"When We Ride" is a moving tale of deep friendship between two boys, and the ways even the best of friends can grow apart. As a High School teacher, I can see the ways this book can be an authentic look at the realities of growing up for my students, while adding elements of intrigue to keep them turning the pages.

I had the pleasure of meeting the author at the North Texas Teen Book Festival in 2025 and talking to him about this book. Know the ways this story is based in his own experience makes it an incredibly touching story. The ending is both tragic and hopeful.

The audiobook narration by Ramon Deocampo is excellent and makes this an easy listen.

Rex Ogle’s ‘When We Ride’ is a quick but super emotional audiobook. The narrator’s performance is amazing! This heartbreaking, beautifully written story is a must-read. Ogle, a master of novels in verse, captures his characters’ voices so well that you’ll care for them in no time. The heavy themes make it a tearjerker.

I really enjoyed this story. It was a good read about coming of age friendships and how we all have friends we love that go in different directions than us but that the love never dies. I would definitely recommend this book to a young adult audience. The narrators accents were inconsistent with Lawson though which could be improved. Thank you for the audiobook!

When We Ride by Rex Ogle was a quick but emotionally resonant audiobook. It had the vibe of S.E. Hinton’s Outsiders but had a unique storyline about drugs, alcohol, and family struggles. The narrator’s performance was fantastic. Highly recommended.

This was a heartbreaking story. I loved the realistic depiction of teen relationships and decision-making. As frustrating as it was at times, it felt authentic.

I loved this when I read it the first time on kindle a few months ago. This audio is everything and more. It's tragic and heartbreaking and beautiful. A million recommends for this audio and will listen to this narrator anytime.

So insanely heartfelt and raw. At no point did I know what was going to happen, and when the gut punch happened in the last 4% came I could not stop crying. Rex Ogle is one of the great writers of our generation, and his novels tell real stories that tell about real problems that our youth face today. I feel that every student needs to read at least one of his novels, and if they do it should be this one.

“I need a ride.” What do you do when the person you grew up with, your very best friend is making bad choices that could get them and you in trouble? How far will your loyalties go?

Diego and Lawson are high school seniors. They have been “brothers” since elementary school. They have at least ten years of great memories which all are at jeopardy because of choices that they both “have to” make. They are at pivotal points in their lives during a time where most kids are deciding about life after high school.

This fiction in verse will make readers question their own loyalty to friends. How far is too much? Would you ever sacrifice your own long term well- being to help save a friend who may be facing a long term problem? Lawson protects Diego anytime someone tries to pick at him. He wouldn’t let anyone talk bad about him. He would give Diego the shirt off his back but that’s what you do in friendship, and right? Diego would do the same. Both boys are on two different paths and one is taken because of circumstances and survival that seem out of their hands. This book will make you question what conditions leads to choices like this. What could have been done before it got to that point. Readers will be rooting for both characters because while on the outside one of the boys seems “bad” his true story tells something different.

I enjoyed reading this story.

I loved this book from start to finish.

When We Ride explored themes of friendship, growth, poverty, drugs, resiliency, and found family. Diego is doing everything he can to make something of himself. His mum is a mostly recovering alcoholic is laying on incredible first-generation guilt and hope on her only child and trying so hard to get him out, and Diego is watching his best friend Lawson sell drugs to put food on the table for his own family. Diego seems to be doing everything he can to keep his found family together while also looking for a way to be more. This book truly wrote about the levels to which addiction and drugs use ripple through a family. Every "I need a ride" will give you feelings.

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc!