The firebrat

It is time for Elliott to grow up, in spite of his all-out effort to have the world "his way". He must find a way to integrate into his life a host of verities: the disappointment of his love interest's outrage when Elliott writes a short story about him that not only outs him, but paints him as self-absorbed; the slow, agonizing (and irritating) death of his best friend (his only friend) Charlie; the sale and dismantling of his childhood Shangri-La -- his grandmother's sprawling estate, Skylands; the inescapable truth that his literary hero is not all Elliott has made him out to be; and, finally, the shocking outcome of his infatuation with learning to fly.