This audio biography focuses on nine teenagers who are in their senior year of high school as they take exams, apply for college, play sports, date, and hang out at burger joints. Jeff Hobbs interweaves their stories, but, even with multiple narrators, it is difficult to keep the boys straight. In many ways, that doesn't really matter--you get sucked into their world. Most compelling are Tio and Carlos, clever and ambitious boys with big dreams who attend nimo Pat Brown Charter High School in Compton, California. The two boys are beautifully portrayed by Gary Tiedemann and Timothy Andres Pabon. Carlos is undocumented, so he is simultaneously applying for DACA and to Ivy League schools. In contrast, several of the boys come from exceedingly wealthy families and attend Beverly Hills High School. They face very different family expectations.
Pub Date: 2020
Duration: 10 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9781797103624
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Julian Brave NoiseCat delivers a tribute, a social history, and an insightful series of reports from Indian Country. His knowledge of Northwest Salish languages and folkways informs this finely written and thoughtfully delivered audiobook. NoiseCat's witty and erudite pieces on the mythology of Coyote, his unflinching accounts of the horrors of Canadian boarding schools, and his descriptions of the features of contemporary tribes in North America do the listener a real service. He also tells his own family's story: His father, a noted wood-carver, was found in an incinerator; his grandfather was the progenitor of dozens of offspring, and his own remarkable career as co-director of a Sundance Award-winning film and an accomplished powwow dancer adds to the wide-angle story.
Pub Date: 2025
Duration: 15 hrs
DD ISBN: 9798217165506
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Delivering these essays with a sense of urgency and passion, narrator Karen Chilton is excellent in this powerful audiobook. It opens with the essay "That Day in January," about the January 6th insurrection, and what follows is a perfect mix of history lessons, personal stories, and social commentary. No topic is off-limits as author Jeffers shares vulnerable stories and insightful details of lives lived at the intersection of race, gender, and class. Chilton's delivery perfectly matches the tone of each essay--some reflective, some angry, some educational. Particularly compelling essays include: "History Is a Trigger Warning," "Misbehaving Women," and "On Being Fannie Lou Hamer Tired." Listeners will find that these essays are an invitation to engage in both self-reflection and action.
Pub Date: 2025
Duration: 11 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063246669
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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