If life is not a test, then what is it?That¿s what Alvin Taylor, a 27-year-old alcoholic janitor, tries to figure out over his winter vacation with help from a mocking, yet conscientious, ¿voice,¿ but after a belligerent night in Canada with his friend, Alvin decides to sober up and give back to society¿by becoming a crossing guard at an elementary school.¿Somewhere along the line, between the idealisms of youth and the realities of adulthood, we become pacified by our jobs; we tolerate how we hurt the world so that we can sustain our lives. At some point, blurred in the past, we traded the greater good for ourselves.¿¿"From Frog in the Pot""Frog in the Pot" is a meditation on loneliness, its desperation, loss, and rejection. The narrative is a mixture of introspection, opinion, and drunken nonsense; but there is a larger theme that underscores this prose, something reticent in those of us caught between generations, or a quarter-life crisis. This novel is an entertaining blend of cynicism, sarcasm, and desolation, though at its heart is a thread of hope.