The Cows cover art

The Cows

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Cows

By: Dawn O’Porter
Narrated by: Karen Cass, Laura Kirman
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

*Dawn O’Porter’s brand new novel, HONEYBEE, is available to buy now!*

______________________________________________

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, shortlisted for best audiobook in the Specsavers National Book Awards 2018

Fearlessly frank and funny, the debut adult novel from Dawn O’Porter is the book that everybody needs to read right now.

COW [n.]

/kaʊ/

A piece of meat; born to breed; past its sell-by-date; one of the herd.

Three women. A whole world of judgement.

Tara, Cam and Stella are very different women. Yet in a society that sets the agenda, there’s something about being a woman that ties invisible bonds between us.

When one extraordinary event rockets Tara to online infamy, their three worlds collide in ways they could never imagine – and they discover that one woman’s catastrophe might just be another’s inspiration.

Through friendship and conflict, difference and likeness, they’ll learn to find their own voices.

Because sometimes it’s OK not to follow the herd.

Fiction Genre Fiction Holidays Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance Romantic Comedy Women's Fiction Comedy Funny Heartfelt Witty Feel-Good

Listeners also enjoyed...

So Lucky cover art
Paper Aeroplanes cover art
Goose cover art
How to Kill Your Family cover art
The Break cover art
Unapologetically Me cover art
Half a World Away cover art
Like a House on Fire cover art
The Damned Place cover art
Mira's Return: The Complete Series: A Mermaid Fantasy Adventure & Prequel to the Elemental Origins Series cover art
Everything and Nothing cover art
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell cover art
The Other Side of the Story cover art
Slammed cover art
Hot Mess cover art
One Two Three cover art

Critic reviews

‘A funny, smart, kind, incredibly truthful book about women . . . all the shame, judgement, envy and love that being alive and female entails’ Polly Vernon

‘Fierce and funny’ Bryony Gordon, DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘Smart and insightful’ RED

‘Dawn's writing is addictive – fearless, beyond feisty and seriously funny’ Mel Giedroyc

‘O’Porter’s wise and witty narrative has many thought-provoking situations and concepts. Different, poignant and smart – I loved it’ Sara Lawrence, DAILY MAIL

‘Compulsive… I can't wait for the next one’ Shappi Khorsandi

‘Feisty characters and fearless prose, THE COWS is totally addictive’ HEAT

‘Sometimes hilarious and sometimes poignant, but always rollicking and fast-paced . . . A feel-good read which will resonate with any woman’ DAILY EXPRESS

‘Entertaining and thought-provoking’ IRISH TIMES

‘A zippy and hilarious book… tackles some of the most serious issues that affect modern women today’ THE POOL

‘Fearless, frank and excruciatingly funny’ OK

‘A whirlwind of a story about three women finding their voice amid societal pressures . . . Excellent, funny, and decidedly unpatronising – as candid as Dawn’ METRO

‘An amazing book about choices and being yourself’ PRIMA

‘Funny and excruciating. You'll think about it for weeks!’ Kristen Wiig

‘I loved it. Funny, moving, twisty . . . Wow! I couldn’t stop reading it’ Jill Mansell

‘A terrifically fun read’ YOU magazine

‘Fast, fun and fearless… a warning bell about social media and the damage it can cause’ S Magazine

‘The Cows looks at motherhood and female friendship through a frank and funny prism that reminds me of the TV show Catastrophe. Smart, fresh and really readable – I loved it’ Tasmina Perry

‘Fast and funny’ WOMAN & HOME

‘We’ve had Bridget Jones now THE COWS is setting the agenda for a new generation of readers’ No 1 Magazine

All stars
Most relevant
Finished it in a couple of days, each woman has such depth and the author very successfully blurs the lines between good decisions and bad decisions. I absolutely loved it and would definitely recommend.

Amazing book!

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

I really didn't like the three main characters at most points during the book, but then sometimes they would do or say something I agreed with implicitly and the story raised these fascinatingly complex debates within feminism, ultimately settling on the fact that no woman is perfect and most feminists are guilty ("I'm a feminist, but...") I had such mixed feelings all the way through about whether these women annoyed me and were completely dislikeable or if they could ever be justified, and I'm very glad I listened to it (though I feel that possibly part of my negative reaction was the tone used in some of the reading of this book, where I might have read it to myself quite differently in a way that obviously would have seemed more natural and relatable to myself, but overall the narrator actually had a lovely voice and made it easy to continue listening!)

Conflicted Listening

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

emotional,sad,thought provoking,honest,and at times very funny ...not many books are like this ...very recommend x

great read...

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

This is the kind of book that you want to stand on the street and hand copies out to people because it really is so fantastic, relatable, cackle out loud funny, witty and sharp.

I love how this tackles issues that women face, hilarious as it is (and I really did throw my head back and cackle wildly-me, who can’t crack a grin watching stand up) I feel like it’s a real “must read” for so many more reasons than it being funny!

This book genuinely made me feel better and more uplifted about my own, often chaotic, life as a single mum. The wankwoman saga out so much in perspective for me and it was a nice barometer “well this part of my life is falling apart, and this part, but if wankwoman can pull herself together so can I!”

I loved the strength of the characters and I loved how they were older than the unremarkably young characters in most books these days.

I’m very excited about what other gems Dawn O’Porter will produce!

I want to buy this for every woman I know

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

Another absolute blinder!! loved it! Again I really felt Dawn O'Porter explores the inner lives of women in such an accurate way. I so enjoyed it. Thank you

Brilliant

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

See more reviews