Childhood’s End and Other Teenage Dreams – Tristan B Taylor

REVIEW:

In the book, Childhood’s End and Other Teenage Dreams, Tristan B. Taylor does an amazing job of bringing out the emotions and touching moments of our teenage years with a collection of short stories.  There are some stories that truly stand out and bring back memories of our own teenage years.

One story that particularly stood out to me was a story about a son dreaming about his eighteenth

birthday, and his wonderful memories with his father making plans for his special day, only to wake up and remember that the eighteenth birthday was also the last year of his father’s life with whom he was so close with.  This really shows the vulnerability we have in our teenage years.

Taylor does a wonderful job using teenage slang within his short stories so they are more vivid and believable.  Taylor touches on the story of a high school nerd and his first school crush on the famous cheerleader at his high school.  He does a wonderful job at describing the trepidation of Penn, the high school nerd waiting and working his way up to asking Melody, the cheerleader out.  When he finally does get up the nerve, he is rejected with force.  This story shows us that we do bounce back from rejection in our teenage years even when it hurts.  Taylor makes the point from Penn’s standpoint, that Melody’s beauty is only on the outside and Penn coming to this realization.

Anyone should read this book that wishes to reminisce about their teenage years.  This story takes us back in time, and Taylor’s writing is so real, it touches your heart personally.  Another story that touched my heart was about two boys falling in love, one being a younger brother and the other, his older brothers best friend.

There are enough short stories in this book to make it “diverse and profound” and they are easy to empathize with. This book gets a five-star review for being so well written, and so real.