Puzzle

Where do you usually start assembling a Puzzle? With the frame or with random pieces? Do you keep a sample in front of you or trust your intuition? A tenth grader, Ilya Talikov, Talka, has a distracted mom and a stepdad, Valya. And also — school. Every teenager knows: school is a separate huge life. A colorful picture of teachers, friends, tragedies, discoveries, and betrayals. And now Talka's puzzle has scattered into small pieces. Now in front of him is a jumble of seemingly random fragments: someone else's crime and a daughter of a Viking, meanness and art, a gray ferryman and an accident. And with the help of Nikolai Gogol and Edgar Poe, he will have to gather himself anew from this jumble. Or a new self. The book made it to the shortlist of the III season of the literary competition "White Crows."