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Christina Applegate and Selma Blair to perform '90s high school comedy audiobook

A star-studded ensemble has come together to perform Folded Notes From High School, a book set in the ’90s which is told in a series of folded notes that pulls together the correspondence surrounding high school senior Tara Maureen Murphy. Tara is a love-to-hate version of Mean Girls‘ Regina George, and the book traces the chatter around her falling for a freshman who dazzles in an audition for Grease.

If a '90s Regina George Exchanged Notes With a Freshman Boy in School, This Would Be It

Actor and writer Matthew Boren's impressive resume ranges from producing story arcs for All My Children to his nine-season role as Stuart in How I Met Your Mother. And his upcoming novel, Folded Notes From High School (out April 3, 2018) marks his latest piece of work — this time as author of a laugh-out-loud YA fiction and romance book.

The book is read in the form of a collection of notes exchanged between status-obsessed senior Tara Maureen Murphy and rising freshman theater star Matthew Bloom. The outrageous and manipulative Tara (think Regina George circa 1991 to 1992) has a sneaky plan to "mentor" Matt after he snagged the lead as Danny Zuko in their high school production of Grease. But when her ploy backfires and she ends up falling for the guy, her status is put at risk.

Folded Notes From High School by Matt Boren

The year is 1991, when teens didn’t communicate through texts but through handwritten notes stuffed into lockers, desks, and mailboxes. In a novel that captures the lingo, fads, and teenage preoccupations of the period, actor and TV writer Boren makes a charismatic debut as he traces the ups and downs of Tara Maureen Murphy’s life through notes exchanged between friends and enemies. Although Tara is dying to get out of her “two-bit town” and study acting at NYU, she intends to enjoy her senior year, getting star roles in the school’s plays, being half of a “supercouple” with her hockey-player boyfriend, and reuniting with her best friend, who has been away for the summer. Things don’t go as she expects. Tara’s year is full of drama, but most of it occurs outside the theater. A brash, egotistical heroine determined to get what she wants at any cost, Tara suffers setbacks at every turn. Even if she doesn’t win readers’ hearts, she will make them smile with her conniving antics, sarcastic wit, and tremendous resiliency. Ages 12–up. (Apr.)

Swoony Boys Podcast

{Waiting On} Folded Notes From High School by Matt Boren

It’s time for another installment of Waiting on Wednesday, where we give you the 411 on the books that we can’t wait to read.

BOREN, Matt. Folded Notes from High School.

Gr 9 Up–Tara is beautiful, talented, and popular. She only dates the hottest guys at school, and her best friends are the kinds of girls who get voted Best Dressed and Most Likely to Succeed. She is up for the lead in all of the school plays. She is also benevolent when it suits her, but is just as likely to crush a classmate if crossed. In other words, Tara is a mean girl; talented and driven but selfish and manipulative, too, and she’s desperate for her senior year to be perfect. But in this narrative, the leading lady’s supporting cast stops playing their parts. Tara’s hot, hockey-playing boyfriend gets caught cheating, her best friend finds a new gal pal, and the freshman she takes under her wing finds his own way into the inner circle. Set during the pre-cell phone 1991–1992 school year and told via a series of intricately folded notes passed through the school day, stuffed into lockers, and snuck into backpacks, this tale about Tara’s over-the-top rise and demise has a playful retro pop culture context. A found letter, sent from Tara to Matt, the freshman upstart, after she has left for college, promises a continuation of the series. VERDICT A campy romp through early 90s culture and slang. Like early-season Rachel on the TV show Glee, readers will love to hate the talented and terrible Tara.—Jennifer Miskec, Longwood University, Farmville, VA