MY BOOKS

Timothy Anderson (my alter ego) is 12 years old troubled boy from Minneapolis. Bullied by schoolmates, lonely, not having any friends he longs for, with parents who are always busy, he things he is a real loser. What Tim doesn't know, he is a part of top secret plan of 'galactic' proportions.

The book starts when a new schoolmate named Ateryu (*) joins Tim's class and Atreyu sits next to him. Even Atreyu is kind to Tim, Tim is reluctant to make friendship with him since he is a true opposite of Tim. Atreyu is a handsome, popular, gifted and well educated and Tim believes that soon or later Atreyu joins the rest of his class and starts bullying him. Only after Atreyu saves Tim from 3 class bullies who beats Tim badly, their friendship come true.

But Tim faces a serious problem. Strange things start to happen. His glass bottle that was broken to pieces by one of class bully is miraculously glued together as it was never broken. At the school pool Tim is chased be invisible object he can hear only and see it just in the reflection of the pool water. One night Tim is attacked by a creature similar to Alien's facehugger. In the past Tim had some mental problems, so he is not quite sure if these things are real or just a product of his vivid imagination. And he is afraid to tell about it to his parents since he believes he will be locked to a psychiatric hospital. After a while he decides to tell it to his best and only friend Atreyu.

Atreyu feels sorry for Tim and admits that it's his fault. According to his words, Atreyu even he is just 12, he is an agent of top secret organization called XCOM fighting against the planned alien invasion that has already started. Atreyu believes that making a friendship with Tim forces aliens to investigate his new friend. Atreyu offers Tim to join the organization what Tim eagerly accepts.

Tim and Atreyu start their fight against the aliens that must be kept in absolute secret. They go to 'missions' how Atreyu calls them, where they destroy UFO, enter secret alien base (masked as an old shack) where they found alien embryos, go to cave where they are attacked by an alien and many other things. Tim's life is now totally different and even facing all those dangers he is happy for the first time in his life.

But not everything goes according to the plan. Atreyu doesn't want to show Tim secret XCOM base, nor any other XCOM agents. Many missions look strange. Crashed UFO doesn't leave any wreckage, embryos and adult alien look like they are just a product of some kind of hologram and so on. What's more, Atreyu lives in a strange house with its own supercomputer and observatory. Slowly, Tim starts to doubt if Atreyu is telling him truth and if Atreyu himself is not one of those evil aliens. His suspicion confirms when Tim enters his friend's yard and Atreyu's house protected by some kind of force field shows its real appearance. Now it looks like a hyper-futuristic base with a spaceship hovering over the yard and robots that start to chase Tim. Escaping robots, Time runs always. Absolutely sure his former friend Atreyu is the real alien Tim must start to fight for his own life. But the reality is more complex than it might look like.

* Atreyu is a temporary name I'll change in the final version of the book. It's my homage to movie The Neverending Story that I loved as a child so much that it made me to start writing. I was 8 or 9.

The book isn't finished yet. Text is completed but since I was writing it in time span of 15 years a huge amount of rewriting is needed to make the text more readable. And since the book has 1,700 norm pages (1,800 characters per page) it will take years to finish it.

Josh Hurt (my alter ego) is 12 years old boy from Boston. Just lives with his mother, father and younger sister Emily in Jamaica Plain suburb. He is a clever and well behaved guy with a good heart (*). It's a summer time and summer holiday just started but Josh is sad and envious of other kids who are playing baseball outside. He studied hard at the school at got all A grades, but now his long awaited summer holiday is going to be ruined. Josh contracted an acute lymphoblastic leukemia and he goes to the Boston Children Hospital to be treated there.

Josh in his diary starts to describe painful and exhausting treatment he has to undergo. And even oncology ward is not the nicest place in the world, Josh meets new friends there. Jesse is 12 years old who always have crazy ideas like secretly visiting the hospital morgue. Mike is a teenager and computer genius who remains sarcastic though his condition is very serious. Jen 13 years old is a leukemia survivor who is just finishing her treatment and soon she leaves the hospital.

Besides all the terrible things like vomiting after chemotherapy, undergoing chest catheter operation or intrathecal chemotherapy administered to a spinal chord, Josh is happy. He has new cool friends and beautiful Jen he fall in love with. Unfortunately, Josh is too shy to express his feelings towards Jen. And Josh is running out of time. Jen is going to be released and a farewell party is his last opportunity to tell her how he loves her. Taking his last chance Josh doesn't tell his favorite nurse Julia about his increasing pain in the chest being afraid not to be admitted to a farewell party. With too many people there including all kids from the oncology ward, doctors and nurses, Josh could not find a minute to be alone with Jen. Everything is in vain. Josh will never express Jen how he loves her.

But there is a new hope. Jess came with the idea of after-party at night. Josh, Jess, Mike and Jen go to a hospital roof watching stars. Josh as an enthusiastic astronomer and space ship geek shows his friends all constellations he can find and they watch falling meteoroid. A beautiful night ends when Josh starts to cough. Jen decides to go back to hospital rooms. Accompanying Josh, both go to his room. Now, Josh has his last opportunity to tell Jen how he loves he. Still hesitating, out of nothing it's Jen who asks Josh if she can become his girlfriend. Josh is now the happiest boy in the world. He loves Jen and Jen loves him.

Their happiness doesn't last long. In the morning Josh's condition deteriorates rapidly as he contracted a serious pneumonia. He is taken to an intensive care unit where he fights for his life. His weakened body with poor immunity almost doesn't make it. Fortunately, his condition slowly starts to improve and after several weeks spent at ICU he is moved back to the oncology ward. Josh is alone there. Mike was moved to NYC for experimental treatment, Josh was released for several weeks before he starts a new chemotherapy cycle and Jen as a cancer survivor was released home to her father farm in Natick, MA. Chatting with Jen is Josh's only joy and hope.

Because of pneumonia, doctors should stopped administering chemotherapy and chemotherapy cycle must start again. Brining all nauseas and other troubles, it is much easier now for Josh, since he knows Jen loves him. Her love makes him stronger and helping him to overcome his sadness when Josh learns that his friend Mike died. Released from hospital a few weeks later, he finally meets Jen and Jess. Jess didn't answer Josh's chats and emails for a long time out of depression. Jess's treatment has failed and his only chance is a risky bone marrow transplant. But Josh condition is not better. His bone marrow tests show that Josh treatment failed too. And when Jess died of a disease caused by his poor immunity only Josh and Jen remain. Josh is dying and their love must face the final challenge.

The book is inspired by the movie Ways to Live Forever (2010) about 12 years old Sam, who is dying from leukemia. While the movie is nice, I wanted to put more stress on feelings of my main character Josh, so the book is written as a diary using first person narrative. There is also a strong Christian motif at the end of book.

* I took a name Josh after the movie character Josh Waitzkin from the beautiful and touching movie Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993). Josh Waitzkin is portrayed as a 7 years old chess prodigy how is also a goodhearted boy that doesn't want to win his chess matches at all cost.

This is just a concept of the book I would like to write. Now, no more than few pages of remarks and the basic plot have already been written. So, everything could be a subject of change.

This book is inspired by the Swedish movie Before the Storm (2000) I watched during my Christmas holiday 2022. Immediately after finishing it, I start to think about the story and the basic plot that shares many similarities with this movie is in the following paragraphs.

Lucas (my alter ego) is 13 years boy living with his upper middle class family in the Boston area. He is a handsome (hence the book title), highly intelligent and well behaved but somehow introvert guy. His careful parents try to provide their son everything he needs. They even started to save some money for his university studies. His father is a professor at the University of Harvard, who pushes his son to do sports and taking piano lessons. He envisioned that Lucas will study on some of most prestigious universities like Harvard or MIT. Even though Lucas is an excellent student getting A+ grades only, his father tries to persuade him to change his public school he is attending now to a private school that could give him a better education. Lucas opposes his father plan since he doesn't like snobbish and posh private schools and his best and only friend Josh is his classmate he doesn't want to lose.

Josh is a shy, not so smart or handsome but a good hearted boy from a lower class religious family. Josh's father pushes his son to sing at the church choir that Josh really hates. His friend Lucas is not just his best friend, but the one who protects Josh at school and helps him with the school projects and home works. For Josh, Lucas is some kind of smart older brother figure.

Neither Lucas nor Josh is quite popular at their class. Girls consider them as two 'weirdos' and boys are often making offending or homophobic comments to them. Lucas sometimes fights back to protect his friend but he is smart enough to know that his schoolmates are jealous of him because of his smartness and physical beauty.

Connor is Lucas older schoolmate. A problematic 15 years old teenager from a broken family, his mother leaves him and father often beats his son. Connor is a fearsome school bully and the real troublemaker. A few months ago he started to bully Lucas. Lucas must regularly pay him a small amount of money and from time to time, Connor slaps or hits Lucas. Josh wants Lucas to tell about his bullying to a school counselor or his parents. Lucas refuses it knowing his father use this as a pretext to move him to a private school he hates so much. Connor is in the last grade and soon he leaves the school.

Situation has changed when a new schoolmate joins Lucas and Josh class. Jennifer is a beautiful and smart girl Lucas immediately falls in love with. Jennifer is warned by her new schoolmates that Lucas is 'wierd' and not making a friendship with him, but since Lucas is so handsome and intelligent he attracts her. The first love is a new experience for Lucas. He daydreams about Jennifer, taking shower every morning, brushing his teeth and hair he never did before. His live is upside down.

Unfortunately, their affection doesn't last long. When Jennifer reveals that Lucas is secretly taking her pictures she calls him a sicko and lose all her interest to him. The things get more complicated when Connor starts to harass Jennifer. Trying to protect her, Lucas starts to fight Connor at the school corridor. Interrupted by teachers, Connor swears to beat Lucas. A day after Connor with his friends waits for Lucas to make revenge. Beating a humiliating him, Lucas starts to reconsider his attitude to Connor. And when Connor beats Josh, there is nothing that could stop Lucas's own revenge.

Lucas starts to believe that killing Connor is the only way how to save not just himself but also other kids bullied by Connor. He considers his vengeance as an act of goodness. If he doesn't stop Connor, some kids bullied by him may commit suicide or have a mental problem till end of their lives. The only chance to save all of them including Josh and Jennifer is killing Connor.

Lucas asks Josh to steal his father's gun telling him he just wants to scare Connor. Luring him into a forest he points the gun at Connor, unable to shot him. When Connor starts to shout at Lucas, accusing him he is a coward, Lucas unconsciously shots Connor. Believing he is dead, Lucas runs away.

At first, Lucas believes that he did the right thing. Connor making troubles all the time he would finally end up in the prison. By killing him he saved the bullied kids from all their fears, Connor will never harass Josh or Jennifer and no one will miss Connor including his father who is just beating him. But facing a new reality, he must reconsider his attitude. Connor is not dead. He is in a critical condition and unconscious, but soon or later he starts to speak. What's more, Lucas crime doesn't bring any relief to his schoolmates. Kids and their parents are full of fear of an 'unknown psychopath' that shot a child. When Lucas visits hospital to see unconscious Connor, he sees both of his parents crying in his room. Even his best friend Josh is afraid to death. He doesn't want to go to a prison and to the Hell after his death because of helping Lucas shooting Connor. Lucas starts to understand he was so wrong and he destroyed everything including his own parents who did everything for him. Now he must face the consequences of his action and voice of his conscience.