Inspired by real events, this brilliantly original fusion of novel, comic book, and film script isa celebration of the transience of life andthe eternal difficulty of love, and a hilarious riff on our 21st-century infatuation with movies and the superhero solution

Donald Delpe is a troubled teenager. Not only is he a "terrible teen" by default, as obsessed with sex, music, videogames, and drugs as the rest of his gang, but he is also suffering from a life-threatening form of leukemia, which makes him an even more difficult boy, both for his parents and his teachers. Escaping into his own...