The Road Loops Around

Alina Pozharskaya defines the genre of her novella as realism with fantasy allowances. There are very few fantastic allowances: some characters simply have superpowers. 14-year-old Vika can read people's biographies through their faces, but she only sees what they know themselves, while her friend Yulia occasionally has prophetic dreams. Vika dreams of finding her biological parents and asks her English teacher Asya and geography teacher Rustam (also known as Tame) for help.

From the very first pages of the book, a whirlwind of relationships unfolds, sometimes tangled, sometimes difficult. Vika, Yulia, Asya, and Rustam, along with other teenagers and adults, go to a rock festival. There they meet Igor — a hitchhiker and future train driver — and meet Asya's husband Fedya. At the festival, the characters fall in love, argue, reconcile with each other, and discover some secrets... In search of Vika's parents, the group is set to travel to Petrozavodsk — where the first clues lead. But what to do with the mysterious verse that Yulia dreamt of: "The road loops around, look for the answer in each other" — remains undecided for now.

Vivid characters, lively language, twists in stories and relationships — it's hard to tear oneself away from this colorful knot.

Alina Pozharskaya is a writer, screenwriter, and satirical poet, winner of literary competitions and holder of several awards and prizes. Her debut novella "Other Pens. Volunteer Notes," also published in "KomlasGid," is dedicated to a shelter for stray animals. It became a notable novelty of 2021.