High school students turn an ordinary Moscow school into a separate state with its own laws and currency—tens (caps). Remember the game with cardboard circles, popular in the 2000s? The nondescript tenth-grader Ryzhiy becomes the champion and creates a mafia-like structure inside the school. Riding on his success, he doesn’t notice his rival—a junior student from the eleventh grade, Dinara. Disguised as activism for the benefit of students, she builds her own party—and soon becomes a full-fledged dictator.
The clash between the two leaders is inevitable. Who will win? And what awaits the heroes in adult life? Ivan Bevz’s novel “What We Did While You Taught Us How to Live” is about power and its temptations.
5 reasons to buy the book “What We Did While You Taught Us How to Live”:
• Ivan Bevz is a new name among the ranks of popular “thirty-something” writers (Aся Володина, Вера Богданова, Екатерина Манойло, Иван Шипнигов and others);
• A sharp, bold novel about that youth, which is nothing like the “school years of miracles” and other romantic fluff;
• A story about teenagers who became kings of success now, not “when you grow up.” Power as a stage of growing up;
• Remember the 2000s! Caps, MTV clips, CD players, posters… and a promising air of freedom;
• The conflict of “fathers and children” in the post-Soviet space: what did it lead to?