Brent Hartinger has 9 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 20 ratings. The most-rated is The Order of the Poison Oak.
The Order of the Poison Oak
Summary
“Summer camp is different from high school. Something about spending the night. Things happen.” Geography Club's Russel Middlebrook is back, and he and his friends are off to work as counselors at a summer camp. Brent Hartinger's third novel is the story of Indian legends, skinny-dipping in moonlit coves, and passionate summer romance. It's also the story of Russel's latest club, the Order of the Poison Oak, a secret society dedicated to helping its members see life's hidden beauty and accept its sometimes painful sting.
©2005 Brent Hartinger (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Elephant of Surprise
Summary
Book 4 in the Lambda Award-winning Russel Middlebrook Series! People aren't always what they seem to be. Sometimes we even surprise ourselves. So discovers seventeen-year-old Russel Middlebrook in The Elephant of Surprise, a stand-alone sequel to Brent Hartinger's landmark 2003 gay young adult novel Geography Club (which has now been adapted as a feature film co-starring Scott Bakula and Nikki Blonsky). In this latest audiobook, Russel and his friends Min and Gunnar are laughing about something they call the Elephant of Surprise - the tendency for life to never turn out as expected. Sure enough, Russel soon happens upon a hot but mysterious homeless activist named Wade, even as he's drawn back to an old flame named Kevin. Meanwhile, Min is learning surprising things about her girlfriend Leah, and Gunnar just wants to be left alone to pursue his latest technology obsession. But the elephant is definitely on the move in all three of their lives. Just who is Wade and what are he and his friends planning? What is Leah hiding? And why is Gunnar taking naked pictures of Kevin in the shower? The Elephant of Surprise includes Hartinger's trademark combination of humor and romance, angst and optimism. Before the story is over, Russel and his friends will learn that the Elephant of Surprise really does appear when you least expect him - and that when he stomps on you, it really, really hurts.
©2013 Brent Hartinger (P)2013 Audible Inc.
The Thing I Didn't Know I Didn't Know
Summary
"I guess this was what they meant by a loss of innocence. Who knew?" Russel Middlebrook is 23 years old, gay, and living in trendy Seattle, but life isn't keeping up with the hype. Most of his friends have a direction in life - either ruthlessly pursuing their careers or passionately embracing their own aimlessness. But Russel is stuck in place. All he knows is that crappy jobs, horrible dates, and pointless hook-ups just aren't cutting it anymore. What's the secret? What does everyone else know that he doesn't? Enter Kevin, Russel's perfect high school boyfriend. Could rekindling an old flame be the thing Russel needs to get his life back on track? Or maybe the answer lies in a new friend, an eccentric screenwriter named Vernie Rose, who seems plenty wise. Or what the hell? Maybe Russel will find some answers by joining his best friend Gunnar's crazy search for the legendary bigfoot! One way or another, Russel is determined to learn the all-important secret to life, even if it's a thing he doesn't even know he doesn't know.
©2014 Brent Hartinger (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
Double Feature
Summary
Book 3 in the Russel Middlebrook Series, Winner of the Lambda Book Award! It's a horror-movie extravaganza in this, the second sequel to Brent Hartinger's Geography Club. Two complete books in one recount the stories of best friends Russel and Min who sign up to be extras on the set of a zombie film and learn that there's nothing scarier than high school romance. In the first audiobook, Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, Russel must choose between his long-distance boyfriend and a close-to-home ex named Kevin who wants to get back together. In the second audiobook, Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, Min struggles to accept her cheerleader girlfriend's decision to stay in the closet. But beware! Russel and Min's separate stories affect each other in surprising ways, and you'll have to listen to both audiobooks together to find out the whole story.
©2007 Brent Hartinger (P)2013 Audible Inc.
The Otto Digmore Difference
Summary
“Road trip!” Otto Digmore is a 26-year-old gay guy with dreams of being a successful actor, and he's finally getting some attention as a result of his supporting role on a struggling sitcom. But he's also a burn survivor with scars on half his face, and all indications are that he's just too different to ever find real Hollywood success. Now he's up for an amazing new role that could change everything. Problem is, he and his best friend Russel Middlebrook have to drive all the way across the country in order to get to the audition on time. It's hard to say which is worse: the fact that so many things go wrong, or that Russel, an aspiring screenwriter, keeps comparing their experiences to some kind of road trip movie. There's also the fact that Otto and Russel were once boyfriends, and Otto is starting to realize that he might still have romantic feelings for his best friend. Just how far will Otto go to get the role, and maybe the guy, of his dreams? Author Brent Hartinger first introduced the character of Otto Digmore in 2005, in his Lambda Award-winning books about Russel Middlebrook. Back then, Otto was something pretty unusual for YA literature: a disabled gay character. Now, more than a decade later, Otto is grown up and finally stepping into the spotlight on his own. The Otto Digmore Difference, the first book in a new stand-alone series for adults, is about much more than the challenges of being "different." It's also about the unexpected nature of all of life's journeys, and the heavy price that must be paid for Hollywood fame. But more than anything, it's a different kind of love story, about the frustrating and fantastic power of the love between two friends. Praise for Brent Hartinger: “Hits the narrative sweet spot." (NPR's All Things Considered) "Downright refreshing." (USA Today) "Touching and realistic...hilarious." (Kirkus Reviews)
©2017 Brent Hartinger (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
Barefoot in the City of Broken Dreams
Summary
"There was no way moving to Los Angeles was going to make me give up my soul. After all, I'd already seen all the movies about Hollywood. I knew how things worked." Twenty-four-year-old Russel Middebrook and his boyfriend have moved to Los Angeles so Russel can try to make it as a screenwriter. Almost right away, in a forgotten old house off of Sunset Boulevard, Russel meets Isaac Brander - a once-famous film producer who is convinced he can turn Russel's screenplay into a movie. Russel knows that success can't possibly come this easy. After all, most of Russel's Los Angeles friends are so desperate to make it that it's downright scary. His ex-boyfriend, Otto, is trying everything to become an actor, and Daniel, the sexy neighbor, doesn't even need a casting couch to get naked. So what's the catch with Mr. Brander? Could it be that movies about Hollywood don't tell the whole truth? But what does that mean for Russel's soul? Barefoot in the City of Broken Dreams, a companion book to Brent Hartinger's The Thing I Didn't Know I Didn't Know, is a fast-paced, funny story about the price of fame in Hollywood: the hilarious lengths people will go to achieve it, and the touching secret to survival when things don't work out exactly as planned.
©2015 Brent Hartinger (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
The Road to Amazing
Summary
"I think gay guys like weddings more than anyone. And it's not because we want to destroy marriage, like some people say. It's because we really, really want to get married!" Russel Middlebrook is gettin' hitched! The wedding is taking place in a remote lodge on an island in Puget Sound. Russel and his husband-to-be have invited all their close friends to spend the whole weekend together beforehand. And for the first time in his life, Russel is determined to not be neurotic, and not over-think things. But that's before things start going wrong. Who expected a dead killer whale to wash up on the beach below the inn? And what's this about a windstorm approaching? Then there's the problem of Russel's anxious fiancé, who is increasingly convinced the whole thing is going to be a disaster. Meanwhile, the wedding is taking place near the ruins of a small town, Amazing, where, a hundred years earlier, the people supposedly all disappeared overnight. Why does it feel like the secret at the end of the road to Amazing has something to do with Russel's own future? Can Russel's friends Min, Gunnar, Vernie, and Otto somehow help him make it all make sense? The Road to Amazing, the final book in the Russel Middlebrook Futon Years trilogy, is a story about endings and beginnings, and also about growing up and growing older. But mostly it's a story about love and friendship - about how it's not the destination that makes a life amazing, but the people you meet along the way.
©2016 Brent Hartinger (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Geography Club
Summary
Russel Middlebrook is convinced he's the only gay kid at Goodkind High School. Then his online gay chat buddy turns out to be none other than Kevin, the popular but closeted star of the school's baseball team. Soon Russel meets other gay students, too. There's his best friend Min, who reveals that she is bisexual, and her soccer-playing girlfriend Terese. Then there's Terese's politically active friend, Ike. But how can kids this diverse get together without drawing attention to themselves? "We just choose a club that's so boring, that nobody in their right mind would ever in a million years join it. We could call it Geography Club!" Brent Hartinger's debut novel, what became first of a series about Russel Middlebrook, is a fast-paced, funny, and trenchant portrait of contemporary teenagers who may not learn any actual geography in their latest club, but who learn plenty about the treacherous social terrain of high school and the even more dangerous landscape of the human heart. This is Book 1 in the Russel Middlebrook Series.
©2003 Brent Hartinger (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Otto Digmore Decision
Summary
Book two in the Otto Digmore series "If we get caught, they'll throw us in jail. On the other hand, we'll have been involved in one of the craziest Hollywood stories I've ever heard, and maybe someone will want to turn that into a movie!" Otto Digmore is back, still trying to make it as an actor in Hollywood (despite his facial scars), but frustrated by all the schemers who'll stab you in the back to get ahead. But then Otto's good friend, Russel Middlebrook, sells a screenplay, a heist movie set in the Middle Ages - and Otto has been cast in an important supporting role! For 12 weeks, Otto and Russel will be on location together in England and Malta. Problem is, once production is underway, it quickly becomes clear that the director is ruining Russel's script. If the movie ends up being the bomb that both Otto and Russel expect it to be, it could destroy both their Hollywood careers forever. But Otto and Russel aren't willing to take that chance. Together, they hatch a crazy plan to make a good movie behind the director's back! But how far are they willing to go to save their careers? Are they willing to become exactly the kind of scheming backstabbers they always said they hated? The Otto Digmore Decision is partly a caper story, partly a humorous Hollywood satire. It’s also an inside look at the struggles of anyone "different", and it’s even something of a love story, except it’s one between two friends. More than anything, The Otto Digmore Decision proves the old adage about creative pursuits: The most interesting drama always happens behind the scenes!
©2019 Brent Hartinger (P)2020 Audible, Inc.