Growing Up

In this book, I combine dystopian fiction with detective stories. I also include two coming-of-age stories, showing success through adversity. The first story, The Detective, seeks to explore how older generations deal with the up and coming younger generation of the future. The story has multiple conflicts, some of them generationally based. I thought it would be interesting to explore differences between ages. My second narrative, Helpless, examines what could happen in a climate catastrophe. The story shows that the lower income population is affected the most by the crisis through a father and son who are trapped in a world being destroyed by the ignorance of the wealthy. The third addition in the book is named The Shot, a story about crime and false assumptions. The short story explores racism and bias still present in twenty-first century America. The end is somewhat of a cliffhanger, leaving the reader pondering what really happened. The fourth selection titled The Addiction is meant to explain to the reader what effects immense pressure to succeed in academics and athletics can have on students in high school and college. The piece is a comeback story; achieving great things despite missing the mark earlier in life. My final story named The Greatest Game is a positive story about doing what you love. The story deals with positive role models and helping hands. The story has a happy, maybe bittersweet ending, that compliments the discouraging endings of some of the other selections. The stories all show elements of youthfulness and how it feels to develop and mature.