• We Can Only Save Ourselves

  • A Novel
  • By: Alison Wisdom
  • Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
  • Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (21 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 Can Only Save Ourselves  By  cover art

We Can Only Save Ourselves

By: Alison Wisdom
Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.19

Buy for $25.19

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

"Alison Wisdom's addictive, down-the-rabbit-hole debut reads like The Girls by way of The Virgin Suicides, with an extra dash of Cheever's unsettling suburbia. The result is sinister and surprising: a novel I couldn't put down, and one that I kept thinking about long after I'd reached its unexpected, chilling end." (Emily Temple, author of The Lightness)

One of Newsweek, Bustle, and LitHub's Most Anticipated Books and Goodreads' "Debut Novels to Discover in 2021", We Can Only Save Ourselves is the story of one teenage girl’s unlikely indoctrination and the reverberations in the tight-knit community she leaves behind.

Alice Lange’s neighbors are proud to know her - a high-achieving student, cheerleader, and all-around good citizen, she’s a perfect emblem of their sunny neighborhood. The night before she’s expected to be crowned Homecoming Queen, though, she commits an act of vandalism, then disappears, following a magnetic stranger named Wesley to a bungalow in another part of the state. There, he promises, Alice can be her true self, shedding the shackles of conformity.

At the bungalow, however, she learns that four other young women seeking enlightenment and adventure have already followed him there. Her new lifestyle is intoxicating at first, but as Wesley’s demands on all of them increase, the house becomes a pressure cooker - until one day they reach the point of no return.

Back home, the story of Alice’s disappearance and radicalization is framed by the first-person plural chorus of the mothers who knew her before, who worry about her, but also resent the tear she made in the fabric of their perfect world, one that exposes the question: Isn’t suburbia a kind of cult unto itself?

Combining the sharp social critique of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere with the elegiac beauty of Emma Cline’s The Girls, this is a fierce literary debut from a writer to watch.

©2021 Alison Wisdom (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Love Books? You'll Love Audible.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Transform your day

Replace endless scrolling with endless listening. Chores can be fun.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Listen everywhere

Download titles to listen offline, wherever you are in the world.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Carry your entire Library

Your stories go where you go. Audiobooks don’t weigh a thing.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Listen and learn

Discover stories that can change your mind, your well-being, and your life.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Reach your reading goals

You can’t turn pages while you drive—but you can press play.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Find your niche

WIth thousands of titles to explore, there’s something for everyone.

Try for $0.00 $14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

What listeners say about We Can Only Save Ourselves

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    12
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2

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

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

Just ended

The story was beautifully written but it just ended. Like absolutely out of the blue. I enjoyed the perspective from the other mothers. Left feeling frustrated.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Bold, original, mesmerizing...

Highly recommend to all. We Can Only Save Ourselves reminds me of Ishiguro’s novels, with its pared down language, enigmatic and often (though not always) well-intentioned characters caught up in a larger and darker world than they know or seem to grasp. She does not moralize, rather, Wisdom asks us to open our eyes to the unfathomable complexity of the human need to connect and belong, as well as our instinctive yearning to be free.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful