Review: An Amazing Sequel!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2012
First you should be aware that End of the Beginning is the second in a trilogy of books by John Goode. The first, Maybe With a Chance of Certainty introduces us to the main character, Brad, whose voice carries this second novel. And what a voice...naked, painful, selfish, self-condemning, wounded, and most assuredly, in love--Brad's voice is all of these things and more.Brad is the king of high school fame in the small town of Foster, Texas. He dates the undeniable queen of the "popular girls" and rules the corridors of the local high school with an iron fist gloved in good looks, bravado and more than a little subterfuge. For you see Brad is a liar, a cheat, a fraud and so scared that he does not know where to turn to escape the monster he worries he is becoming. His saving grace...is Kyle, the boy who loves him despite his flaws, despite his past.Brad has hidden his lust for all things male in carefully constructed lies for years.  He was deeply closeted, loathing both it and himself, until he met Kyle. A shadow that lurked the corridors of the very high school that Brad was lord and master of, a "nobody' barely seen, rarely heard and totally ignored--until Brad stepped up and opened up a world that neither boy was prepared to live in. Brad, in what can only be described as a break from reality, declares his love for Kyle, and, that he, himself, is also gay and that up until this moment he has been living a lie. This novel, End of the Beginning, now takes us through the day after that declaration. A day in which not only is Brad's past laid bare for us to see, but a day for us to also shake our heads and fingers at in alternate moments of disgust and compassion. A day for us to, in a moment of blinding clarity, see how very much we are the same as Brad--sometimes lost, sometimes despairing, sometimes so unhappy that we do things we would never wish to see the light of day.I fell in love with this boy, Brad. I cried for him. I read, aghast, at his cruelty and wept at his pain. And, at the end of this incredible little book, I knew that I had found an author who somehow manages to crawl inside the mind and hearts of the teenager that hides within each of us. An author who looks boldly at the secrets we each keep tucked away from our high school days and says quite simply,"I have been there...I understand.