It's Complicated: The American Teenager (Hardcover)

by Robin Bowman (Photographer), Robert Coles (Afterword)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Robin Bowman’s five-year journey into the heart of teenage America created a series of 414 “collaborative portraits,” wherein she shares her discoveries of a generation now coming of age. In searing and intimate photographs, presented alongside the young people’s voices of passion, pride, embarrassment, lust, pain, bewilderment, anxiety, joy, uncertainty, and rage, the book charts the coming of age of the largest generation in America—77 million strong—in every region of the country and every socioeconomic group: from a Texas debutante to teenage gang members in New York City, from a drag queen in Georgia to a coal miner in West Virginia.

Bowman’s intimate photographs ask us to reconcile preconceived ideas and stereotypes of teenagers with the diversity of individuals in the portraits. This book and the traveling exhibition it accompanies are about the inside lives of these kids and how they see their reality in their own voices.

Robin Bowman, a 2005 W. Eugene Smith Memorial fellow, is a photojournalist based in Portland, Maine.

Dr. Robert Coles is the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of the Children of Crisis series and a Harvard emeritus professor of psychiatry.

About the Author
Robin Bowman, a 2005 W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fellow, is a photojournalist devoted to documenting the poignant social and political issues of our age. A traveling exhibition of the portraits will open at the museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Umbrage Editions (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884167691
• ISBN-13: 978-1884167690
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #85,492 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly Compelling and Poignant, December 3, 2007

By	Shea "F" (New York City, NY USA) - See all my reviews

'It's Complicated' is a fabulous book that provides magnificent insight into teenagers in this day and age. It is not only unique in that it combines candid interviews with candid yet beautifully composed photographs, but also because it takes you through walks of life you have never experienced (or never knew existed). The book presents everyone from a young woman who spends her mornings catching lobster with her father for a living to a group of girls from New Orleans who discuss the role of class and money in their school. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wishes to take a journey with Robin Bowman through the heart of America. Robin Bowman is a modern day Jack Kerouac, using candid moments to craft a history of an era sprinkled with differences in views all over America. You will step away from the book with not only a newfound appreciation for the art of photography and the impact it can make but also with a newfound appreciation for your own adolescence, and for people like Robin Bowman who go out and interview people you have only dreamed of meeting.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive and unique photographic journal, December 2, 2007

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

"It's Complicated: the American Teenager" is a compilation of photographs taken in a five year exploration by Robin Bowman of the largest generation of teenagers in American history. Consisting of a series of 415 'collaborative portraits', a diverse range of teenagers are showcased by in pictures and in their own words. The photographed teens represent every region of American and every socioeconomic group from Texas debutantes to New York City gangbangers. Offering visually reinforced insights into the diversity of individual personalities and attitudes, "It's Complicated" is an impressive and unique photographic journal, making it a very highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library American Photography reference collections.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teenagers and their parents will find it compelling, December 28, 2007

By	Lisa C "occasional critic" (Monclair, NJ) - See all my reviews

My 15 year old received this book as a Christmas present. It has remained out and open since then. All of her friends have picked it up and found entries that they found interesting and compelling. The book truly represents the cross-section of the teen experience in America. The author's compassion and concern for the teens as individuals is evident throughout the profiles, allowing it to speak to the universal truth about making it through those teen years. "It's Complicated" indeed.