• The most topical issues of relations between children and parents;
• Severe consequences of parents’ «love»;
• Optimism and humor helps life to go on.

This is an incredibly suspenseful reading, filling you with aching sorrow and giving you hope.

Meet Doctor X (Doctor Hristoforov, in Russian his surname starts with a Cyrillic letter «Х») — a sharp and sarcastic misanthrope. Being a baby he nearly died, but was saved by a virtuous surgeon, and when he grew up he took up medicine as a profession. But Doctor X became a doctor not for human bodies, but for human souls. Doctor X is 52, he is the head of psychiatric department for boys, and the work doesn’t leave space for anything else in his life, except for his mother slowly drowning in dementia. Sounds traditionally hopeless, but the book is not dark at all. On the contrary — it is lively and heartwarming.

The novel reads easy, but the language is deep and intense. Despite the serious subject — little patients of psychiatry clinic — the author masterfully exploits humor to lessen the tension degree. Comic moments go through the narration hand in hand with drama and distracted life reflection. Besides the author unexpectedly for the protagonist draws a romantic line and adds a good portion of suspense at the end of the story.