A Good School: A Novel Audiobook

" This is the story of a group of boys growing up in an all boys boarding school in Connecticut just before WWII starts. It portrays the casual cruelty of these adolescent years, the yearning for acceptance, the sudden turns of fate. At the same time, Yates sheds a light on the closed community of the faculty. Dorset Academy, founded by an idiosyncratic old woman who always wanted to be a boy, is a place for misfits and oddities...a "funny" school, and a "good" school in the sense that it allowed this generation of boys to retain a lot of their innocence before heading off to war. As they graduate, the school closes and the war begins, signalling an end to innocence both for the boys and for the country. "

" I really like Yates' writing style. "

" Another excellent Richard Yates book. "

" Surprisingly good. Modest. Wandered into a poignant end. "

" A friend let me borrow this after I praised Revolutionary Road. I am enjoying this book in the same way as A Separate Peace. I like this American version of prep school better for a depiction of male adolescence, but prefer a Separate Peace for its war time subplot. I think Knowles' book The Collector is my favorite of his. All that said, I really like how Yates is able to study broken homes and the dynamics of that. I am impressed by his middle class understanding. "

" My least favorite of all the Yates novels I've read; it still has enough Yates-y goodness to be worthwhile. "

" Beware: depressing. Well, it was good, but depressing (not surprising considering the author) "

" Yates being Yates-y though with slightly more underdeveloped characters than I'm used to from him. A solid read, but there are much better choices than this if one is interested in Yates. "

" The story of a year in a failing prep school, this book crackled with intensity. I love Richard Yates and this book, though short, reminded me why. "

" Disappointingly not his best "

" Not one of my favorites of his, but I still enjoyed reading it. "

" A bad book. "

" Thinking back 10 years, I don't remember anything remarkable about this novel. "

" Everything he writes is great. "

" I wanted more. It didn't deliver. But it's still Yates and therefore still good. "

" The writing didn't blow my mind like it did in Revolutionary Road. "

" Too many characters, not enough pages, but some brilliant moments. "

" Love the author but this was my least favorite of his work. "

" The story of a year in a failing prep school, this book crackled with intensity. I love Richard Yates and this book, though short, reminded me why. "

" Surprisingly good. Modest. Wandered into a poignant end. "

" Come si commenta Yates? Dicendo che è dio. Sempre. "

" The writing didn't blow my mind like it did in Revolutionary Road. "

" Felt like a prototypical NE schoolboy book set in the 1950's. All the right characters are there. It did not shed a ton of light for me. "