Tales From Foster High

De: John Goode

Narrado por: Michael Stellman

Kyle Stilleno is the invisible student, toiling through high school in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. Brad Greymark is the baseball star of Foster High. When they bond over their mutual damage during a night of history tutoring, Kyle thinks maybe his life has changed for good. But the promise of fairy-tale love is a lie when you're gay and falling for the most popular boy in school. A coming of age story in the same vein of John Hughes, Tales from Foster High shows an unflinching vision of the ups and downs of teenage love and what it is like to grow up gay.

©2012 John Goode (P)2014 Harmony Ink Press

Great Listen with a Great Message

Loved the characters & story line of the book. Very realistic in the subject matter written about. The narrator's voice is a tad odd compared to others I have listened to so be forewarned. But great listen overall. Highly recommend it!!

Great story, terrible editing

This book is an amazing rollercoaster of emotion. I’ve never been a fan of the “stream of consciousness” writing style, and this book has it in spades. But it somehow kept me hooked regardless. The story’s POV bounces between the two lead characters, who have noticeably different feels to them: Kyle with his overly dramatic purple prose and Brad with his earnest dumb jock energy. And both go in depth into their emotional damage and their terrible family life. It’s a lot of up and down and shouting at them to stop being stupid and then shouting at everyone opposing them, and it’s so good.

Which makes it such a shame that this audio book’s editing is ABYSMAL. The narrator’s performance is good, great even in some of the scenes. But whole thing sounds like it was recorded in a cavern instead of a sound studio. And there are chunks of the book that are of a noticeably different sound quality to the rest of it. The story has three chapters, one for each third of the story, but the audio book has 8 “chapters” marked out with no rhyme or reason for the divisions they chose. The first chapter of the book sounds like it was over-edited, with all the breaths cut out of the narrator’s performance, so the whole story was slamming into you with no pauses for breath. But then later in the book, the editing is nearly nonexistent, with clear breaks where the narrator was presumably turning a page or something because the break didn’t mean the scene was over, like it would have in a good audio book. It’s a crapshoot trying to figure out if some place is a good spot to pause, or if you’re just pausing on the narrator turning a page midway through a sentence.

And the crown jewel of this crappy editing is when an entire paragraph of text was REPEATED — as in, the performance was exactly the same, and the same events played out twice in a row when it made no sense for such a thing to happen. This event actually made me stop playback and redownload the book to make sure I didn’t just have a corrupted version or something. NOPE, it’s EDITED like that! Apparently no-one did a quality pass on this thing! And it was particularly jarring because the author *deliberately* does a stylistic repetition moment in the third act, and the effect of it was marred because I was distracted wondering if the editing had screwed up again.

And it’s such a shame because the story is good and the characters are engaging (if a little stupid sometimes, but they are teenagers). And by the end of it you’re desperately hugging the boys, telling them it’ll be okay.

Ehhhhh

So I had a hard time with this book, the first small part of the book I loved, the book from kyles perspective was AMAZING!! Than they switched to brad......brad is an asshole, I didn’t like him when Kyles perspective was in play, and after seeing how his mind actually worked I REALLY hated him, he was a jerk a user and horrible person, I WISH the author would have stayed with Kyle.

Nice surprise

This was a truly enjoyable high school coming out/coming of age story. Think of it as a gay John Hughes film. The author is a real fan of John Hughes and obviously cares a great deal about the challenges gay teenagers face in high school. Some would say this isn't a YA book. I have to disagree. The sex scenes in this book are no where as graphic as in traditional gay romance. And if I remember correctly, nothing that the average teenager not only knows about, but much milder. It wasn't a perfect book and the narrator doesn't give a lot of diversity to the characters, but he does do a good job at lending depth and emotion to the story. But be warned, he does sound like a high school kid, which is what the story needed. Absolutely worth a credit.

Want more!

Loved the story.
narration was good a little quite compared to other narrators.
hope the author has many more stories like this!

Outstanding book

Such a good read. And an amazing story that is very relatable for many of the LGBT community.

Tales is a must read for its entertainment value and for the lessons it can impart

Tales is a series that, now having read the first three, I can't wait to continue. The story reminds the reader that the struggle for acceptance, tolerance and even safety for gay youth is far from over. Kyle as a character speaks to kids that feel they have to hide because of the dangers involved physically but are already used to being ignored and marginalized. Brad is the sports hero that everyone adores and wants to be, who can lose it all upon coming out. But what are they gonna do? If you fall for someone it's only a matter of time before you have to go for it or be miserable. Here they go for it and meet a lot of misery thanks to a small Texas town. It is well written, coming from Kyle's point of view. The books that follow alternate viewpoints. Each of the guys are interesting in their own way and are expressed as deep, rounded characters. I want to read more!

An all boy The Breakfast Club meets Pretty in Pink

If you could sum up Tales From Foster High in three words, what would they be?

Angsty teen love.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Brad. When the story starts it's told from Kyle's POV, and Brad was the stereotypical, perfect, popular jock. But when the story switches to Brad's POV, you see all the cracks and how broken he really is.

Which scene was your favorite?

When they kissed for the first time. The fact that Brad's nose was bleeding at the time was a bit gross, but it's definitely a scene that sticks with you.

Any additional comments?

I love Michael Stellman's narration, but there are definitely sound quality issues with this one. The echo and background noise in some parts were quite noticeable depending on the kind of headphones you use. It sounds better on speakers. And there was one part that was repeated twice in the recording (Kyle and Kelly's second fight where Kyle notices other students taking pictures). It made me do a double take because I thought I was imagining it, like déjà vu. But no, that part was just duplicated. It was just one small part of the chapter, though.

awesome story

I appreciate an thank the author on this story. wether it be true story or fiction, it's what's really going on. I grew up a gay/bi boy from 1958 an I certainly endured the exact bulling that is told here. only then nobody would stand by me except my bf from 3rd grade till 9th grade when I was put in a group home because I was gay. I have long lived a life of being hated because of my life. an who I am. now you the listeners of this story can change that an show our youth an young adults we accept you for you.
Jim Arrowsmith
Salt Lake City Utah
[e-mail]

WE WANT MORE!

Why is there only 2 books in this series on Audible? And they're not even in sequence. Please