Nate Expectations--"Sometimes you do have to say goodbye to someone before you can say hello to yourself. To your Nate."

Title: Nate Expectations (sequel to Better Nate Than Ever and Five, Six, Seven, Nate!)

Author: Tim Federle


LGBTQ+ Representation: Main character and a couple of supporting characters are gay


What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer): Nate's Broadway show closes, and Jordan moves on to another acting job without him, and Nate has to return home to his biggest challenge yet: high school. Surprisingly, Nate is not bullied as much as he had been before he left. As an English class project, Nate (with help from BFF Libby) is directing a musical version of Great Expectations. Will it be a success . . . and could a new romance be in his future?


First, a story: One of the many reasons I love Nate is because in high school, I was Libby and my friend Nathan was, well, Nate. We sang Broadway show songs for hours together while driving around in circles in Indianapolis; we drove to all the Sam Goody music stores in the surrounding area to make sure that we could BOTH buy the CDs to whatever show we were obsessed with at the time (The Secret Garden, Tommy, Phantom, Les Mis, Rent, Kiss of the Spider Woman, La Cage Aux Folles, Jesus Christ Superstar and How to Succeed in Business are the ones I can remember offhand).

I never helped my Nate sneak out of school to audition for a Broadway show, however, once he and I cut class and sneaked into the drama department's ticket booth (this was in the "olden days" of 1995 before the Internet was a thing).

Nathan had purloined his mother's credit card, and we used the school's long distance to call the Chicago Theatre and buy tickets for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat because Donny Osmond was starring, and we both had MAD crushes on Donny. OMG I have this program in my garage someplace. For my eighteenth birthday, I received a T-shirt with Donny as Joseph on the front.

The Donny shirt is now part of a quilt.

Anyway, how much trouble did we get in for:

1. Skipping class?
2. Stealing the credit card?
3. Illegally using the school's long distance?

None. Were our parents crazy? Well, kind of. See what I didn't mention is Nathan and I actually bought four tickets, one for each our mothers, who also had crushes on Donny. So we pretty much got a day in Chicago with our moms seeing DONNY OSMOND play Joseph. It is an amazing memory of my senior year of high school, and I am listening to the soundtrack right now.

[For the record, I'd be way less forgiving if one of my children pulled something like this. Waaaaaaaaay less forgiving.]

Libby and Nate would 100% do something like this.


What I think about the book: Nate Expectations begins when ET: the Musical isn't nominated for any Tony Awards and is subsequently canceled. Nate is devastated, as are most of the cast, but Jordan, the lead and Nate's love interest, is getting excited about an upcoming sitcom part that he is hoping will make him a star.

Nate is infatuated with Jordan, but I have had my doubts since I started thinking about it at the end of the second book. Nate is Jordan's understudy, so there's a big power imbalance in their relationship there no matter how you look at it. Jordan was a big jerk to Nate in public, but then it was all because "he liked him?"

If Jordan really did like Nate so much and we were supposed to root for him as a good guy than there's no excuse for how rude he was--he didn't need to always call him and his friends out in potions class for example; he was such a bully, and WHY did he always ooze hatred out of his voice every time he said "Potter;" I mean Harry and Ron saved all of Hogwarts so MANY TIMES; he should be GRATEFUL that--

I'm sorry. What was I talking about again?

Anyway, Jordan is out of the picture (mostly--Nate is not quite over him for most of the book), and Nate:

• continues to be BFFs with Libby and makes more friends, 
• earns the admiration of a PE teacher, 
• directs a (mostly) original musical version of Great Expectations (even though the production. . . well, you'll have to read to find out), 
• gets asked to Homecoming in a completely adorable way, and 
• has a sweet moment of understanding with each of his parents about coming out.

All of these made my heart happy.

I love how Nate and Libby "cuss" by using unsuccessful Broadway shows--"swearing with flops."

Finally, the ending of the story seems to be an homage to the ending of The Outsiders, and if this was not done on purpose, it's hella coincidental (it had to be on purpose).


This book is on the 2019 Rainbow Book List.


My final takeaway (in 75 words or fewer): I will miss Nate, but this is the perfect ending to a cute trilogy. Everything was wrapped up nicely and I really enjoyed the Outsiders-like ending. Theatre kids will love this book. Theatre adults will see themselves in Nate. Non-theatre people? I think you'll like it too.


Memorable quotes/passages from the book: 

• "I think it's so he can hide behind the camera like how the character Mark does in Rent, a musical in the nineties that my Aunt Heidi once told me was 'as big as Hamilton, and this was pre-Twitter'" (pg. 174).
    
• " . . . desperately wishing we were studying Eva Peron (Evita the musical), Joseph what's-his-name (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, about a blonde college student in biblical times who sings high and wears a fabulous patchwork coat), or actual Nazis (Cabaret and The Sound of Music)" (pg. 179).
    
• "Libby whimpers, and swear shouts: 'Tuck Everlasting!' (sixty-seven performances on Broadway, lovely folksy score, based on a book about people who never die, which sounds exhausting)" (pg. 226 and I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, TIM FEDERLE).
     
• "Sometimes you do have to say goodbye to someone before you can say hello to yourself. To your Nate" (pg. 238).

Honorable mention memorable passage: Nate's summary of Great Expectations on pgs 87-88. 😂


Other reviews: A Book and a Hug and Seattle Book Review

Interview with the author


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This book is available here: https://library.greensboro-nc.gov/

Learn more about the Rainbow Book List here: http://www.ala.org/rt/glbtrt