Right Beside You

By: Tucker Shaw

Narrated by: Graham Halstead

"Deeply moving and thoroughly engrossing." ―Kirkus, starred review

In this fresh, speculative blend of queer romance and coming-of-age, Eddie meets Theo in present-day New York and Francis in a New York of the past... torn between eras and his heart, he must make a decision that will change his life forever.

High school has just ended and Eddie is at a loss for what's next. He had a falling out with his best friend, and he never really related to the rest of his peers in the sleepy Colorado town he calls home. The future is bleak.

Until his ancient and eccentric great aunt Cookie asks him to care for her in New York City as she recuperates from an illness. Eddie leaps at the opportunity. Soon after he arrives at her tiny Greenwich Village apartment, homebound Cookie asks Eddie to use her vintage polaroid camera to snap pictures of her favorite places she can no longer visit. But something's unusual about this camera. When he takes a photo, he's launched back in time to an entirely different New York of the early 20th century.

As Eddie explores the underground queer life of the 1930s, he discovers new undercurrents of his own identity. Not to mention a dangerously handsome boy in scuffed boots and tattered stovepipe trousers who keeps popping up in his visions of the past.

But when Eddie begins to develop a crush on the mercurial Francis, a cute baker named Theo enters the picture―and he's in the present. Caught between timelines and feelings, Eddie must make a decision about what he's willing to chase: his romantic fantasies of the past or a reality that might just be what he's wanted all along.

Probably the worst book I’ve ever listened to

Besides lacking a discernible plot, this book assaults you with extraordinarily unlikable characters. One is a 100-year-old woman. As you might expect she’s grouchy, demanding and judgmental. Her name is Cookie. Another is her teenage great nephew who goes to New York City to take care of the old bat. His name is Lollipop. Lollipop is introverted, stupid and oftentimes inexplicably angry. In fact, the author often puts Lollipop through emotions no human would experience in similar situations.

The attempted story: A home-ridden Cookie demands that Lollipop take an old Polaroid outside and shoot pictures of the city. Every time Lollipop does this, the Polaroid spits out a blank, a “dud,” Lollipop calls it. And every time he uses the camera, Lollipop ends up somewhere in the past. He spends most of book pretending not to notice the correlation and convincing himself that these trips into the past are instead remarkably detailed daydreams. So he’s also constantly patting himself on the back for having such a surprisingly vivid imagination. The author throws more cringe the listener’s way. When Lollipop finally accepts he’s actually time traveling, he asks Frances, the character always there to guide Lollipop, how it’s possible. Frances says he doesn’t know, that sometimes you just have to accept the unacceptable. In other words, the author was too lazy to come up with an explanation for her literary device and instead decided to tell listeners to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

As for the narrator, he was a middle-aged man giving middle-aged voices to teenagers. Double cringe. This audiobook fails on every level possible. It’s a complete waste of time and a credit.

One of my favourite books of 2025

Thank you Tucker Shaw for another favourite read! I loved this coming of age story of small town Eddy exploring New York City through time. 5 stars!