“A boy and a girl, having barely crossed puberty, fell in love with each other. This had a corresponding effect on the girl - she carried and gave birth to a down child. Lovers in horror - mental trauma, hysteria, discord. They refuse the child - no one agrees to sacrifice their young, unremarkable, but still only life for the sake of a hopelessly ill offspring. As a result, the young man’s parents take their down-grandson to raise him. ...The main thing that happens and captivates the reader in the book is the process of humanizing the main character through communication with the capricious, touchy, inferior and, in general, inhuman (but still dear) creature Vanya. And Vanya also becomes humanized. It is humanized without changing - it is not the character who undergoes metamorphosis, but the reader’s attitude towards him, in whose consciousness the author makes a clear shift. ...The novel is strong. Very strong.” P. Krusanov