Third Level

<p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Life goes on no matter how much we try to stop it.</em></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Junior year isn't just a grade-it's a hinge. In </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Third Level</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Kenneth Nwanze chronicles a school year that swings between cafeteria politics and quiet epiphanies viral hallway moments and private victories no camera catches. From homecoming highs to lockdown lows from PSAT panic to SAT strategy from Netflix escapes to theater seats and field trips that reset the soul this is a raw funny and reflective portrait of becoming.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Inside these seventy chapters friendships fracture and mend love triangles wobble and respect gets spelled out the hard way. Kenneth learns to be a </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>thermostat not a thermometer</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-setting the temperature in rooms that run on rumor-while practicing the boring victory of walking away showing up and finishing what he starts. As a Student Ambassador he welcomes VIPs; as a friend he learns when to listen when to fight and when to choose peace. He comes out to the person who feels like home builds habits that outlast hype and starts writing the senior he wants to meet.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Equal parts diary and drumline </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Third Level</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> celebrates joy as fuel mercy as strategy and culture as something ordinary people make on ordinary Tuesdays. It's a love letter to bus windows yearbook deadlines teachers who quietly save you and the friends who text breathe at exactly the right minute. Most of all it's a farewell from junior year and a promise to senior year: </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>I'll bring the calm.</em></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>A candid coming-of-age memoir for teens educators and anyone who remembers the year before goodbye.</span></p>