
Length4h 59m
About this audiobook
**SWEET LIES & SUGAR CHAINS: CONCRETE FLOWERS 🌺** is a Poetic Cinema journey through pleasure, desire, identity, survival, addiction, money, technology, memory, and the invisible forces that shape what we want.
Beginning with a little boy in Washington Heights discovering candy before he ever knew words like dopamine or conditioning, Vernon Snell follows the footprints of wanting across a lifetime. Candy becomes money. Money becomes power. Pleasure becomes escape. Screens become wrappers. And the question grows larger: When does something we enjoy begin making decisions for us?
Through the voices of Benson, Vernon, and the Curator, memory becomes cinema and testimony becomes a mirror.
This is not a book telling you what to believe. It invites you to examine your own wrappers, rewards, identities, and chains—and decide what truly belongs to you.
**Poetic Cinema. Enter the story. See what you recognize.**
Audiobook details
GenreEducation and Learning, Health and Wellness
Length4 hrs 59 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateOct 3, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Dedication
2Before You Enter
3A Manifesto Of Testimony
4The Voices
5How To Read This Book
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6MOVEMENT I — THE WORD
7MOVEMENT II — THE SWEET
8MOVEMENT III — THE BEAST
9MOVEMENT IV — THE CHAINS
10MOVEMENT V — THE HEIGHTS
11MOVEMENT VI — BREAKING THE CHAIN
12A Note About Washington Heights
13The First Image
14Exhibit One: Before Sugar Had a Name
15Exhibit Two: The Wrapper Learned My Name
16Exhibit Three: The Word Is a Bird
17Exhibit Four: That’s My Word
18Exhibit Five: Act 1. Act 2. Be You.
19Exhibit Six: Who Told You What Winning Looks Like?
20Exhibit Seven: The Convenience of Wanting
21Exhibit Eight: The Sweet Beast in Me
22Exhibit Nine: When Comfort Becomes a Cage
23Exhibit Ten: No More Sugar, No More Chains
24Exhibit Eleven: Sweet Lies
25Exhibit Twelve: The Number Game
26Exhibit Thirteen: The Dopamine Word
27Exhibit Fourteen: When Sweetness Stops Being Sweet
28Exhibit Fifteen: Threadbare Survival
29Exhibit Sixteen: The Strong Man Problem
30Exhibit Seventeen: Pain Has an Appetite
31Exhibit Eighteen: The Middle Nobody Sees
32Exhibit Nineteen: I Was Still in There
33Exhibit Twenty: The Beast Wasn’t My Enemy
34Exhibit Twenty-One: Sold in Every Form
35Exhibit Twenty-Two: Global Chains, Local Pain
36Exhibit Twenty-Three: The House Always Wins
37Exhibit Twenty-Four: The Invisible Chain
38Exhibit Twenty-Five: When the Chain Becomes Normal
39Exhibit Twenty-Six: Who Owns Your Attention?
40Exhibit Twenty-Seven: The Price of Convenience
41Exhibit Twenty-Eight: Washington Heights Was the Epicenter
42Exhibit Twenty-Nine: The Young Boy Watching the Money
43Exhibit Thirty: The Corner Was a Classroom
44Exhibit Thirty-One: The Reward Came Before the Receipt
45Exhibit Thirty-Two: I Wasn’t No Kingpin
46Exhibit Thirty-Three: The Block Remembers
47Exhibit Thirty-Four: You Can Leave the Block and Still
48Exhibit Thirty-Five: The Day I Started Watching Myself
49Exhibit Thirty-Six: The Pause
50Exhibit Thirty-Seven: I Don’t Need My Old Life Back