Customer Reviews

Slumming

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I cried.
How real these characters seemed. How many people have I seen go through similar struggles--divorce, abuse, pain.
It was fascinating to see these things through the eyes of these kids, who were so different than the people that they chose to "befriend".
I felt bad for Nikki. She was lucky in a lot of ways. Her experiment worked out. She enjoyed herself. She was not exposed to unlimited amounts of pain and sorrow. However, she had no idea what her two best friends were going through.
I thought that the character of Alicia's father was very real and vivid. His situation has to be one that so many families have to deal with.
All the characters were very true to life and complex. I couldn't put the book down.

This was a fascinating story, filled with real characters and real feelings.
Read it, you'll love it.

WOW! this was a very good book about three high school seniors who decide to help a few fellow students with "untapped potential". What they don't realize is that these are real people who have real problems, and real lives and feelings. this book had very insightful ideas and was written almost poetically at times. I enjoyed it very much because the characters seemed so real, and things that happened in the book happen all the time in real life-but are often taken for granted. I would definitely recommend this book!

I just love it when it's obvious that a review is slamming something he hasn't even read. Like the guy that gave this book one star. Stereotypes. Sure there are stereotypes - and if you read past the third chapter,it's obvious that the "stereotypes" are there because Randle intends to knock them to pieces. This book is about how stupid stereotypes are, and it's about how our own lives are often full of more holes than the lives of the people we're judging. There are sub-plots because this is about all kinds of people, not just one kind. Maybe the one star guy needs to stick with middle-grade readers - fewer characters to confuse, less demanding in terms of analytical thinking.

Kristen Randle has done it again: given her readers something substantial to chew on in a literary world that is fast approaching the nutritional value of a package of Twinkies.
Slumming ais a gritty yet sensitive look at three very real teenagers and the problems they create for themselves in their exurberance and over-abundance of goodwill. A philisophical piece that explores perception, family relationships and deep-seated human needs, Slumming is a must-read for anyone who wishes to be entertained and intellectually challenged at the same time.

'Slumming' is actually three different stories in one book, all connected in some ways. The three main characters (Sam, Nikki, and Alicia) all tell their stories, which each deal with a new, life-changing experiment they decided to try.

Prom is coming up, and Nikki comes up with an idea - why not find a person that is socially 'below' her and her friends and invite him/her to the prom? Seems foolproof, right? Wrong.

Sam chooses Tia, this girl that most people are afraid of. She has a rough home life, a brother with Down syndrome, and a bad attitude. Sam doesn't give up though - he keeps following her around, talking to her, etc. He starts to build up a great friendship with Tia, and generally feels this project is doing him good.

Nikki decides to ask out the school's stereotypical nerd...Brian. He's a bit of a jerk, and treats her like she's the stupidest person on the planet. She keeps talking to him, and eventually, they also become friends.

Alicia chooses Morgan Weiss - the school's token 'bad boy.' Though Sam and Nikki don't approve of her choice, she goes along and tries anyway. What happens to her though, is a lot worse than she expected.

I highly recommed this book to everyone, because it's funny, sad, heartwarming, and easy to relate to...all in one book.

I found this book to be just delightful. It was thought provoking on many levels yet quite entertaining at the same time. There were certainly some gritty issues that the author dealt with using an incredible style to still maintain "PG" language. My daughter graduated from high school last year and I could substitute her classmates' names for just about every character in the book. Maybe they seem like stereotypes, but very believable ones, to me anyway.

Slumming
I'd like to say that Kristen Randle is one of my favorite authors, and The Only Alien on The Planet and Breaking Rank are some of the best books I have ever read (and I've read a lot!) I was looking forward to being pulled head first into this story, as I am with her other books, but this one seems to lack the depth and intensity you would expect from reading Kristen Randle's other works. Slumming is the story of three teenagers lives during their last few days of highschool and the trials of life that they have to go through. The characters are well written and the ideas are, of course, good, but I think in writing about three different people (although they are all connected) the characters lose a bit of their intensity. Slumming is still a good book, and I recommend reading it, but don't expect the heart-wrenching tear-jerker that you may have found in the authors previous books. You may not get emotionally entangled with the characters but you'll definitely be up all night reading to see how it ends!!

"The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain! The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!"
--Eliza from My Fair Lady

Tolerance.org, a web-based division of the Southern Poverty Law Center, has created Mix It Up,... a network for youth activists who are challenging social boundaries in schools and communities. Last November they sponsored a national Mix It Up At Lunch day, which encouraged kids to consciously leave the confines of their own cliques and go sit instead with somebody they would ordinarily look right through. (There are some great stories on the Tolerance site from kids who are involved in this movement.)

SLUMMING is a tale in which three friends take paths that meander somewhere between Professor Henry Higgins' arrogant assumption that he can remake Eliza into his ideal woman and the Mix It Up philosophy that you need to throw off your assumptions, prejudices, and feelings of superiority in regards to those outside your own group.

"...you got to look outside your eyes
you got to think outside your brain
you got to walk outside your life
to where the neighborhood changes...
--Ani Difranco, Willing to Fight

Nikki:

" 'People always talk about how rude the French are,' my mother told me once. 'But that's because so many Americans think the world starts and stops with them. America isn't normal. It's just America. There are a lot of wonderful normals out there--hang on to yours too hard, and you'll miss a lot.'
"I think I'm beginning to understand what she meant."

Sam:

" 'Why do you do this?' I ask her [Tia].
" 'What?' she says.
" 'Why do you make fun of everything about me?'
"She laughs again, one short, hollow-sounding laugh.
" 'Because you're a cartoon character,' she says. 'You're fake.'
" 'I'm fake,' I say.
" 'When you let me off at my house, and you drive down and turn the corner, you just--disappear. And then they bring you out tomorrow at school, with your little letter jacket and your clean shirt. I'm surprised you don't wear loafers or saddle shoes or something.' "

Alicia:

"But one day, one morning last fall...I looked up, and there he was. I could hardly see him through the press of his friends. Then the crowd shifted, and suddenly, there was his face. He was laughing, and then he looked right into my eyes."

Nikki, Sam, and Alicia are high school seniors. They are long-time companions as a result of being the only three Morman kids their age in the school system:

Nikki:

"Without that, I doubt we would have gotten as close as we are--the three of us are so different. Sam is the football scholarship type--letter sweater and pins and all that. Alicia's the service club/student government type. And I'm the scholar and mess-off type. Three separate social classes. Sam is beautiful but focused; Alicia's got this fairy-like delicacy, both in mind and body; and I just run around, collecting people and talking a lot. We see the world in very different ways."

Alicia:

"The idea came all at once: we will each choose a person who is obviously untapped, and we will try to open him up, set him free, give him life. I do not anticipate that it will be that hard--kindness, a little attention, support, friendship."

SLUMMING shows us what takes place when these three young adults put their plan into gear. As happened with the characters in Kristen Randle's previous YA novel, BREAKING RANK, there are some intense reactions and unexpected consequences in SLUMMING when the three decide to mix it up with teens they've always seen around school but with whom they have never connected.

And when they boldly step outside their lives and stick their faces into somebody else's, there is the question of what happens next:

" 'So, is this a temporary thing? You score a friend, and then you go back to the way things were'--she opens her hands--'mission accomplished?'

"I don't know,' I admit. 'I didn't think it through that far.' ...

Sam, Nikki, and Alicia are all senior, and have come up with a project, to help them branch out and " repay their debt to society". They will each pick one person " in need of help" i.e; the goth, the nerd, the druggie, and recreate their image, then take them to prom. As the book goes on, it gets less and less about the original idea, and Sam, Nikki, and Alicia grow to actually like the people they choose.They form true friendships, and grow farther and farther apart from each other. They realize that there is much more to people than meets the eye. There are consiquences to these friendships though, they are faced with many difficult decisions, and in the end, they become much closer becuase of them.
I enjoyed this book, not your typical " makeover" story. Towards the end it drags out a little bit, but other than that I recomend it.