Dear Supporter!
Firstly thank you for being a part of my journey, our book cover created by the artist Oleg Sharov is almost done! In the meantime as a token of my appreciation I'm sharing a sneak preview of the book, a very funny chapter that will hopefully cheer up your day.
All the best,
Manu
The Party That Made Headlines
I was never one for quiet milestones.
As my 18th birthday approached—December 31st, 2005—I felt the pull of freedom like a tide: inevitable, wild, and overdue. I didn’t want a polite dinner or a family cake-cutting. I wanted a celebration that felt like mine. So I did what any self-respecting teenager with access to a beach house in Angra dos Reis would do—I started planning a secret party.
No parents. No rules. Just music, ocean air, and a house big enough to blur the line between dream and reality.
I thought I had covered all my tracks. I handpicked the guest list, whispered invites only to the closest friends, and even hired a DJ who understood the art of discretion. But I underestimated two things: the power of gossip in a small town, and the simple fact that in Angra, nothing involving champagne, teenagers, and beachfront property ever stays secret.
The week before, I’d stayed at my cousin’s house for her birthday. It turned into an all-night rager followed by a communal sleepover. We woke up groggy, hungover, and still buzzing with stories—only for my phone to start vibrating.
“Girl… have you seen the paper?”
Front page of the local social column:
"Wild Party at Seve Residence: This Year’s Hotspot for New Year’s on Angra’s Shores."
That’s how my mom found out.
She had planned to spend New Year’s Eve in the countryside, trusting me with the house for a low-key night with a few close friends. FURIOUS doesn’t even begin to cover her reaction. Within hours, her plans changed. She was joining us in Angra—for the party.
We left before her to enjoy a few unregulated days of freedom. And we did all the things teenagers do when left unsupervised, including creating a weed-infused chocolate sauce potent enough to sedate an elephant. When the day of her arrival came, we searched frantically for it—only to realize the housekeeper had baked it into a cake. A beautiful, glistening, dangerously dosed cake.
We devoured it as fast as we could, hoping to hide the evidence. But my friend JP, in a moment of stoner logic, stashed the last piece in his room. During the party, he ended up feeding it to a kid who had come along with one of my mom’s friends. The poor boy was so high, he started hitting on his own mother. Chaos barely covers it.
The party itself was legendary. Boats lined the shore. Music echoed across the bay. And at some point, vandals made their way into my room and threw our belongings onto the roof. As dawn broke and the first light of the new year streamed in, we climbed up to retrieve what we could. My friend Mariana stepped onto a patch of unstable tiling—then a loud crack. The roof gave out.
For a moment, she dangled from the ledge, stunned, her legs swinging above my uncle’s beloved jet ski. We pulled her up through gasps and laughter. Miraculously, no one was hurt—except for the jet ski.
That uncle and my stepdad hadn’t spoken in over a year. Tension, pride, old wounds—who knows. But the next morning, we all gathered in a collective hangover watching Sex and the City reruns, relieved that the house itself had survived. Then the housekeeper came in with the news.
The jet ski was wrecked.
My stepdad was forced to call his brother. And in that awkward, necessary conversation, something shifted. They spoke. Laughed, even. That call reopened their relationship, one that had been sealed by silence. It turned out to be one of the last years his brother would walk this earth.
Funny how life forces us to confront the very things we’re trying to avoid—sometimes through a party, a broken roof, and a weed cake gone rogue.
Looking back, that night was more than just a wild teenage rebellion. It was a rite of passage wrapped in chaos, laughter, and a few close calls. I thought I was celebrating my freedom, but what I really encountered was the delicate edge between control and surrender. I learned that even in the wildest moments, life has a strange way of guiding us—revealing what needs healing, reuniting what was broken, and reminding us that the most unforgettable memories are rarely the ones we plan. Sometimes, the messiest nights are the ones that mark us the most.
