Third time's a charm! Nate Foster returns home to Jankburg, Pennsylvania, to face his biggest challenge yet--high school--in this final novel in the Lambda Literary Award-winning Nate trilogy, which The New York Times calls "inspired and inspiring."

When the news hits that E.T.: The Musical wasn't nominated for a single Tony Award--not one!--the show closes, leaving Nate both out of luck and out of a job. And while Nate's cast mates are eager to move on (the boy he understudies already landed a role on a TV show!), Nate knows it's back to square one, also known as Jankburg, Pennsylvania. Where horror (read: high school) awaits.

Desperate to turn his life from flop to fabulous, Nate takes on a huge freshman English project with his BFF, Libby: he's going to make a musical out of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. (What could possibly go...right?) But when Nate's New York crush ghosts him, and his grades start to slip, he finds the only thing harder than being on Broadway is being a freshman -- especially when you've got a secret you're desperate to sing out about.

This magical conclusion to Tim Federle's beloved Nate series is a love letter to theater kids young and not-so-young--and for anyone who ever wondered if they could truly go home again. Especially when doing so means facing everything you thought you'd left behind.

This book is part of a book series called Nate .

This book has been graded for interest at 10+ years.

There are 272 pages in this book. This book was published 2019 by Simon & Schuster .

Tim Federle began crashing New York auditions as a teenager, landing in five Broadway shows, from Gypsy to The Little Mermaid (starring Tim in a catfish costume). Tim has penned columns for Apartment Therapy and Huffington Post, choreographed routines for Sting and James Taylor at Carnegie Hall, and coached the child stars of Billy Elliot on Broadway - Tim's inspiration for his debut novel, Better Nate Than Ever, which was named a Stonewall Honor Book. Tim lives in New York City, USA Find him at TimFederle. com, on Twitter @TimFederle and on YouTube - Tim Federle Reading and many more. #BetterNate