The Last High School Story (Trade paperback)

High school in the '80s was not so different than high school today. There are the insiders and outsiders-and Ivan Burke and his friends are definitely outsiders. There's Daniel, the would-be poet everyone sees as a geek; Randi, the Pakistani girl everyone sees as a slut; Jerry, the white trash kid everyone sees as a hood; Marigold, the ambitious girl everyone sees as stuck-up; and Nicky, who wishes no one saw him at all.

Ivan struggles to join in with high school life while
rejecting all of those superficial, hateful, or hypocrital faces who make life hell for him and his friends. He wants to stand up for what's right and not lose himself just to be accepted. Life doesn't make it any easier for him than it does for anyone else. Everyone has something they want, and everything we want has a price.

The Last High School Story is like the story many of us would tell. In the era of John Hughes movies, six troubled souls fight just to stay afloat, and they come to learn that not everyone gets a happy ending, and getting what you want is not always a win.