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Title: The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight

Subtitle: The Broom Closet Stories, Book 1

Author: Jeff Jacobson

Narrator: Zachary Antonioli

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-20-17

Publisher: New Freedom Press

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 13 votes

Genres: Teens, Romance & Friendship

Publisher's Summary:

Closeted high school sophomore Charlie Creevey's quiet life in the Sierra Nevada Foothills is shattered one day when a menacing stranger invades his home, forcing him to flee to the Pacific Northwest.

Barely escaping with his life, Charlie is whisked away to Seattle to take refuge with an aunt and uncle he doesn't know. There, he discovers he hails from a family of witches, and will soon be initiated into the craft and must face the reality that he is a gay witch.

Just as he starts adjusting to a new school and a new life, an evil coven of witches known for killing teens in and around the Pacific Northwest attempts to kidnap Charlie.

At the same time, he tries to deny his growing feelings for popular junior Diego Ramirez. Facing his first gay teen love, he learns the hard way that ignoring his heart endangers him and everyone he cares about.

Will Charlie refuse to accept who he is, or will he acknowledge the truth in order to stay alive and protect the people he loves?

If you enjoy young adult paranormal stories or LGBT paranormal romance novels, you will love this series!

Members Reviews:

Love the story...

But not so much the narrator.

I've read this story myself at least 4 times, I love it that much. I purchased the ebook before it was split into two separate books. Maybe because that's the way I've read it, but I like it better as one. This one just felt unfinished and it was a very awkward place to end it.

I love Charlie and Diego and I'm eager to read about their further relationship development.

I also love the storyline and various characters.

I'm not sure I'll continue listening to the future audiobooks in this series. Although Zachary Antonioli isn't bad, he's not great either. I think it's more a tribute to Jeff's writing that we can tell which character is speaking, rather than the narration. Zachary managed to get some inflection in his voice at some places in the book, but he really didn't distinguish voices much at all. I'm sure it's difficult to do that, but it makes the book sound so much more alive to give each character a distinct voice.

Bad editing mars this half-of-a-story.

Barely into the book, I was so distracted by the narrator's obvious cut-and-paste performance I almost quit listening. It felt like they went though and sliced out any and all silences in the performance, and simply cut and paste any corrections in without caring about audio levels or mic quality or tone-of-voice differences. And then there were several obvious places where they forgot to cut out the narrator's obvious corrections and restarts of sentences. It's like they completely rushed the editing of this audio book and it suffers for it.

Fortunately, the reading does get better about 10-15 chapters in, presumably because the editor got bored with making the book move at light speed for whatever reason, and finally let the narrator breathe a little more. I just wish they hadn't screwed up the beginning several chapters so much. The narrator himself is decent, though because of the weird cut-and-paste editing, he has obvious changes in tone mid-sentence a lot.

The book itself is good, once you get through the open few chapters of dancing around the subject of witchcraft given away on the front cover. It has an intriguing premise and a believable cast of characters.