An often hilarious and always relevant memoir about one teen boy's battle with brain cancer and his Starlight Children's Foundation wish: to meet Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia and plead for nuclear disarmament and world peace.
It's 1986 and Jeff is an average 15-year-old: he thinks a lot about dating he bounces around with his friends and he's trying his hardest to get a car. Conversely the world around him feels crazy: the United States and the Soviet Union are at glaring odds with their leaders in a standoff and that awful word 'nuclear' is on everyone's mind. Then boom — Jeff learns that he has brain cancer and it's likely terminal. Well that puts a damper on his summer plans and romantic prospects doesn't it?
Jeff's family rallies around him but they are fiercely complicated — especially Jeff's father a man who can't say 'I love you' even during the worst of Jeff's treatment. So when the Starlight Children's Foundation offers to grant Jeff a wish he makes one certain to earn his father's respect: he asks to travel to Moscow and meet with Mikhail Gorbachev to discuss nuclear disarmament and ending the Cold War. Nothing like achieving world peace to impress a distant father right? Jeff has always been one to aim high.
Jeff's story is dark but it's also funny romantic and surprising. As his life swings from incredibly ordinary to absolutely incredible he grapples with the big questions of mortality war love hope and miracles.
