Fast Times at Ridgemont High : A True Story [Hardcover]

Cameron crowe (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 253 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (September 15, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671252909
• ISBN-13: 978-0671252908
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,526,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Falling Back Into High School, February 13, 2011

By 

PHILIP S WOLF (SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, CA. USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Paperback)

In the fall of 1979 Cameron Crowe did something that many would describe as crazy. At 22 years of age he walked into the office of Principal William Gray's office and asked permission to attend classes for the full length of the school year to research a book he was to write of his experiences inside the walls of Ridgemont High in Redondo Beach, California. The sights, the sounds and even the smells of a High School of the late seventies are described within the covers of this most excellent document of being a teenaged wasteland of thirty years past.

The author walked the halls in a proper uniform of tennis shoes, jeans, t-shirt and backpack and blended in as best that he could while he transcribed everything and everyone around him. In this book you will discover: Brad Hamilton, the guy would takes pride in his fries, Damone, who has already mastered" "The Attitude" Mark Ratner, still hoping to nix the tie, Stacy Hamilton, listening to every pearl of wisdom about sex that Linda Barrett would describe in the lunch room while 15 year old boys observed from the un-cool tables and gazed at still-developing, female-type chests with big wide eyes of teenaged lust. And then, at last we arrive at Mister Hand's classroom where Jeff Spicoli is looking at a history textbook drawing cartoons with bloodshot eyes trying to figure out if this Thomas Jefferson dude was cool or extremely bogus.

What makes this book and the movie that followed it as the classic American story of teenagers coping with life as teenagers in a world they didn't create is that this ain't: "Leave it to Beaver" or: "The Brady Bunch." This is the truth about what you gotta put up with when you are pimply-faced loser to the rest of the world and the kid that cannot score tickets for the Zeppelin concert at The Forum next month. This is the day-by-day journal of horny and wasted semi-adults who don't have a clue of what their future holds before them. This book is an accurate account of what music makes sense and which car you gotta drive to take a girl (a real one, not an inflatable one!) up to the point to have any chance to score.

There are many more stories found inside this book than the ones that made it onto the script of the very popular and most excellent film that followed this most fantastic book. Ridgemont ROCKS!!! And this is an outstanding document of what went down there.
FIVE STARS !!!

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better Than the Movie, November 28, 2001

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Paperback)

I bet you didn't even know this was a book before it was a movie, did you? The first thing to know is that the book is much better than the movie. The definitive novel about early 80s Southern California high-school life, it is actually based on real events, as its subtitle "A True Story" tells you. Cameron Crowe apparently actually attended high-school for a year to do a "portrait" of contemporary high-school life. Fast Times is what emerged. While fairly faithful to the story, the movie diminishes the roles of Mark "the Rat" and Brad, and pumps up the role of Spicoli (who is a freshman in the book). It's a quick read, and well worth it if you want a light-hearted period book. It can be a little hard to find though.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yeah, it works., January 3, 2008

By 

Gabriel Neeb "sandiegocinerama" (Sin Diego, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Paperback)

A few things, yes this should be reissued. No, the edition I'm reading came from the library. I've no idea if there is any appreciable difference.
My only exposure to 'Fast Time...' had come primarily through the 1982 film. Loved it. Raucous with heart- a mix that is often attempted but more often failed, but the movie managed to do that. So I went looking for the book. Only to not find it on amazon or bn or Borders. OK. Check again. Nope. A few years later. Nothing. Now, about ten years after I first saw the movie, I decided to get the book out of the local library. And I'm glad I did.
If the book can be remembered for anything, it will be because the reader can read a part here or there and remember something like that. The uncertainty, the false bravado, the awkward search for conversation, a misread gesture. All the hallmarks of growing up and trying to relate to your peers. It's a book that only a few hundred actually experienced (Mr. Crowe and his classmates), but everyone that has ever attended an American high school will feel a high degree of familiarity with ("Well, no it didn't happen exactly like that...").
Mr. Crowe is smart enough to keep his cast small and focused on certain aspects of their lives. As a reader, I thank him for this as our desire to get a little more under the skin of the experience is always rewarded. My only misgiving is that, 28 years after the events described, the story isn't complete.
As stated, a re-issue would be invaluable. The ideal re-issue would include annotations to the real areas described (Ridgemont is really Clairemont, Lincoln HS is probably Madison HS, the Strand is in Ocean Beach, the Charthouse is in Seaport Village, Marine World is Sea World, I've no idea if the Regal Theater is really the MAnn Sports Arena, etc) and a follow-up feature on where the real life counterparts of Stacy, Brad, Jeff and such ended up. The lack of these does not detract from the story, but the passing of time has created this desire.