SYNOPSIS: A rare meteorite struck Alex Woods when he was ten years old, leaving scars and marking him for an extraordinary future. The son of a fortune teller, bookish, and an easy target for bullies, Alex hasn’t had the easiest childhood.

But when he meets curmudgeonly widower Mr. Peterson, he finds an unlikely friend. Someone who teaches him that that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make it count.

So when, aged seventeen, Alex is stopped at customs with 113 grams of marijuana, an urn full of ashes on the front seat, and an entire nation in uproar, he’s fairly sure he’s done the right thing …

The book begins from the end of the story and become a long flashback.

Alex Woods is a teenager that has to deal with bullies, his clairvoyant mother, his first crush and his epilespy. The very beginning of  Alex  epilessy problem, was at ten when he was hit by a meteorite at home. This episode will leave him a scar, epilepsy attack but mostly important for him, who has a passion for Astronomy, a rare meteorite, that the boy guard as a priceless tresure.

During an afternoon when Alex is seventeen, some bullies are chasing after him and he casually enter in Mr Peterson garden. The first meeting show a rude and widower old man, but soon things change and an unlikely friendiship grow.

Don’t be deceived by the fact that Mr Peterson is an old rude and moody man at appearance. He’s a charismathic and full of wisdom. Keen about Vonnegut books, that are an important part of the entire plot.

 Alex is a mixture of book worm and astronomy passionate, always with his head lost in books. Extence gives such interestings details about astronomy and Vonnegut, that you will desire to be more informated and read about that.

The thing that really made me involved with this book was the unlikely but truly friendship between the two of them. You always read of friendship between equal age, but not so often about an old man and a teenager. It reminds me of Carl and Russell from Up, that at the end consider each other part of the family. Alex, despite his age, will always be at Mr Peterson’s side.

It will make you laugh and cry. Happines and sadness will accompany you through this unlikely but amazing friendship and through this breathtaking novel.

THE AUTHOR: Gavin Extence is an English writer. He was born in 1982  in  Swineshead, Lincolnshire. From the ages of 5 – 11, he enjoyed a brief but illustrious career as a chess player.  Thanks to his first novel “The Universe Versus Alex Woods” he won the Waterstones 11 Literary Prize.  Gavin now lives in Sheffield with his wife, baby daughter and cat. When he is not writing, he enjoys cooking, amateur astronomy and going to Alton Towers.