I love it when big authors look at small town or shipboard lives. It brings a large audience to consideration of the human condition.

What this installment does better than some is explore the perspective of a coming of age generation in direct contrast with so-called maturity. It engages the reader over and over in a consideration of what it means to care - for anyone, for any place.

Will it be rewarded? Will it be rewarding? Can it be continuous ? Are those even the measures by which it should be judged ?

Is caring the undercurrent of romance or tragedy ? Why ?