Once, a choreographer told a teenage Maysoon Zayid to find another dream, after her cerebral palsy made the Broadway career she'd imagined impossible to pursue as planned. This audiobook is her answer to that instruction, an Audible Original made with Hello Sunshine, written and performed by Zayid herself, and it turns that single blunt piece of advice into the title of a memoir about landing on a dream nobody saw coming, stand-up comedy performed in multiple languages to sold-out rooms.
A Muslim Jersey Girl Finds Comedy
Zayid is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, described in the listing as a Muslim Jersey girl, and the book traces her path from dreaming of dancing as a child to briefly aiming for soap opera stardom as a teenager, undeterred by odds she describes as stacked against her from the start. Comedy found her while she was chasing that fame, and the memoir spends its four hours moving through family, friendship, love, and career with what reviewers consistently describe as real emotional range rather than a single comic register stretched thin.
One reviewer calls her a compelling storyteller directly, describing how she pulled off telling her own life story with ease, balancing humor, hard truth, and thoughtfulness in a way that made the reviewer laugh at some points and think harder at others. That's a meaningful distinction for a comedy memoir specifically: several reviewers note the book earns its emotional moments rather than just setting up jokes.
Another reviewer calls Zayid simply an amazing woman, praising her humor and her perspective on life without much elaboration, the kind of short, unqualified endorsement that tends to show up when a listener finished the whole thing in one sitting and didn't feel the need to explain further. Given the book's relatively short runtime, that kind of one-sitting reaction seems to be a common experience among the reviewers here.
Loving the Audiobook Idea While Driving
Here's a genuinely useful, audio-specific data point: one review explicitly says it loved the idea of an audio book and describes enjoying this one specifically while driving, which is about as direct a piece of evidence as a review gets for how well the listening experience itself works. Given that Zayid narrates her own material, that kind of praise speaks to her performance as much as her writing, since the two aren't separable here the way they would be with a hired narrator reading someone else's memoir.
Real substance comes from the advocacy thread running through the book too. Zayid is, according to the listing, a passionate advocate for access to education for disabled students worldwide and someone who actively battles online bullying, and one review specifically credits the book with teaching the reviewer about the challenges disabled people face, describing Zayid directly as an encouragement, in that reviewer's own words, not to give up on their own dreams either.
That same review mentions following up by watching Zayid's TED talk after finishing the book, which speaks to how the memoir functions as an entry point into Zayid's wider public work rather than a standalone artifact. If you've never seen her stand-up or her talks, this book reads like a natural first stop before exploring the rest of what she's done.
Eight Votes Need a Generous Rounding
Uncomplicated praise isn't universal here. One listener, who otherwise found the book a fun look at a life built around refusing to be treated as ordinary, flags a specific frustration: when Zayid's political views diverged from some of her friends', she describes dropping those friendships, and the reviewer felt that choice soured the back portion of the book for her, even while still enjoying the listen overall. If a memoir taking a clear political stance is something you'd rather avoid, that's worth knowing before you start.
On the numbers, the listing's own rating, 4.4 across eight votes, only really works under a generous rounding convention, so I won't try to reconstruct the exact breakdown behind it. A PDF accompanies the audiobook too, available through your library once purchased, worth grabbing alongside the audio itself if you want any visual material referenced along the way.
It's also worth setting expectations around scope. At just over four hours, this isn't a comprehensive account of Zayid's entire career, it reads more like a focused set of stories organized around the central idea of chasing one dream after another gets closed off. Listeners hoping for an exhaustive career retrospective may find it leaner than expected, though that leanness is also part of why several reviewers describe finishing it quickly and easily.
Disability as Neither Punchline nor Obstacle
Fans of comedy memoirs with real substance underneath the humor have the most to gain here, alongside anyone interested in disability advocacy and representation told firsthand rather than secondhand. Listeners who've seen Zayid's stand-up or her TED talk and want the fuller story behind both will find this delivers exactly that context, direct from her.
It also suits anyone who specifically wants proof that the audio format itself works for this kind of material, since one reviewer's account of listening while driving is about as concrete an endorsement of the listening experience as any review here offers, a small but genuinely reassuring signal if you're deciding between the audiobook and the print or ebook version.
Taken together, the reviews describe a memoir that earns its laughs honestly, without leaning on Zayid's disability as either a punchline or an obstacle to be overcome for the reader's benefit, which is a harder balance to strike than it sounds.
Skip it if a memoir with a clear, unapologetic political throughline isn't something you want woven through your comedy, since at least one reviewer found that element genuinely alienating even while enjoying most of the rest. Everyone else gets a short, well-reviewed listen with a real payoff by the end, delivered in Zayid's own voice, on her own terms, about a dream nobody handed her.
Quick Take
- Narration: Zayid narrates her own memoir, and at least one reviewer confirms the audio experience itself works well, specifically while driving.
- Themes: disability advocacy, chasing an unexpected dream, family and identity
- Mood: funny, candid, occasionally political
- Verdict: a short, well-reviewed comedy memoir with real emotional weight, though one dissenting review flags its political candor as a turnoff.
Does Maysoon Zayid narrate the Find Another Dream audiobook herself?
Yes, the listing credits her as writing and performing the audiobook herself. One review specifically praises the audio experience, saying it loved the idea of an audio book and describing enjoying this one specifically while driving during a regular day.
How long is the Find Another Dream audiobook?
It runs 4 hours and 3 minutes, a relatively short, focused memoir rather than a sprawling account of her entire career. Reviewers describe that length as well used, moving efficiently through family, comedy, and disability advocacy without ever feeling rushed or thin on detail.
Is Find Another Dream mostly a comedy audiobook or a serious memoir?
Both, according to reviewers, who describe Zayid balancing humor with hard truth and real thoughtfulness throughout the book. It covers her stand-up career and disability advocacy alongside genuinely emotional material about family, identity, and self-acceptance, in roughly equal measure across its four hours.
