In portraying characters with range of ages and personalities, narrator Ari Fliakos does a masterful job of narrating this moving audiobook. The coming-of-age story involves the friendship between Robert Carter, who is being bullied, and Nathan Tilly, the new kid in eighth grade who intervenes and subsequently gives Robert a new way to look at the world. Fliakos captures the personality of a young man who is learning much from the people in his life in the short time before he enters high school. There's sadness: Robert's brother is dying from a hereditary disease. And first love: Nathan seeks the attention of a girl at the amusement park where they both work. Fliakos succeeds in his narration of all the facets of the story.
Pub Date: 2017
Duration: 9 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781524751401
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
As a group of men bring their own emotional baggage to their football-obsessed reunion, R.C. Bray delivers his usual solid narration. He shifts his tones slightly but enough to put the listener in the motel with the men, revealing their foibles as the story progresses. The narrator's role in this book is a descriptive one, and Bray is a good guide. His narration becomes extra important because this is a rare instance when there almost isn't a protagonist. The author's well-written story--which alternates between serious and laugh-out-loud funny--uses quarterback Joe Theismann's 1985 injury, a broken leg, as a McGuffin.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781681680057
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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