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© 2006 A. Sandleman
Notes From The Author:
This story takes place over a three week period in October of any year. I
have divided the chapters into days. This resulted in some chapters being extremely lengthy, while others are scarcely more
than a couple of paragraphs. I wanted to keep things extremely linear. Chapter #2 is by far the longest, as it introduces
most of the characters (Chapter #1 is more of a prologue).
Over the ages, thousands of novels have
been written with religious themes, be they Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan or whatever, but I believe
that this is the very first one that delves deeply into the slightly taboo subjects of Atheism and Agnosticism. The main protagonist
is the former, while I would consider his romantic interest to be the latter...After reading it you might have a different
opinion.
I've gone out of my way to avoid as many clichés as possible. Although numerous subjects
that are common to teen romances do pop up (peer pressure, problems with schoolwork, sexual experimentation etc), I believe
you'll find that this story manages to put new spins on just about all of them.
I should mention,
for those who are squeemish about such things, that you will run into occasional curse words while reading this, though by
no means a gratuitous amount. When writing about kids in this age range, it's only natural that the dialogue would include
some colorful language. I have, however, avoided the use of any currently popular slang. Teen novels from the 70s in which
phrases like "Far Out" frequently occur, now look silly, and I'm hoping that this story will age well over the years.
When the kids greet each other, they either say "Hi" or "Heya," and not "Werd." The only concessions I make to the current
zeitgeist is the presence of the internet and extreme sports, which are both presumably going to be around for awhile.
Finally,
Any word or phrase that people of a certain age might have trouble understanding will be underlined, meaning it is a clickable
link to either a definition or an illustration. Enjoy!
Any
corrections, compliments or criticisms can be mailed HERE
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