Customer Reviews

The Late Great Me

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Being a teenage alcoholic myself, this book captured all the exact features like the writer lived it. It does indeed warn about the dangers of alcoholism, but brought back many a memeroies and sips of the bottle. I would 100% recommend it.

I was thirteen the time I read this book and it truly made me understand a lot about alcoholism and how life can be in general for many who suffer from this disease. More than twelve years later this book still remains one of my favorite. I can't tell you how many times I have read it or will continue to read it. I recommend it to almost everyone I know, especially young people. It is definitely a worthwhile book that will make you feel many different emotions from humor to sadness.

I highly recommend this book, not because it's a morality play, but because it's devastatingly honest and REAL. When readers say the characters seemed so real they jumped off the page, THIS is the book they're talking about.

Geri Peters is a painfully shy, sensitive teenager who wishes she knew how to be talkative and confident like the popular girls at school, and to be at ease with attractive boys. Her situation is only made worse by her hypercritical mother Ginger, who constantly relates stories of her own popularity in high school, and berates Geri for being a "heartbreak" to her. Geri only associates with 2 close friends, deemed losers by Ginger. To add insult to injury, Geri's older brother Jack is the most popular guy in his class, being a star athlete, musician, actor and honor roll student. Actually, it seems more than a little unrealistic that having a brother like Jack wouldn't have opened doors for Geri as far as her popularity in high school, but Scoppettone clearly wants to show how much of a self-loathing failure Geri feels like because she doesn't have a thriving social life.

In any case, Geri is ripe for anything to change her bleak situation, and her opportunity arrives on the first day of school, when a handsome new guy, Dave, talks to HER. She despairs that Dave will consider her a freak after meeting her 2 best friends, Carolyn & B. J., but Dave is undeterred. In fact, Dave turns down dates and invitations from the most popular girls in school to be with Geri. Geri is mystified by this until she and Dave go on their first date and Dave produces a bottle of wine. Dave likes to party, and as it turns out, his home life is a shambles; therefore, his goal is finding someone as vulnerable as himself, who wouldn't shun him, like the snobs. This, too, seems a bit strange, since there are clearly many attractive girls who are not popular, and who drink heavily, and who wouldn't snub Dave because of his parents, such as the female "juicers" (heavy drinkers) at Walt Whitman High. Maybe Dave sensed that there lurked a charming, witty interior underneath Geri's tongue-tied, fumbling exterior.

Anyway, Geri finds that she, like Dave, also falls in love with the high that alcohol provides. To her, it's a magic potion that erases her shyness, vulnerability, and self-criticism. As alcohol becomes less of an occasional kick and more of a necessity in her life, she disregards the troubles and unhappiness caused by her drunkenness, because the feeling of euphoria is too good to resist. Soon she finds that the advantages and disadvantages to drinking heavily are the same: you don't care about anything. The rest of the book consists of Geri fighting that ol' debil alcohol in spite of her initial attraction to it.

What makes this story different from the typical "Portrait of a Teen Alcoholic" are, as noted, the characters. Geri in particular is a likeable, humorous storyteller; her narration keeps the novel from getting too maudlin and preachy. Her descriptions of everything, especially the pecking order at school, her mother's superficiality, and her one-horse town, are priceless. And how many novels, let alone YA novels, have interesting adult characters? Ginger Peters is as three-dimensional and complex as her daughter, a woman who wants to go back to the Fifties and remain there as the "All-Round" Popular Girl. She undergoes her own crisis as she witnesses her daughter succumbing to the seductive, hard-drinking "juicer" crowd. The usual elements of the "under-the-influence" stories are contained here: the family fights, new "friends", Geri's lack of interest in school or her former passion (drawing cartoons), tragedies, and finally, the big wake-up call. Scoppettone writes with humor and sensitivity about each episode, showing Geri's gradual decline and reluctance to climb out of the hell she's created.

The only time the novel skirts the edge of preachiness is whenever Geri's mentor, her English teacher by the name of Kate Laine, intervenes. Kate's main purpose in the book is to give the straight facts on alcoholism and endorse AA. She's almost too good and patient to be true, but she's not a saint who lectures or makes judgment calls; she's just there to help Geri. Kate is an alcoholic but that's about all we learn about her. Too bad. It would have been interesting to have more background on her.

Overall, this book should be on all suggested high school reading lists. (If you make it required, they won't want to read it.) The 10-question test Kate gives Geri would help a lot of teens realize that maybe their social drinking isn't as "social" as they think. And most of all, it's funny, heartbreaking and truthful to read, unlike the schlocky reefer madness horror of "Go Ask Alice".

This is a powerful novel that deals with an all too common problem in our society today, alcoholism. The story centers around a teenage girl named Geri Peters. Geri becomes infatuated with David Townsend, a new boy at Walt Whiteman High School. Both teens long for something not being afforded them as they both live in somewhat disfunctional family settings. Alcohol becomes the panacea or means of drowning their problems. However, for Geri, her problems only multiply as boozing becomes the focal point of her existence. I would recommend that every teen who thinks drinking is "cool", think twice and by all means read this most inspirational novel.

This was required reading when I was in High school. I just started thinking about it again a few weeks ago. (I haven't been in school for a while now) I've been trying to find this. I recommend this to anybody and everybody. You have to read this!

This is an incredibly well-written story, believable and true-to-life.

The protagonist, Geri, struggles to be popular. Notonly does she share normal, every-day fears with most teenagers, she also has to live up to a mother who was Most Popular when she was in school, and a brother who is happily following in his mother's shining star.

Geri is content with a few quality friends, despite her mother's constant berating, until she meets Dave. Handsome, charming Dave is, by all appearances, everything that her mother would just love. He introduces Geri not only to a few of his popular friends, but also to alcohol.

As Geri's whole world spirals into alcoholic stupor, she occasionally lifts her head out of the mist to watch her family fall apart.

I bought this book for a friend who was drinking way too much. She either read it and straightened out, or she read it and hides from me better than she did before. One way or the other, it opened her eyes on some level.

I was somewhat pretty and somewhat popular in school. I drank in school. Had I had a predisposition to alcoholism, I would have wound up like Geri. It's a scary and startling book.

This is, by far, on of the best books i have ever read. When my friends and I discuss books this one is always a favorite topic of mine. Recently a friend of mine came out of rehab. She started going to A.A. meetings, among the Alcoholics Anonymous book, this is a great read for someone undergoing this harsh time. It reminds that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Enjoy. You WILL LOVE IT...even if you aren't a recovering alcoholic.

I first read this book when I was about 10 or 11. It was the copy that my mother owned, and I still read this book atleast twice a year. It captured youth in so many ways in perfect form.

It chronicles the downward spiral of a high school girl that is trying to find herself with the pressures of society and her own mother. She turns to alcohol, and finds what she thinks is a beautiful world. It's not.

Even if you do not have an addiction problem, of any kind, this book is a must read. If you are a teenager it will help you to realize that you are not alone, and if you are a parent then it will help you to realize that kids need you, own their terms not your own.

i had this book read to my class in early high school, and it has stuck with me ever since. i ended up finding a copy of my own, and have read it over 20 times..and still each time feels like the first. its such a great book, and is highly recomended for everyone,especially for teenagers who are thinking about drinking. i know every time i have a drink or am offered one (even though i am of age now) i think of that book.

While going through my highschools library I stumbled upon the late great me. I couldn't put it down. Geri Peter's charactor takes you along her journey of alcohol to her first sip and to her first AA meeting. This book doesn't lecture about alcohol but allows you to see its destruction through Geri's charactor. I feel this would be the perfect book for educators to have students read while learning about alcohol. This book shows readers how alcohol abuse begins and where it can lead to.