 'AP' Frank, who grapples with horrifying parental pressure to succeed; Audrey, whose panicked perfectionism overshadows her life; Sam, who worries his years of overachieving will be wasted if he doesn't attend a name-brand college; Taylor, whose ambition threatens her popular girl status; and The Stealth Overachiever, a mystery junior who flies under the radar. Robbins tackles teen issues such as intense stress, the student and teacher cheating epidemic, sports rage, parental guilt, the black market for study drugs, and a college admissions process so cutthroat that students are driven to suicide and depression because of a B. With a compelling mix of fast-paced narrative and fascinating investigative journalism, The Overachievers aims both to calm the admissions frenzy and to expose its escalating dangers.

Alexandra Robbins (Author), Patricia Santomasso (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Nurses

Nursing is more than a career; it's a calling, and one of the most important fascinating, and dangerous professions in the world. As the frontline responders battling traumas, illnesses, and aggression from surprising sources, nurses are remarkable. Yet contemporary literature largely neglects them. In THE NURSES, New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Alexandra Robbins peers behind the staff-only door to write a lively, fast-paced story and a riveting work of investigative journalism. Robbins followed real-life nurses in four hospitals and interviewed hundreds of others in a captivating audiobook filled with joy and violence, miracles and heartbreak, dark humor and narrow victories, gripping drama and unsung heroism. Alexandra Robbins creates sympathetic, engaging characters while diving deep into their world of controlled chaos--the hazing ("nurses eat their young"); sex (not exactly like on TV, but it happens more often than you think); painkiller and addiction (disproportionately a problem among the best and brightest); and bullying (by doctors, patients, and others). The result is a riveting story possessing all the twists and turns of a brilliantly told narrative--and a shocking, unvarnished examination of our health care system.

Alexandra Robbins (Author), Alexandra Robbins, Author (Narrator)

Audiobook

Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities

With a new Preface, Afterword, and Updates "Alexandra Robbins rips into the secret, sordid underbelly of sororities."--Vanity Fair Updated ten years after it is original publication, PLEDGED by Alexandra Robbins is as timely today as it was when first published. With salacious breaking news about fraternities and sororities shocking the general public (and members themselves) PLEDGED exposes what really goes on behind the facades of some of these Greek organizations. Robbins, an investigative journalist, went undercover as a sorority sister; her expose is a breathtaking narrative of tumultuous breakups, fights, drunk driving, stalkers, cover-ups, predation by faculty and staff, theft, rape, and an abundance of drugs and alcohol, and much, much more. As one reviewer said: "You have to read these shocking true stories" (YM).

Alexandra Robbins (Author), Alexandra Robbins (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High Sch

"Their stories beautifully demonstrate things we know intrinsically: that being popular is not always the same as being liked, that high school is more rigid and conformist than the military, and that the people who are excluded and bullied for their offbeat passions and refusal to conform are often the ones who are embraced and lauded for those very qualities in college and beyond." --New York Times In a smart, entertaining, reassuring book that reads like fiction, Alexandra Robbins manages to cross Gossip Girl with Freaks and Geeks and explain the fascinating psychology and science behind popularity and outcasthood. She reveals that the things that set students apart in high school are the things that help them stand out later in life. Robbins follows seven real people grappling with the uncertainties of high school social life, including: -The Loner, who has withdrawn from classmates since they persuaded her to unwittingly join her own hate club -The Popular Bitch, a cheerleading captain both seduced by and trapped within her clique's perceived prestige -The Nerd, whose differences cause students to laugh at him and his mother to needle him for not being "normal" -The New Girl, determined to stay positive as classmates harass her for her mannerisms and target her because of her race -The Gamer, an underachiever in danger of not graduating, despite his intellect and his yearning to connect with other students -The Weird Girl, who battles discrimination and gossipy politics in school but leads a joyous life outside of it -The Band Geek, who is alternately branded too serious and too emo, yet annually runs for class president In the middle of the year, Robbins surprises her subjects with a secret challenge--experiments that force them to change how classmates see them. Robbins intertwines these narratives--often triumphant, occasionally heartbreaking, and always captivating--with essays exploring subjects like the secrets of popularity, being excluded doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, why outsiders succeed, how schools make the social scene worse--and how to fix it. The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth is not just essential reading for students, teachers, parents, and anyone who deals with teenagers, but for all of us, because at some point in our lives we've all been on the outside looking in.

Alexandra Robbins (Author), Kathleen McInerney (Narrator)

Audiobook