Loving and Precarious

Book 2 in Erika Hammerschmidt's "If the World Ended" series. Aliens destroy childhood nostalgia. A boy on a starship loses touch with reality. Two lovers learn to fly, and a jewelry box learns to communicate. An often dark and tragic collage of speculative fiction, delving deeper into the lives of lonely outcasts and the tumultuous world of love and family. (Adapted from the 2013 short story collection "If the World Ended, Would I Notice?")