A.J. replies:

"I want the readers to take away from my story the feeling of representation, validation and that they're not alone. I find myself so emotionally invested in my storytelling. I want the reader to feel what the characters go through, to relate and can see themselves attached to the character that resonates with them on a personal level. I want to bridge reality to fiction so they can easily see the world, to the point that the reader can personally see how it coordinates with their actual situation, place or reminds them of someone in their own lives through the first person narrative and perspective. 

As the author, I keep myself busy in order to focus and use as much of my real life experiences and the events to create a compelling storytelling. It's kind of like when transferring onto page my writing I have a foot in reality and the other in my imagination, linking the two, to create this fictional world that takes its own life form as it's being written on the pages. My hope is I have captivating memorable characters, places, events and storyline that people want to dive into and when done reading it in it's entirety, sit back and pounder how this particular book and the entire story took them on an emotional journey of growing pains, self discovery and healing journey. Also to take away the fact the learned something now about themselves or references the way the characters handled situations to help them with conflict resolutions and grasp a better understanding of how it feels to be in someone else's shoes. To know they're not alone and can references to this book with representation on the pages read.

That's what I hope the reader takes away from reading my work."