Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know
    Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know
    Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know
    Audiobook10 hours

    Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know

    Written by Samira Ahmed

    Narrated by Leila Buck and Soneela Nankani

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Told in alternating narratives that bridge centuries, the latest novel from New York Times bestselling
    author Samira Ahmed traces the lives of two young women fighting to write their own stories and escape
    the pressure of cultural expectations in worlds too long defined by men.

    It’s August in Paris and 17-year-old Khayyam Maquet—American, French, Indian, Muslim—is at a crossroads.
    This holiday with her parents should be a dream trip for the budding art historian. But her maybe-exboyfriend is probably ghosting her, she might have just blown her chance at getting into her dream college,
    and now all she really wants is to be back home in Chicago figuring out her messy life instead of brooding in
    the City of Light.

    Two hundred years before Khayyam’s summer of discontent, Leila is struggling to survive and keep her
    true love hidden from the Pasha who has “gifted” her with favored status in his harem. In the present day—and
    with the company of a descendant of Alexandre Dumas—Khayyam begins to connect allusions to an enigmatic
    19th-century Muslim woman whose path may have intersected with Alexandre Dumas, Eugène Delacroix, and
    Lord Byron.

    Echoing across centuries, Leila and Khayyam’s lives intertwine, and as one woman’s long-forgotten life is
    uncovered, another’s is transformed.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateApr 7, 2020
    ISBN9781980080053
    Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know
    Author

    Samira Ahmed

    Samira Ahmed is the New York Times bestselling and award winning author of the young adult novels Love, Hate, & Other Filters, Internment, Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Know and Hollow Fires. She is also the author of the middle grade fantasy duology Amira & Hamza and the Ms. Marvel: Beyond the Limit comic series. She was born in Bombay, India, and grew up in Batavia, IL in a house that smelled like fried onions, garlic, and potpourri. She has lived in New York, Chicago, and Kauai, where she spent a year searching for the perfect mango. She invites you to visit her online at www.samiraahmed.com and on Twitter and Instagram @sam_aye_ahm.

    More audiobooks from Samira Ahmed

    Related to Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know

    Related audiobooks

    YA Diversity & Multicultural For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Three Triptychs

      Jan 1, 2021

      Woke to the “meanerror,” of birds squawkinginside the blue-greyblackpolyphonies of whathappens when we losethe terminologyto determine how badthings really are. Wasthere no way to puncturethe agonizing filmthat kept us all corralledhere? I looked thr

      3 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Feb 28, 2023

      Dear C, At first Virgil’s poem is quite dull; equivocalnames of products at The Container Store: Elfa White Medium Drawer, Mesh NarrowRolling Cart (Medium Solution), Narrow Classic Mesh Box and the number of pirouetting starseach product attained. An

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Lost Cause

      Dec 6, 2020

      A Lost Cause
      9 min read

    • Article

      Lost And Found

      Dec 5, 2021

      Lost And Found
      9 min read

    • Article

      Sexual Tension

      Jun 5, 2023

      Sexual Tension
      13 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Jun 1, 2023

      Table Talk
      11 min read

    • Article

      People Are Strange

      Oct 13, 2019

      People Are Strange
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2022

      If I call myself unlovable, I am, practically; if I say itenough times: unlovable. Then, like practical magic, I’m hollow as old garlic; I’m distance-skinned.I’m a long, mean package, a terror-dyke, a nag, a squinting, slut-spun hag—it’s easy, really

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Man I Should Have Married

      Dec 29, 2019

      The Man I Should Have Married
      11 min read

    • Article

      Roundtrip For One

      Nov 1, 2019

      Roundtrip For One
      5 min read

    • Article

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work

      Dec 15, 2018

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work
      6 min read

    • Article

      Nick Laird

      Dec 15, 2017

      I was trying to write like an adult.I had children.I was at the end of something. As I waited at my table by the window for the coffee,I saw that the sirocco had depositeda scrim of dust on the sill overnight,and it was the dark red of powdered blood

      3 min read

    • Article

      Typewriter

      Aug 2, 2021

      Chère Madame. Vous ne vous rappelleriez pas de moi, mais de ma part… Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap… She flicks the return bar – PING – and her fingers fall back into rhythm. Catherine’s French comes as naturally as the movement of her

      5 min read

    • Article

      J. Jezewska Stevens

      Dec 15, 2017

      The party was a failure. I can’t even tell you what a failure it was. There are no words. Only a great pain in my chest when I wake up. On the veranda. It’s better when I sit in the chair. Oh, but then I can see around. The gauzy curtains, pushed by

      15 min read

    • Article

      Caught Out

      Oct 2, 2022

      Caught Out
      9 min read

    • Article

      La Otra Historia

      Jun 30, 2022

      La Otra Historia
      14 min read

    • Article

      How To Be A Real Man

      Jun 1, 2020

      How To Be A Real Man
      3 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Oh, Corona

      Jan 1, 2024

      Books The Lights by Ben Lerner Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023 128 pp., $26.00 (hardcover) According to the latest Times article on the qualitative merits of bot art, Ben Lerner has lent excerpts from his new poetry collection to a group of venture c

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Letter to My Sons

      Sep 25, 2019

      A Letter to My Sons
      7 min read

    • Article

      This Is Not A Drill

      Mar 7, 2024

      This Is Not A Drill
      10 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Nov 1, 2022

      Day after Thanksgiving. I give thanks for Eveto beat the rush of appreciating hernext year and let her sleep inuntil three hundred o’clock.Thank you light on the mountainfor being my star on cloudy nights.Thank you all the guns I’ve never ownedand ki

      6 min read

    • Article

      OreoArroyo

      Jul 6, 2021

      WHEN THE STRIPPER STRUTTED INTO THE LIBRARY, SHE COULDN’T hide her dismay. Probably, she and her bodyguard expected a bachelor party or investment bankers celebrating a big deal at the mansion overlooking the Newport Coast. She wouldn’t have anticipa

      21 min read

    • Article

      Have Pen, WILL TRAVEL

      Jun 15, 2020

      Have Pen, WILL TRAVEL
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know

    4/5

    37 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I could listen to Samirah Ahmed’s prose all day long. Two narratives from separate time periods are not often appealing to me, but Samirah changed my mind about them! 10/10 recommend! Definitely a new favorite!
    • 2/5
      This premise had so much promise but doesn't deliver because a) too much telling, not enough showing and b) preachiness. DNF.
    • 5/5
      I love a good literary treasure hunt, especially when women of color get to tell their own stories. Samira Ahmed is a stunning novelist, and, after the third consecutive five-star book, has reached automatic-buy status. This novel brims with art history, joie de vivre, and the ache of a woman's long-forgotten history. I thoroughly enjoyed spending some time in Paris with Khayyam and Leila.

      #writeherstory
    • 3/5
      Khayyam blows an art history scholarship award, but the consolation is spending time with her parents in Paris. When she ran into a boy in a local park, there were moments I wondered if I had picked up a paranormal story. But no, Alexandre is indeed real and the several great grandson of the famed Alexandre Dumas, The search is on for the raven haired woman, whose tale is told in alternating chapters. Leila crossed paths with Byron, Dumas and Delacroix and the book relates Khayyam and Alexandre's adventure for proof of her existence.
    • 5/5
      Khayyam is spending her summer in France with her mom and dad. She is American, French, Indian, and Muslim and would love to study art in college. Recently, she failed to win a writing contest to get into the college of her dreams. Her boyfriend is posting pictures with other girls and seemed to dismiss Khayyam before she left. All is not lost when she meets Alexandre Dumas.

      Leila is struggling, as she is trying to hide her love for a man. Khayyam and Alexandre are researching and trying to understand what happened centuries ago.

      The chapters alternate from present, Khayyam’s story to the past, Leila’s story. The history and clues intertwine and keep the reader finding connections between the past and present. I love the power and discoveries of the female characters throughout! The title is a reference to a description Lord Byron used and will become clear as you delve into this fascinating novel!
    • 4/5
      With her newest novel, Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know, Samira Ahmed has definitely landed on my list of favorite YA authors. All of her books contain powerful female characters of color with strong feminist ideals navigating modern landscapes with interesting stories. In Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know, Khayyam finds herself spending the summer before her senior year in high school in Paris with her parents trying to recover from academic and personal disappointment at home in Chicago. Because of her French father, she speaks fluent French so she quickly resigns herself to exploring the city and attempting to fix her problems at home by continuing to research the subject of her failing paper. Ahmed knows how to write a great story, and she masterfully weaves in letters and flashback stories from Leila, the mysterious woman at the heart of Khayyam’s research. Of course, there are boys, romance, a lot of unbelievable coincidences and ridiculous situations, but that is half the fun of a good YA novel. At the center of Mad, Bad is a strong character, a great historical story and Ahmed’s fine writing style that should be appreciated by any reader.