Customer Reviews

Slam

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been a huge fan of Hornby's since the early days, including his non-fiction, and this step into YA lit feels totally natural. After all, so many of his protagonists (including himself) are young men struggling to come to terms with adulthood and the responsibilities of "growing up." Here, the dilemma is much the same, however it's much more direct, and instead of a young man grappling adulthood, it's a teenage boy grappling with the implications of a monumental adult responsibility.

I'm guessing there have been a number of good YA books about teen pregnancy -- and if that's the case, add this one to the list. The simple story is narrated by 18-year-old North London lad Sam, reflecting back over the past two years. While it's pretty bare bones -- the cast doesn't really extend beyond Sam, his girlfriend, their respective parents, and two skater acquaintances -- things are made livelier though the device of having Sam discuss his problems with a poster of legendary pro skater Tony Hawk (whose responses are passages Sam has memorized from Hawk's autobiography). There are also a few jumps into dream sequence/time-travel which break up the straightforward narrative, although they don't actually add up to that much.

The book's real strength comes from Hornby's ability to capture the inner life of a teenage boy while avoiding all the usual pitfalls. Sam is neither too articulate nor too dense, and he's basically a well-adjusted, pleasant teen who hasn't gotten into any trouble -- until now. His narrative is full Hornby's trademark observational wit, although without nearly as many pop culture trappings as usual. The book certainly carries a cautionary message about teen sex, but it's never hectoring or reductionist. There's a strong sense of hopefulness for Sam, despite the deep hole he's dug himself. It's not an amazing book, but certainly a cut above the average.

Nick Hornby has always specialized in the tales of young, rather lost men in a modern world. "About A Boy," "High Fidelity," et cetera.

Well, this time it's a young, rather lost BOY who is forced to grow up too fast, in Hornby's first foray into young adult fiction, "Slam." It's a gently humorous, rather bewildered story, albeit one that occasionally reads like a sex ed cautionary tale.

Sam is an ordinary kid, from a line of people who always messed up their lives early on. He loves skateboarding, talks to his Tony Hawk poster, wants to be a graphic art designer, and his love life is just starting to bloom. So he's blindsided when his ex-girlfriend Alicia reveals that she's pregnant, and that she intends to keep the baby.

Suddenly Sam is facing Alicia's snobby parents, his shattered dreams, and the fear that he can't be a good dad. Somehow his Tony Hawk poster flashes him months into the future, giving him glimpses of how his life will suddenly twist. And when Alicia has the baby, Sam finds that he needs to grow up in a hurry -- for his son, his parents, and the changes that are happening way too early.

To be honest, my first reaction to "Slam" was a pained groan. Nick Hornby crafts really insightful, unique fiction, and a story about teen pregnancy just seemed so.... simple. After all, there are only a few ways a pregnancy can turn out, and all but one don't make for a very long story.

But Hornby spins the story in his usual laid-back, meditative style, full of contemplative moments and pop culture references. It feels like reading a gently humorous memoir, but one with a painful sting of regret. And Hornby doesn't entirely abandon the "maturing" theme -- it's very much about growing from a child to an adult, and delicately outlines all the conflicting emotions and problems Sam faces.

And surprisingly, though you know pretty much how the story will turn out, Hornby does throw some twists into the story, such as what's going on with Sam's mother. And the whole magical-realism aspect of it -- time travel, the talking poster -- is a little awkward at first, but eventually it settles into the plot nicely.

Sam himself is a likable kid -- he's confused, scared, and tries to be supportive despite not feeling like it. But over time, we see him turning into a young man who will handle his responsibilities. The other characters tend to be thinner -- Alicia is rather whiny, her parents are contemptuous snobs, and Sam's dad is a jerk.

"Slam" is basically a younger version of Hornby's best-loved stories -- the ones that show a boy becoming a man. In this case, literally, and with great sensitivity.

I'm sure there are going to be a lot of nervous parents out there giving this book to their teenagers in hopes of scaring them off of sex for another few years. Hornby's latest uses teen pregnancy at the center of the plot, but I hope it isn't seen exclusively in that light.

What Hornby has done, and quite cleverly, is written a book about teens being put in overwhelming situations and growing from them, emerging at the other end as the same person but somehow bigger. He uses pregnancy to drive the plot but it could have been something else--choosing a career, say--since there are so many things that can seem overly awing to a young man. If you ever wanted to achieve something in life but didn't know how to start, only to realize years later that you had accomplished your goal, this is a book you will enjoy.

That's really all I have to say, but I'll add this: Hornby's true genius is in his recall of his own experience and his ability to recognize the universality of that. He knows every millimeter of the psyche of a character--a young man, in this case--and can put himself there and travel through those realms without judgment, tracing the different steps the character takes as he expands his awareness and point of view. It's a rare gift, and I'm glad that Hornby continues to share it with us.

I love Nick Hornby. I love his whit, his bright outlook on bleak situations and how he effortlessly inserts pop-culture references into timeless stories. His latest book, however, did not live up to his usual standards.

The storyline follows pretty much what you would expect from pretty much any teen-pregnancy story with a couple of twists thrown in. The only son of a teenage mother, Sam finds out his ex-girlfriend is pregnant on his sixteenth birthday and reacts with a little more dignity and honor than you would expect from most boys in his situation. To help him deal with what seams like an impossible situation, Sam talks to a poster of skating icon Tony Hawk and at times finds himself swept away to the future when life gets so bad that he doesn't think he can deal anymore.

I felt the teenage characters fell a little short of what some other pretty amazing YA authors are publishing now. And Hornby's usually seamless prose jump between past, present and future far too often for comfort. I did like Sam and his growth as a character and found myself always hoping that he would pull through even though I never felt myself become truly engaged in his story.

Overall, it was a decent read but nothing too spectacular.

Slam is a coming-of-age story, of sorts. It is the story of a skating (don't say "skateboarding"!), Tony Hawk-worshiping sixteen year old, Sam. Sam falls in and out of love with the beautiful Alicia very quickly. But not quickly enough to keep from getting slammed (i.e., wrecking on your skateboard, or, in this case, getting a girl knocked up). Sam shares with us as he goes through the emotional whirlwind of having a child in one's teens.

Hornby has a gift for giving his characters unique voices, and his Slam narrator is no exception. As always, Hornby's fiction is honest, and emotional without resorting to cheap tricks to manipulate the reader.

I do tend to feel that Hornby's endings at times lack punch -- but this is, perhaps, a result of the honesty in his writing - and the fact that his novels are character driven, as opposed to some absurd tale of mystery and suspense (see John Grishem, Dan Brown, etc.) Because the characters and stories ring true, as in life there often isn't an ending, as such.

Hornby is a terrific writer, who continues to produce stories and characters who are funny, sympathetic, and relatable to men (and women?) on both sides of the Atlantic. Slam may be his best since About a Boy. I'm looking forward to seeing Juliet, Naked.

Nick Hornby has always specialized in the tales of young, rather lost men in a modern world. "About A Boy," "High Fidelity," et cetera.

Well, this time it's a young, rather lost BOY who is forced to grow up too fast, in Hornby's first foray into young adult fiction, "Slam." It's a gently humorous, rather bewildered story, albeit one that occasionally reads like a sex ed cautionary tale.

Sam is an ordinary kid, from a line of people who always messed up their lives early on. He loves skateboarding, talks to his Tony Hawk poster, wants to be a graphic art designer, and his love life is just starting to bloom. So he's blindsided when his ex-girlfriend Alicia reveals that she's pregnant, and that she intends to keep the baby.

Suddenly Sam is facing Alicia's snobby parents, his shattered dreams, and the fear that he can't be a good dad. Somehow his Tony Hawk poster flashes him months into the future, giving him glimpses of how his life will suddenly twist. And when Alicia has the baby, Sam finds that he needs to grow up in a hurry -- for his son, his parents, and the changes that are happening way too early.

To be honest, my first reaction to "Slam" was a pained groan. Nick Hornby crafts really insightful, unique fiction, and a story about teen pregnancy just seemed so.... simple. After all, there are only a few ways a pregnancy can turn out, and all but one don't make for a very long story.

But Hornby spins the story in his usual laid-back, meditative style, full of contemplative moments and pop culture references. It feels like reading a gently humorous memoir, but one with a painful sting of regret. And Hornby doesn't entirely abandon the "maturing" theme -- it's very much about growing from a child to an adult, and delicately outlines all the conflicting emotions and problems Sam faces.

And surprisingly, though you know pretty much how the story will turn out, Hornby does throw some twists into the story, such as what's going on with Sam's mother. And the whole magical-realism aspect of it -- time travel, the talking poster -- is a little awkward at first, but eventually it settles into the plot nicely.

Sam himself is a likable kid -- he's confused, scared, and tries to be supportive despite not feeling like it. But over time, we see him turning into a young man who will handle his responsibilities. The other characters tend to be thinner -- Alicia is rather whiny, her parents are contemptuous snobs, and Sam's dad is a jerk.

"Slam" is basically a younger version of Hornby's best-loved stories -- the ones that show a boy becoming a man. In this case, literally, and with great sensitivity.

I had almost forgotten I'd read that Nick Hornby was going to be publishing a young-adult book until I found Slam in a book store on vacation and began reading it. But then my memory came back to me, and I was happy I had stumbled upon the book.

I've read two other Hornby boks - A Long Way Down and High Fidelity - and liked them both a great deal. Hornby has such a fun way of writing. His thoughts are so simple and yet so clever, it's eye-openining in a way that doesn't make you feel silly for not having thought of it yourself.

Slam was no different.

True, it was garnered for a younger age range, which perhaps explained why I read it almost in a single day. But the classic Hornby was there.

Sam, at times, almost sounded a little like a modern Holden Caufield, as he told you why he was telling you the story, but kept reminding you that telling you the "details" wasn't like telling you the whole story. I thought he was a charming narrator, and very, very real to life.

I could have done without all the Tony Hawk references, but at the same time, it was such a different way to tell the story. And, as I had to keep reminding myself, this was a story about a 15-year-old boy. And it all made sense again.

There were a few great thoughts nestled in Slam, but the one that stuck with me was that anyone could be any number of ages in any given day. And I thought that was brilliant. Society is so caught up on ages sometimes, and Sam realizing this fact made me feel a little better about myself. I mean, there are times when I'm working long, hard days and I feel very much my age, but there are times I am overtired and grouchy and feel/act like I'm much younger. I'm sure anyone can relate to that much.

Overall, another great Hornby book. I look forward to picking up another one soon.

I stumbled out of my local used book store with Nick Hornby's latest, "Slam" not knowing at all what to expect but excited for a first introduction to Hornby's writing. Not knowing this book is perhaps more correctly classified as Young Adult I began to read. It is about a 15 year old boy named Sam coming of age through one of life's greatest oops situations. I was instantly intrigued -- perhaps because I was once a 15 year old boy and Hornby's story telling connected immediately, or perhaps the god like presence of TH (or Tony Hawk or Thiery Henry for that matter, whatever) still appealed to what's left of the kid in me. I liked it, I liked it a lot. Perhaps not five stars but a strong four. Perhaps not the greatest story ever told, but a very real and common story, with very real and very compelling characters. We know or have known them all and Hornby brings them to life and us into their lives just as sure as we were at the kitchen table learning Sam's life altering news for the first time. We learn, or don't learn from the same mistakes, young and not so young. Hornby uses a dream technique to flash forward and back in time so we can observe what Sam is observing as he reflects on his own actions before he acts and how he may act in the future and the past. While he does not use the technique to create twists and turns in his story, Hornby introduces true anxiety and perhaps a little fear in the reader, as we struggle with Sam to cope in very new (to him) and very real, true life situations. Through this story we can reflect on our past and the futures of those we wish to shelter as they too, eventually must learn to fly on their own and hopefully not make too many big mistakes along the way. This was a fun ride and although I do not have a teenage boy, I do have a daughter who in a few years will be exposed to the angst of the adolescence boy. I do have teenage nephews to whom I'll will send this book. If they sit still long enough to move past the first few pages, I suspect they will learn more than a few valuable lessons from Hornby.

Nick Hornby is the only author that continues to meet my now high expectation when I read one of his books. If you are a fan of any of his previous work then you will definitely enjoy SLAM; if you are not, this might be the one that makes you a fan and makes you want to read the others.

The story moves along at a very good pace, I didn't want to put this book down the whole time that I was reading. The editing here is brilliant since there is no "throwaway chapter" every single page fits within the story and doesn't feel like fluff at any point.

Nick Hornby is among my favorite authors, so when I saw he had written a book for young adults, I grabbed (the audio version) for my son (who is 12) and I to listen to. I expected that Hornby would satisfy my son's taste for humor and edginess, while also being a "good book" for him to read. We were not disappointed.

This is textbook Hornby: the writing is relentlessly clever and hip and treats serious themes by exploring them with humor and originality. Like many of Hornby's other books, it involves a likeable male character who is eventually forced by circumstances to "grow up" --- only this time the character is growing up prematurely (at 15), rather than "postmaturely" as in many other Hornby books. It is very much a "boyish" perspective, and I suspect that this book may not appeal to female readers, even less so than other Hornby books, as this one also lacks the romantic aspect that some of his other novels have featured. My son and I, though, both thought it was great.

Teen pregnancy is a heavy topic, and towards the latter portion of the book, one begins to feel that weight, notwithstanding Hornby's breezy style. So the book does suffer to some degree from the stereotyped track of young adult fiction: teenager faces crisis from contemporary social concern (death/divorce/alcholism/disability/pregnancy) that rocks his/her previously complacent world. Teenager plumbs the depths in facing the crisis and survives, barely, for a not-unhappy-but-no-longer-innocent-as-a-child ending. My twelve-year son already has internalized that story arc so that it shapes his expectations, and Slam, for all Hornby's originality, does not venture off this path.

A final aside: My wife and I have noticed lately a lot of "have the baby" stories directed at teenagers (a middle course between abortion stories and abstinence stories that were more prevalent in the late 20th century). In addition to Slam, there was the hit movie "Knocked Up," and the Academy Award nominated "Juno." An interesting development to a believer that pop culture follows what its consumers want much more than it leads them.