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AudioBook information:
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Narrated by: Melissa Barrera, Santino Fontana, Phoebe Strole, Fred Berman, January LaVoy, Bahni Turpin, Zheng Xi Yong
Release date: October 6, 2026
Audiobook Duration: 21 h 32 min

Summary: “GRACEFUL, COMPLICATED, SATISFYING.” –BONNIE GARMUS, AUTHOR OF LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY

Discover the new speculative dystopian saga from the bestselling author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, featuring a high profile, multi-cast narration.

Alba DeTamble has never lived a life in order. Born with the same rare Chrono-Displacement Disorder as her father Henry, she slips unpredictably through decades, haunted by the secrets of a future she can witness but cannot change. As Alba strives to maintain a normal life with Zach, her safe, supportive anchor, she forms a tight-knit community of artists and activists who fight to take care of each other in an increasingly unstable world. 

At once intimate and expansive, Life Out of Order plunges readers into a world of Niffenegger’s dazzling imagination: from the riot-torn streets of a dystopian Chicago, to a digital museum for forgotten memories and lost artifacts. Curating this ever-expanding museum is Isadora, Alba’s mysterious stepsister and an unsettling presence in their family – whose fate may be intertwined with Alba’s in more dangerous ways than she knows.

Told through a kaleidoscope of perspectives, the story moves through a boundless, unfolding universe of virtual reality, skimming the wildest reaches of technology and our natural world. The result is a testament to the power of art and community to sustain us in these fractured times—and an epic tale that’s set to define an entirely new genre in a way only Niffenegger can.

Reviews:

“Niffenegger infuses the drama with profound reflections on time, creativity, love, and fate…saturated with feelings and insights, this is a breathtakingly intricate, magnetizing, and provocative novel of opulent imagination, daring vision, resonant compassion, epic sorrow and love, and genuine wisdom and hope.” –Booklist, starred review

“A graceful, complicated, satisfying metafiction, it takes on the biggest issues of our times without flinching.” –Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry


“Life Out of Order is fiction with a pulse—urgent, atmospheric, unforgettable. Exploring how we persist when the present is never guaranteed, Niffenegger offers fans a deeper, soaring continuation of her iconic world. It’s a fiercely imaginative feat of world-building, a rare sequel that doesn’t just revisit the past, it redefines our understanding of what it means to belong to time itself.” –New York Times bestselling author Sarah Addison Allen

“Life Out of Order is ambitious and inventive, a truly original book that whisks readers away on a time-bending whirlwind through the deeply human experiences of love, loss, self-discovery, and finding our way through a world that is constantly changing around us.” —Nikki Erlick, New York Times bestselling author of The Measure and The Poppy Fields


“‘A wonderfully enigmatic reading experience.” –Tracy Chevalier, New York Times bestselling author of The Glassmaker and Girl With a Pearl Earring

“The Time Traveler’s Wife was a lovely orchid, but Life Out of Order is a whole riotous garden of wildflowers. The ending of Life Out of Order made me cry, for page after page. A love story that understands that time is made out of love and loss, this novel stuck in my mind for days after I finished reading.” –Charlie Jane Anders, bestselling author of All the Birds in the Sky

“Can a novel be both intimate and epic? Utopian and dystopian? Old fashioned in the best way and utterly contemporary? In the case of Audrey Niffenegger’s Life Out of Order, the answer is yes, yes, yes. She engages with the large questions of our anthropocene era, yet her characters, tumbling through time, are so real, I’m hoping they’ll appear in my kitchen. I can’t stop thinking about this marvelous novel.” –Margot Livesey, New York Times bestselling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy and The Road from Belhaven

“Ultimately, this is a story about how people cope and care for each other in the face of a dystopian future. It’s also a testament to the power of art, even (and especially) in troubled times.” –Kirkus Reviews

“Powerful, wryly humorous, and tender, Niffenegger’s narrative asks big questions about doing one’s best to create, preserve, and care for the good amid times of intense turmoil.” –Shelf Awareness


Praise for The Time Traveler’s Wife

“[This] inventive and poignant writing is well worth a trip.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Dreamy and dark… I got trapped inside the magic of its pages.” –Cosmopolitan

“Niffenegger plays ingeniously in her temporal hall of mirrors.”—The New Yorker

“A literary sensation.” –NPR

“A soaring celebration of the victory of love over time.”—Chicago Tribune

“Haunting… Compelling and unsettling.” —USA Today

“An intensely moving testament to the time-spanning power of true love.” –Marie Claire

“A powerfully original love story . . . [An] amazing trip.”—People

“A magical experience from start to finish.” –Elle

“A hymn to the pleasures of the ordinary and tangible, the sensuousness of the here and now.” –The Boston Globe

“A singular tale of a charming man with a funny condition (he slips in and out of time) and the woman who loves him. The setting, the city of Chicago, is luminous.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“As if love weren’t complicated enough, debut author Niffenegger dreams up a happy couple plagued by a peculiar problem…It is to Niffenegger’s credit that she avoids cheap shots and develops her innovative concept in some exceptionally strange and witty ways.” —Time Out New York

About the Author:

Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and writer who lives in Chicago and London. Her book art, prints, and paintings are included in the collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Newberry Library, and the Library of Congress, among others. In 2019, she founded Artists Book House, a non-profit center for the literary and book arts. Ms. Niffenegger was also one of the founders of the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. She was a Professor at Columbia College until 2015. She has published eight books, including the novels The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry, as well as the graphic novels Raven Girl, The Night Bookmobile, and Bizarre Romance (with Eddie Campbell). The Time Traveler’s Wife has been adapted into a film, an HBO television series, and a West End stage musical. Other adaptations include a ballet of Raven Girl, which was created by the choreographer Wayne McGregor in 2013 for the Royal Opera House Ballet.