Party [Hardcover]

Tom Leveen (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 27, 2010

It's saturday night in Santa Barbara and school is done for the year. Everyone is headed to the same party. Or at least it seems that way. The place is packed. The beer is flowing. Simple, right? But for 11 different people the motives are way more complicated. As each character takes a turn and tells his or her story, the eleven individuals intersect, and reconnect, collide, and combine in ways that none of them ever saw coming.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—This novel, told from multiple perspectives, is about an end-of-the-school-year party at a "typical" middle-class high school. The 11 narrators include an outcast, a skater, an immigrant's son, a jock, and a lady's man, among others. All of these teens have their own expectations for the gathering, and their reasons for going range from simply getting drunk to expressing their love to making new friends. The first character presented, Beckett, is immediately intriguing, and the format allows readers to get to know her (and all the other characters) through the eyes of more than one person, lending depth to the story. But sometimes this device means that information about a single character is simply repeated rather than enhanced by a new viewpoint. For this reason, readers may be left wanting more from one point of view when the story has already moved on to another (not necessarily a bad thing). The party is raucous and wild, culminating in a drunken flirtation (and subsequent rejection), a racially motivated fistfight, and the arrival of some friendly policemen to break it all up. This is a quick and entertaining read. Some strong language and sexual content make it most appropriate for older readers.—Nora G. Murphy, Los Angeles Academy Middle School
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

As “everyone from school” descends on a Santa Barbara party, 11 teenage partygoers narrate their experience of the night’s drunken sexual encounters, a fight fueled by racial epithets, several reconciliations, and the sweet start of a new relationship. First-time author Leveen uses the varied points of view to touch on myriad issues, from the loss of a parent to sex, religion, and the war in Iraq. Despite the often-heavy subject matter, the young narrators’ compelling and largely believable voices lighten the tone of the novel. Their yearning to connect with each other shines through their pained actions, awkward slang, and frequent bursts of profanity. As the various threads of the story begin to converge, the author wraps everything up neatly for an upbeat ending. Although the plot feels somewhat contrived, it is ultimately satisfying to see the characters—from jock to outsider—begin to overcome their pain and affirm the value of deeply held relationships. Grades 9-12. --Miriam Aronin

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers; 1 edition (April 27, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375864369
• ISBN-13: 978-0375864360
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,347,866 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom was born and raised in Arizona, where he lives with his wife. From the first time his second-grade teacher asked him to read to the first graders a short story he'd written, he was hooked. Writing fiction has been a part of his life ever since.

Tom has more than twenty-two years of theatre experience as an actor and director. He is the former Artistic Director of two companies: Is What It Is Theatre, a community theatre company; and Chyro Arts Venue, a mixed-use venue hosting theatre, live music, visual art, spoken word, independent film, and other arts. Tom is currently writing young adult fiction full time.

"The best part of the job is the school visits," he says. "I love meeting teachers, librarians, and students, talking about writing, publishing, and life in general. I write YA because for all the drama and trauma I went through in high school, it was still one of the best times of my life. When you're a student, anything is possible. The best stories are found in that time of life."

Tom is the author of PARTY, a YA novel told from 11 different points of view. His second YA novel, ZERO, is due out in Spring 2012.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: PARTY March 18, 2010

By Richie Partington VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

It's a summertime Saturday evening, and an enormous house in Santa Barbara is packed to the gills, inside and out, with hormones, alcohol, and high schoolers. The photo-shopped invite had been tacked up around the high school corridors before summer vacation began. This is the party that everybody has been waiting for.

We view the evening's unfolding events through the eyes of eleven students -- most of them incoming seniors; a few others newly graduated -- who bring their individual hopes and desires, prejudices and points of view, angers and appetites to that house on Beachfront.

Containing a healthy measure of sex, tunes, beer, and violence, this is the one that my eighteen year-old plucked from the piles as looking especially entertaining. I'm betting that it will be one of those books that will be embraced and shared by any number of reluctant teen readers who are fortunate enough to run across it.

When I picked it up, I was figuring it would be a tasty bit of junk food for me to consume on a quiet Saturday night at home. But I actually found PARTY to be far more than that. I was surprised and impressed that after reading these eleven intertwined stories upon which the evening builds, I could readily recall in depth who every one of these eleven narrators is. There are lots of secrets and surprises about which we come to find out. And, because the book takes place over this single night in the lives of each of these eleven complex characters, I am really wanting to know what is going to happen tomorrow with every one of them.

Don't miss this PARTY.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book! March 28, 2010

By K. Kraus VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I'm an adult reader and I really enjoyed this book. I'm from The Breakfast Club era and this book has a lot of similarities to The Breakfast Club. It is the story of 11 teenagers all attending the same end-of-the-school-year party. Different chapters are told from the viewpoint of different characters, but not every one of the 11 teens gets his own chapter, and not every character is covered as in-depth as the others.

There are the group of for boys, one of whom is Josh, who plan to get drunk and hopefully hook up. But Josh won't drink and he won't hook up, either, because he just broke up with Morrigan. Josh is definitely cool, but his religious beliefs keep him from having sex and drinking. Because he's cool he still has a lot of friends and they don't give him a hard time about it.

Morrigan and Ashley are best friends. Morrigan's parents barely notice her. She reminds me of the Ally Sheedy character in The Breakfast Club. Not because she's a freak, but her parents ignore her. She's starving for some attention and affection and thinks maybe breaking out of the house to attend this party will finally get her noticed. Morrigan is so love-starved that she broke up with Josh because he wouldn't have sex with her. Instead of being flattered that he respected her, she just saw it as another person withholding affection. Morrigan gets totally wasted at the party but Ashley takes care of her.

Beckett used to be a normal teen and best friends with Ashley, but when her mother got sick with cancer, it changed her. Now she's basically a high school hermit. She hasn't even told anyone that her mother passed away and she's living on her own. She's running out of money and plans to drop out of school to get a job. Although Beckett thinks she's invisible to everyone at school, that's not true. Max has had a secret crush on her since his sophomore year. Now he's graduated and this party is his last chance to try to make his move with Beckett. That's if she even shows up to the party, which seems highly unlikely given her loner status.

Azize is an immigrant from Turkey who works at a coffee stand and just wants to make his parents proud and do the right thing. He decides he is going to go to the party and make at least one new friend. Right now Beckett is pretty much his only friend. They occasionally discuss comic books in the library.

Anthony "Antho" Lincoln is the school's football star who had a bit of a slump the last half of the season. It turns out he is old friends with Ashley, Morrigan and Beckett. Antho has a lot on his mind, like Beckett. His brother was injured fighting in Iraq. After having too much to drink, he looks at Azize and sees a "towelhead" like the ones who caused his brother's injury. He just goes off on Azize and this pretty much brings the party to a halt.

This book is so real feeling. The teen dialogue is spot on, the drinking and hooking up is accurate. The Iraq references, also, make it very current. I think this book is great for teens 15 and up.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Cathartic Effects of a Wild Party April 11, 2010

By Kevin Joseph VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Told in eleven chapters, each written from the first person perspective of a different teenager headed on a collision course with one another on the night of an end-of-school-year house party, this first novel manages to be fun and even somewhat original. While not all of the eleven narrators succeed in creating a distinct, memorable voice, the depressed loner Beckett, the troubled football star Anthony, and the lovelorn Josh stand out as memorable, convincing characters.

The plot is really simple (how the chaos resulting from a wild beer bash has the unexpectedly cathartic effect of restoring order to the lives of some troubled teens), and the author clearly seems more interested in exploring social issues such as racism bred by the War on Terror, the way in which teenage boys and girls bond with one another (both in same-sex groups and in their volatile hookups and relationships), the different ways teenagers assert their individuality as they break away from parental control, and the curious moral code that seems to keep these kids from descending into anarchy.

Some of the characters' choices strike false notes and the story line relies a little too much on coincidence to ensure that the eleven cross paths enough times in that one fateful night, yet the rising sun brings with it hope that this generation of young people is on its way to responsible adulthood.