In apartment 4-B, a thirty-something year old man is forced to face the very real prospect of aging, but still yearns for the nostalgia of youth.
Directly below in 3-B, a seventeen year old girl on the cusp of becoming a woman is achingly unaware of her effervescent beauty as she struggles to find her identity in between two cultures and two eras.
Two doors down in 3-D, a twenty-three year old young man stumbles to find his footing in a society where he feels alien, and while juggling one part-time job after the other to scrape by, he wonders whether or not he should regret the decisions he made.
In 3-A, a thirty year old divorced single mother haphazardly balances her exhaustively demanding job as a hospital nurse with being a good mother to her young daughter, but her ex-husband's sporadic visits threaten to tip the scale as she finds her heart shaking still.
These four individuals, seeming to have nothing in common except the same apartment complex, find their lives to intersect as they discover (and rediscover) what it means to be young, to be old, and to be in love.
. . . . . . . . . .
Rated "mature" for thematic elements and content not catered towards the general demographic of pre-teens and teens. This is "literary fiction," NOT "young adult" or "teen fiction." There are numerous overarching concepts that may not be appropriate for or understood by younger readers, such as the following:
Death, religion, and spirituality
Philosophy and sciences
Marriage and divorce
Sex, sexuality, and other suggestive elements
Youth and aging
Mental disorders (such as depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, the entirety of the autistic spectrum, etc.) and the stigma placed upon them by society
Suicide
Body image
The division of society into economic classes
Substance addiction and abuse
Explicit language
If any of the above subjects disturb you or make you uncomfortable in any way, it is suggested that you do not continue on with this story. You have been thoroughly warned, and now it is your decision to make; please do not complain to me later on, for I will disregard any and all complaints - I reserve the right to express myself freely in creative writing.
Copyright © 2015 by Rachel J. Kim
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
YOU ARE READING
Young
General Fiction"I never knew how pretty I was until I met you." A meditation on the inevitability of aging, (the eventual corruption of) beauty, and soul-destroying loneliness.