Donick Walsh and the Reset-Button

By: Nathaniel Shea

Narrated by: Shea Taylor, Joel Leslie

Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Donick Walsh: king of the school bullies, secret dancer, closet-case. What’s to be done when a football injury means he can never play again? Dance in the school musical, of course! Not like he has a choice. Fingers crossed his father doesn’t find out!

Enter Michael Penrose: theatre-kid, and Donick’s former best friend. For years Michael has been the object of Donick’s ridicule simply because Michael is out and proud, and Donick is afraid.

Suddenly confronted with his old friend, Donick sinks under the weight of the guilt of his past. How can a bully make amends for all the hurt he’s caused? How can a closeted ex-high school football player make peace with the very real crush he suddenly has on a boy? And what in the world can be done to hit the reset-button on an entire life? Donick Walsh and the Reset-Button examines the confusing nature of what it means to forgive, the discovery of living one’s authentic self, and yes, even the joys and pains of first love.

©2023 Nathaniel Shea (P)2023 Nathaniel Shea

Phenomenal in every way

Well, almost. One of the narrators just wasn’t for me. Fortunately, the author does half the narration, and his writing is so beautiful that it gripped me from the very beginning. The story manages to be uniquely original despite falling into the old coming of age category. Two boys fall in love, yes. One of them has a bigoted father who gets angry and calls them the kind of terrible names gays get called all the time, yes. The same one is a football player, falls in with the jock crowd and does whatever he thinks will keep him in with that crowd, yes. But that’s all in the past. The story begins with the main characters in their senior year — they were 11 when the father caught them kissing — and with the football player having suffered a career-ending injury. He’s suddenly thrust in with the theater crowd, his former best friend’s crowd. So you can imagine the story’s main conflict, and it plays out so tantalizingly. If all the story had was this main conflict, it would be one of the greatest audiobooks of 2023. But there’s so much going on in this story that this arc actually becomes a subplot. The football player also decides to take responsibility for all the bullying he’s done since his first kiss went so horribly wrong. This creates great conflict with his best friends, his coconspirators for the past five or so years. The theater kid — the kid on the other side of that stolen kiss —meanwhile has to deal with his worst enemy invading his space and winning over his friends. Conflict layered upon conflict layered upon conflict. It’s the most delicious literary smorgasbord you could possibly feast on. But there’s so much more here with all the supporting characters. You will want to do violence to the villains and hug the incredible people who help the former football player and theater kid sort through their issues and emotions. And just when you think the story is going to reach a crescendo, the main characters drive another wedge between themselves. I can’t say enough about this book. It’s right up there with Call Me By Your Name in best m2m romances of all time. You’ll be a better human being for having listened to it, which reminds me: I have to go back and rewrite the beginning of this review. I wrote some unkind things about one of the narrators, and no one deserves to be treated that way.