Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Take Me With You
    Take Me With You
    Take Me With You
    Audiobook10 hours

    Take Me With You

    Written by Catherine Ryan Hyde

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    New York Times bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde tells the emotional story of an alcoholic reeling from the loss of his son on the journey to finally facing his pain—and forging a path to redemption.

    August Shroeder, a burned-out teacher, has been sober since his nineteen-year-old son died. Every year he’s spent the summer on the road, but making it to Yellowstone this year means everything. The plan had been to travel there with his son, but now August is making the trip with Philip’s ashes instead. An unexpected twist of fate lands August with two extra passengers for his journey, two half-orphans with nowhere else to go.

    What none of them could have known was how transformative both the trip—and the bonds that develop between them—would prove, driving each to create a new destiny together.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJul 22, 2014
    ISBN9781480598195
    Take Me With You
    Author

    Catherine Ryan Hyde

    Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of thirty-three published books. Her bestselling 1999 novel, Pay It Forward, adapted into a major Warner Bros. motion picture, made the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults list and was translated into more than two dozen languages for distribution in more than thirty countries. Her novels Becoming Chloe and Jumpstart the World were included on the ALA’s Rainbow List; Jumpstart the World was also a finalist for two Lambda Literary Awards and won Rainbow Awards in two categories. The Language of Hoofbeats won a Rainbow Award. More than fifty of her short stories have been published in many journals, including the Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and the Sun, and in the anthologies Santa Barbara Stories and California Shorts, as well as the bestselling anthology Dog Is My Co-Pilot. Her short fiction received honorable mention in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, a second-place win for the Tobias Wolff Award, and nominations for Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Three have also been cited in Best American Short Stories. Hyde is the founder and former president of the Pay It Forward Foundation. As a professional public speaker, she has addressed the National Conference on Education, twice spoken at Cornell University, met with AmeriCorps members at the White House, and shared a dais with Bill Clinton. An avid equestrian, photographer, and traveler, she lives in California.

    More audiobooks from Catherine Ryan Hyde

    Related to Take Me With You

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Top 10 Books

      Jun 16, 2023

      Top 10 Books
      1 min read

    • Article

      Romantic Entanglements Bring Humor And Heartache To Small Town

      Jun 21, 2021

      Katherine Heiny’s novel transplants readers to Boyne City, Michigan, through the keen eyes of the town’s new schoolteacher.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Taking Sides

      Apr 1, 2022

      Taking Sides
      7 min read

    • Article

      Fool’s Gold

      Mar 1, 2021

      Fool’s Gold
      13 min read

    • Article

      Into the Woods

      Oct 26, 2023

      Into the Woods
      6 min read

    • Article

      The July War

      Sep 8, 2020

      In summer, our neighborhood quiets in phases. The quieting begins in May. Schools give their older kids, the seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds, a month off to prepare for the baccalaureate exams. Following a ritual as old as our parents, the students

      21 min read

    • Article

      Lech

      Feb 8, 2022

      Lech
      4 min read

    • Article

      Puppy Love

      Mar 19, 2021

      Puppy Love
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Fox And CINDERELLA

      Dec 7, 2022

      The Fox And CINDERELLA
      6 min read

    • Article

      About Ed

      Jun 14, 2022

      I walk into the orchid show with Ed. As soon as I see the tumultuous hall I know he won’t last long. Ed walks like an old man though he is forty. After ten minutes on his feet, he vomits on some purple phalaenopsis. I get him outside through a fire e

      18 min read

    • Article

      LOVE Is The Word

      Jan 3, 2023

      LOVE Is The Word
      6 min read

    • Article

      Toxic Shock

      Jan 1, 2022

      Toxic Shock
      4 min read

    • Article

      Year Of The Rat

      Nov 24, 2020

      Year Of The Rat
      11 min read

    • Article

      The 4thWrite Short Story Prize Winner: A Young Mother’s Chance Encounter With An Old Classmate

      Nov 16, 2022

      Wrinkled clear film around a forearm. A menthol super-king cigarette is carried to Amy’s mouth. She takes a long, considered drag then exhales a smoke stream into cold air. It’s October and the park is dying. Her other arm wraps tightly around her wa

      9 min read

    • Article

      Proverbs Of A Faceless Time

      Dec 1, 2023

      Proverbs Of A Faceless Time
      9 min read

    • Article

      Water Under The Bridge

      Nov 10, 2022

      The sound of water coursing over rocks filled my ears. The creek banks reached out with lush green vegetation as if to grab and hold me, and the warm June air was sweet with the smell of honeysuckle. The creek was small. Four good jumps and I could g

      26 min read

    • Article

      Me & Davey Waters

      Jan 15, 2023

      Me & Davey Waters
      4 min read

    • Article

      MUM IS MISSING Liane Moriarty

      Sep 8, 2021

      MUM IS MISSING Liane Moriarty
      7 min read

    • Article

      MUM IS MISSING Liane Moriarty

      Sep 8, 2021

      MUM IS MISSING Liane Moriarty
      7 min read

    • Article

      Come with Me

      Dec 1, 2022

      Come with Me
      12 min read

    • Article

      ‘Sing to It’: Featured Fiction from Amy Hempel

      Mar 25, 2019

      If she was home at night in her husband’s bed, did he care what she did with her days? The post ‘Sing to It’: Featured Fiction from Amy Hempel appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      MUM IS MISSING Liane Moriarty

      Sep 8, 2021

      MUM IS MISSING Liane Moriarty
      7 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Nov 30, 2023

      It Happened to Me…
      4 min read

    • Article

      Pins and Needles

      Mar 13, 2020

      Pins and Needles
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘This Might Be The Last Thing I Ever Write’: Paul Auster On Cancer, Connection And The Fallacy Of Closure

      Nov 18, 2023

      Early in Paul Auster’s latest novel, Baumgartner, his eponymous lead character is speaking to a grief counsellor in the immediate aftermath of losing his wife in a freakishly violent swimming accident. “Anything can happen to us at any moment,” he te

      7 min read

    • Article

      Steady Eddie!

      Aug 3, 2023

      Steady Eddie!
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Elephant And The Goldfish

      Aug 5, 2021

      The Elephant And The Goldfish
      8 min read

    • Article

      Famous People

      Mar 1, 2022

      Famous People
      15 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Take Me With You

    4/5

    207 ratings23 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this audiobook book as I do all of her unique expressions of love among people who ordinarily might not meet at all. Being a member of AA myself for a few decades added to my enjoyment of this particular book.
      The only thing that kept me from giving it 5 stars is the way the narrator voiced Seth. I found his voice annoying,and it was an odd choice not to change the adult voice. If I had read instead of listened,it would have been 5 stars for sure!
    • 4/5
      Loved this book so much I promptly downloaded another book by the same author when I finished it.
    • 5/5
      Very easy read. Makes you feel good. Great story. Great characters
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed the book. It was a good story with a somewhat happy ending for all. Interesting portrayal of alcohol in the different characters.
    • 3/5
      Catherine Ryan Hyde’s Take Me with You (2014) reminds me very much of her When I Found You, a novel I read back in 2008. In both instances, a man has his life turned upside down by children who randomly come into his life. In Take Me with You, the main character encounters the two young sons of the small-town mechanic he’s hired to get his travel rig back on the road, and in When I Found You, a man finds a small baby that’s been abandoned in a field he is walking across on his way to hunt ducks. In both novels, the men have to deal with unreliable relatives of the children who resent the long term relationships that will develop between the men and the children. It should be noted, however, that Take Me with You does have a much more positive tone and ending than When I Found You.August, a high school science teacher on a tight travel budget, is on his way to Yellowstone National Park when his rig breaks down in a small California town, and now it appears that the repair costs are going to eat up all of his allocated gas money and then some. For very personal reasons, August is desperate to get to Yellowstone, but now it looks as if he is going to have to try again next year. And then it happens: the mechanic, who is about to begin a 90-day DUI jail sentence, offers to do the repairs for free if only August will take his two boys along with him and keep them until school starts again in September. August knows there are all kinds of reasons that he can’t — and shouldn’t — even seriously consider what the man is asking him to do. But when he drives away, the boys are with him. On the road, August learns that the boys, aged 12 and 7, have been emotionally damaged by living alone for the past few years with their alcoholic father. In their own way, the boys are as damaged and fragile as August, himself a recovering alcoholic and newly divorced, knows himself to be. An entire summer of life on the road together will not be easy for any of them, but it will end up being the defining moment in each of their lives despite their reluctance to admit it to themselves or, most difficultly, to each other.Bottom Line: Take Me with You strikes me as a novel whose message is that life is only made more difficult, and more precious time wasted, when good people fail to communicate with each other out of a misplaced fear of offending each other. This is, in effect, as much a coming of age novel for August as it is for the two boys for whom he suddenly finds himself totally responsible. Hyde tells a good, satisfying store here despite the fact that I found myself sometimes wishing I could shake a couple of the main characters by the shoulder and tell them to just get on with it.
    • 4/5
      Sometimes the universe provides just what we need. August Schroeder has just begun his annual summer RV trip when he breaks down in a little town in NV. This year was especially important to him because he is honoring his 19 year old son, Philip who died in an alcohol-related accident earlier in the year. August has resigned himself to the breakdown breaking his budget and canceling the trip. However, the mechanic Wes makes August a deal: take his two young sons along on the trip (Seth, 12 and Henry, 7) and the repairs will be free. Wes is headed to jail for 90 days and this will ensure the boys will stay out of foster care and be looked after. This quid pro quo was a little unbelievable – but for the sake of the story, it works. The boys have an amazing summer seeing National Parks and experiencing some stability and care and they form a tender bond with August. He does not pander to them and treats them almost as equals. They thrive and grow under this relationship, and their experience of nature and new places opens their eyes to possibility for their small lives. August also experiences healing as he scatters some of Philip’s ashes each place they visit. He also makes great progress in his recovery as an alcoholic. The boys don’t want to return to Wes when summer ends and he senses this and becomes very jealous of August. He severely limits their contact with him going forward. Flash forward 8 years and the boys are almost grown and independent and seek August out for another traveling summer. Meanwhile August has developed a form of MD and must give up his RV. Seth and Henry step up to provide him with the trip of a lifetime. It is a bare-bones story in terms of description and character development, but this approach allows the relationship to be the center of the book and it works.
    • 5/5
      This is a very moving story. In the beginning, the characters seemed a bit superficial, as did the dialog. But the more you read, the more authentic they become. It would be easy to root for August and the kids, but I never found myself doing that. Instead, I was content to follow their story as it unfolded. The fact that the story engages you completely without requiring that you become emotionally invested is a testament to the the author.
    • 5/5
      Wow! This review will be hard because I don’t want to spoil anything. I could not put this book down.

      Thru some unexpected twists, August ends up spending the summer with Henry and Seth as a favor for their dad, Wes. August is a school teacher and had an RV road trip planned for that summer. The summer changes all three of them in beautiful ways. I can’t say more without giving things away, but this may be my new favorite feel-good book! I hope all of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s are this good! It was my first, but certainly not my last!
    • 4/5
      Loved this book so much I promptly downloaded another book by the same author when I finished it.
    • 4/5
      August Schroeder, a burn d out teacher, hasn't had a drink since his nineteen year old son died in a car accident. Every summer he spends the entire summer on the road. This year he is determined to make it to Yellowstone with his son's ashes. His rig breaks down and he ends up taking the mechanic's two young sons with him on the trip. What happens on the trip is that the three develop a lasting bond. Well told...
    • 4/5
      “Take Me With You’ by Catherine Ryan Hyde is a heartwarming story about August, a burnt out high school science teacher, who takes yearly summer trips across the country. Through an unfortunate car accident, in which his alcoholic ex-wife was driving with his son, August loses his only child, Philip. August, a recovering alcoholic, had planned to spend this summer traveling with his son. So instead, August departs on his summer jaunt with a bottle of his son’s ashes to disperse at Yellowstone National Park where they planned to visit. Soon after he gets underway, August encounters car trouble on his motor home, and he is towed to a garage for repairs. While there, August is persuaded to take along two half orphaned young boys as passengers on his trip. As the inexperienced, underprivileged boys are introduced to the majestic sights along the way, they forge a bond with August as they deal with an alcoholic father who is spending time in prison for repeated DUIs. I was very drawn to the emotional context of the story, to see how each character would develop through their interactions and experiences. However, sometimes, especially when the author described the mountain climbing scenes, I became a little disengaged by some of the specifics of the sport. Otherwise, I thought that this novel was a realistic portrayal of some of the very real life issues, such as alcoholism, illness, and death, which confront our daily lives.
    • 4/5
      Catherine's books are just such a pleasure to read and, sometimes for me, a respite from "heavier" type books. She writes about people and real life and intriguing situations. To me, this was one of her more enjoyable reads, but I have many of her collection yet to read. August, a teacher on summer vacation in his RV, has mechanical trouble in a small town along the way. He's on a special mission this year to scatter some of his young adult son's ashes in special places on his tour of major western national parks and other scenic sites.

      Unexpectedly, August acquires two young boys for the summer who have no place else to go as their alcoholic father is headed to prison for a short time. What begins as a tenuous relationship between August and the boys soon becomes much more to all of them. This nail-biter story kept me drilling through the book, absorbed as usual.

      I hope to read every one of Catherine's books in time. They appeal to a broad audience and are easy to read but also intelligent and finely detailed. You'll be in love with the boys by the end of the story and probably with August as well. Description of places is well done; I've been to a number of them and live in another of them. All of this author's stories, so far, have a warmth the reader can feel. It's as though you're in the story, along for the ride.

      I received this book from GR givewaways.
    • 5/5
      This review contains some minor spoilers.When his RV breaks down one summer and is towed to a repair shop, August Shroeder, a high school science teacher, has no idea how his life is about to change. It soon becomes apparent that the shop owner, Wes, has something he wants to ask of August. Wes wants August to take his two boys, Seth, aged 12, and Henry, aged 7, on his road trip to visiti national parks for the summer while Wes does 90 days in jail. The boys have nowhere else to go and will end up in county custody if August does not take them. August can see they are good boys who get along well with his dog, Woody. Seth, while talkative, is thoughtful and courteous, and Henry just doesn't talk. August wants to say no to the idea but instead finds himself agreeing to the arrangement, and once the agreement is made, it cannot be undone.August is still reeling from the loss of his 19-year old son, Phillip, and is a recovering alcoholic. He has some of Phillip's ashes along to scatter in his final destination, Yosemite Park.It soon becomes clear that the boys' father is in jail not for writing bad checks as he claimed but for his fourth DUI and the jail sentence is actually longer than Wes had told August initially. As August and the boys visit national parks such as Bryce Canyon and Yosemite, August finds himself growing attached to the boys. When he has to return the boys to their father, he is disappointed that the boys don't keep in better touch as the years go by.After years pass, August's health begins to decline, and he is no longer able safely drive his rig around the country every summer. He will have to sell it and offers it first to the oldest boy, Seth, whom he met 8 years ago. Seth, now in college and an avid climber, agrees to buy the RV from August. When August meets the boys for the first time in over 8 years, they insist on taking him on a road trip with them over the summer with a special end destination in mind.I loved this book. All the characters are thoughtful and well-developed. I liked how well August, Seth, and Henry communicated among one another. I did guess the final end destination of the second road trip, but there are enough twists in the story to keep it interesting. This was a thoughtful, poignant story, and I enjoyed the descriptions of the national parks as well.
    • 4/5
      This book was our book club choice for October. We had quite the discussion about several aspects of this story. One person felt to many things were not realistic, another felt there was a lot of emotional aspects to the story and another said she could tell it was written by a woman even though the story was from a man's perspective. For those of us who have had experience with Alcoholics felt like Catherine nailed that part very well. We all enjoyed the book and were glad we read it but it did make for a lively conversation! I personally was deeply moved and affected by several moments throughout the book. This would be a great book for AA groups to read and discuss.
    • 3/5
      I agree with others – the first half was great, the second half not so much. Very interesting premise: an alcoholic, about to go to jail, asks a stranger who’s also an alcoholic, to take his two sons on a summer-long road trip so they don’t have to go into foster care. I loved the boys, with their philosophical outlook on life and quiet wisdom. Young Henry is especially endearing because of his tendency not to speak, until he begins bonding with August and later feels the need to defend himself, his brother, and August from his father. The way the boys help August deal with the death of his son was really touching; almost brought a tear to my eye. The author does a great job of describing the beauty and majesty of the parks and sites that they visited; she also skillfully handles the subject of alcoholism and the positive effect that AA can have on the addicted and those affected by addiction. It’s when the boys and August reconnect after eight (!) years that the story falls short. Way too much rock climbing; way too contrived with August’s sudden disability; not enough reality about cross-country trips once the boys are adults with their own lives and families. It almost felt like two different books. A little more story-telling about the intervening years might have improved things.
    • 5/5
      I LOVED this! The audio was wonderful, read by Jeff Cummings. I was almost in tears at different points along the way. And what's not to just plain love about these three people, August and the two boys AND Woody, the dog. I thought the entire story was believable in a really lovely way---a man who was set in his ways but learning to adapt to a younger generation as well as to his own body. Lots of words of wisdom in both directions---from the young to the old and the old to the young. Well worth reading or listening.
    • 2/5
      Simplistic.  Dull.  Yuck!
    • 5/5
      I am giving this book a high rating despite myself in some ways. Totally heart felt, tear-jerker book about a man who adopts two boys for the summer and takes them on a road trip to our national parks to get away from their alcoholic father who is going to prison. It felt like an Oprah book at it's best. Great description of alcoholism. all written with an open heart.
    • 4/5
      Went through a box of Kleenex on this book. A quick read, finished in a day. A story of a father who lost his son in an auto accident and a chance encounter that brought him together with boys in need of someone to look up to. A bit too much of AA, but it actually worked in the storyline. These characters will stay with me for a while.
    • 5/5
      This was a very sweet stort about a man named August. August is an alcoholic who has been sober since his son died. He takes trips in his camper and is on his way to Yosemite when his rig breaks down. The mechanic an active alcoholic asks him to take his kids for the summer because he has to go to jail for ninety days. This changes Augusts life and the lives of Seth and Henry. The story was just sweet. It was heartwarming. I absolutely loved it. The kindness that we show others matters. This story although fiction could really happen. Favorite quote: The longer you live, the inside of everybody is a lot like the inside of everybody else. If your feeling something, more likely than not its just what anyone would feel.
    • 4/5
      Interesting book about a middle-aged science teacher and his friendship with two young boys which began when he took them on a road trip through somemod the western national parksmwhile their father served jail time. Character development is a little weak as the main character is never really flesjhed out, but I enjoy the journey!
    • 4/5
      Did not expect to enjoy this book but it was wonderful on many levels. I have a new desire to see the national parks in USA and would love to take the summer off exploring
    • 5/5
      This is a great book to read at the end of vacation, or even during your vacation. When I finished Take Me with You I felt like I’d been reliving my childhood summer vacations; but aside from the nostalgia this story invokes, it is a superbly crafted tale about 2 men and 2 boys and the way the decisions they make change the course of all their lives. August Schroeder is a sober recovering alcoholic and a science teacher on summer break, who is driving his camper, and his dog Woody, to Yosemite, something he does every year; only this year is different because he is taking the ashes of his 19 year old son with him—wanting to scatter them when he gets to Yosemite. That’s the plan, until he breaks down in a desolate part of California and a mechanic tows him to his shop. Wes, the mechanic, has two sons, who like playing with Woody, and the dog likes them too, giving the bored kids something to do. Their dad notices that they all seem to get along well, and after a few days he asks August if he would take the boys on vacation with him for the summer. At first August is taken aback, but as he learns more about Wes’s reason for asking, he says he’ll think about it—and so will you as you contemplate what would compel a stranger to take 2 children he barely knows on a 3 month vacation? Take Me with You, is a 5 star novel that can be read by anyone including older teens. There is a small amount of swearing used by the kids, a few times, in understandable circumstances.