West Rome

Austin Woodman has spent his life avoiding waves. In the small, tight-knit town of Hopewell, Michigan, the son of a respected pastor learns early how to smile politely, keep his head down, and maintain the fragile peace his family depends on. With his two best friends-Lucas, a musically gifted orphan navigating the foster system, and Bree, the sharp-tongued granddaughter of a powerful real estate mogul-Austin is simply counting down the days until graduation, when he can finally escape the expectations and gossip that follow him everywhere. But everything changes when a red-haired farm boy named Tucker steps unexpectedly into his life. What begins as an unlikely friendship slowly pulls Austin toward questions he has never dared to ask-about his future, his family's carefully preserved image, and the truth of who he really is. The deeper he's drawn into Tucker's world, the harder it becomes to balance the version of himself that everyone in Hopewell expects with the person he feels he might be. Set over the course of a transformative junior year, West Rome: The Babblings of a Midwestern Teenager is a poignant, character-driven coming-of-age story. It explores the messy intersections of friendship, love, abuse, addiction, and faith, revealing how resilience often takes root in the quietest corners. At its heart, it's a story about learning to resist-not through loud, dramatic gestures, but through small acts of honesty that chip away at the walls keeping us apart. Sometimes, the bravest rebellions don't make noise-they whisper the truth.