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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Another SLHS grad weighs in ..., February 15, 1999
By A Customer
I grew up in Reston, Virginia and graduated from South Lakes High in 1994, along with several of the students Hersch writes about. While she tells some compelling (and mostly accurate) stories, I agree with my classmate's statement that she tends to sensationalize things. Also, Hersch seems to rely almost exclusively on interviews with eight representative students for her information. She does a great job of letting them speak for themselves and avoiding the good-teen / bad-teen dichotomy, but this method has pitfalls of its own. In particular, she condemns adults for not knowing where their children are, but doesn't give them a chance to speak for themselves. She includes only brief snippets of interviews with parents, most of which simply drive home the point that Mom and Dad haven't a clue. Also, the book would have been much more balanced and accurate if she had stepped back a little and taken the time to read between the lines of the interviews, rather than showing consistent sympathy for her eight subjects. At one point, she tells the story of Rachel, who was raped and subsequently dumped by her two best friends. One of the friends was Hersch's interview subject; she stated that Rachel had become "mean and insulting" and not a good friend. Hersch takes this at face value; she makes no attempt to get Rachel's side of the story. In trying to create a sympathetic portrait of these students, she ignores the dog-eat-dog nature of high school social life -- a factor that would have made many of her stories all the more poignant if she'd taken it into account.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Must for parents--with perspective added, October 22, 2000
This review is from: A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)
I am from SL and am compelled to add in my two cents regarding the book and the experience. I graduated in 1996, and know the many of the people portrayed and events discussed. Those mentioned were a very narrow slice of the cultural topography in the school and would mostly fit into the middle ground, never any more "at risk" than most out there. There were plenty of others who never faced the types of dilemmas illustrated, and many like me, who wished that our teenage years had only been as calm as those portrayed in this book. Hersch, though attempting to be savvy, objective and probing, got many of her facts VERY wrong (I can't stress that one enough), and ended up coming across to me as equally naive as any of the other parents who she attacked, only armed with a tape recorder and a bit more access to the personal views of the kids. She foolishly believed that she was privy to was uncensored dialogue: HA! This book is best read by ignoring Hersch's personal agenda and instead using it as a portrayal of the general teen experience. I think that a parent can use this book to remind themselves of the true difference in motivation that most teens have as compared with his/her parents. Importantly, it is not that teens are irresponsible, it is only that their personal definition of responsibility starts with their motivations for decision making (which are NOT paying the mortgage and putting food on the table) Also, teenagers without support at home, whether they complain about it or not, create their own networks of support through friends. This often leads to solving problems independently of parents, and, with only limited experience available to them, sometimes very poorly. Again, motivation. This is an important consideration for parents when confronting the laundry list of evils that face our burgeoning adults.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Illuminates Teen Culture Superbly, August 26, 2000
This review is from: A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)
Patricia Hersch has made a valuable contribution to our society by illuminating a part of America's increasingly fragmented culture. As a 22 year old youth minister, I was reminded of many of my own experiences as a 1995 high school graduate, as well as of many of lives of the students I currently serve at local high schools. Withstanding all of the criticism I read about her in other reviews -- that she unfairly portrayed the parents as evil, didn't offer coherent solutions to the many problems, and over-sensationalized the issues for the purpose of making a profit -- I thought her analysis was penetrating, insightful, and educational. Her one-on-one long term relationships with the teens allowed her to avoid any superficial judgments of their behavior, but instead give a comprehensive account of their thoughts, motivations, values, and life philosophies (sound or unsound). As to her detractors: 1) I didn't get the impression that the parents were portrayed as inherently evil, but that they had many problems of their own to deal with, tragically leaving their children out on a limb in terms of any guiding principles or love. 2) In terms of offering viable solutions, on page 364, she says our teenagers today need two things: adults (teachers, parents) who listen to them, and a community that rallies around them...sound like pretty sound advice to me. 3) As to the alleged sensationalism, teenagers today live in a sensational world! 1 in 6 teens contemplates suicide before the age of 18, and 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused by that same age. Much of the media that saturates their world is nothing but a sensationalized culture of existentialist experimentation with violence, sex, and drugs... Good job, Patricia...you've made me better able to serve this generation in such desperate need of guidance and love, and opened many eyes to the realities of teenage culture today, whether we are comfortable with it or not.
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