Slam

I think if you take out the whole Tony Hawk/Time Travel angle that I would have liked the book a lot more. I also wasn't really sold that the "voice" of the story was a genuine 18 year old skater voice and he doesn't take the subject of "underage" pregnancy seriously enough.

But it was fun to read,

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had some good characters and some laugh out loud moments ("Sex Pistol Jones")

As usual Hornby puts together an amusing, light, and easy to read story that doesn't really answer all the questions and doesn't really pass judgment on the characters. He just sort of tells a fluffy little story

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I love the movies made from Nick Hornby’s books – so I am not sure why I am constantly surprised by how much I like his books. Slam is no exception. It is a wonderful story about a 15-year old boy, Sam, whose life goes completely sideways and who struggles to grow up much faster than he should.

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It’s a cheesy word, but this is a heartwarming AND incredibly funny book. I finished it late at night and I am amazed that I didn’t wake my husband up with my laughter.

Sam has such a refreshing view of his world. Even though I am of an age where teenagers tend to scare me a bit, I was delighted to see things through his eyes. Even as he undergoes incredible changes and deals with very adult issues, he still keeps his teenage slant.

“If my life was about to change, then I wanted the old life to last for as long as possible. There were two people in front of me, and I hoped they had the longest and most complicated orders Starbucks had ever heard of. I wanted someone to order a cappuccino with all the bubbles taken out by hand, one by one.” I LOVED that!!!

His mother is the central figure in his life, she who had him when she was 16. They sometimes are closer to friends than mother and son, especially at one very poignant moment in the book. Sam also has another confidant, one he is at first reluctant to speak of. Sam, a skater, has a poster of Tony Hawk on his bedroom wall, and he frequently talks things through with the legendary skater.

“Does this sound mad to you? It probably does, but I don’t care really. Who doesn’t talk to someone in their heads? Who doesn’t talk to God, or a pet, or someone they love who has dies, or maybe just to themselves? TH (Tony Hawk) …he wasn’t me. But he was who I wanted to be, so that makes him the best version of myself, and that can’t be a bad thing, to have the best version of yourself standing there on a bedroom wall and watching you.”

I worried about Sam – wanted things to turn out differently for him. But as I discovered, sometime things just happen, and sometimes those things are what is needed to make you the best version of yourself, even if you can’t see that at the time.

Sam keeps thinking that if he can only know what will happen in the future, he will be able to prepare for it. But as he soon finds, the facts of one’s life mean little with no emotion behind them. He learns that it is the living of life, not the details of life that matter.

“I’m telling you all this as if it’s a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. And it is a story, I suppose, because everyone’s life is a story, isn’t it? But it’s not the sort of story that has an end. It doesn’t have an end yet, anyway…It’s going to be the middle of the story for a long time, as far as the eye can see, and I suppose there are lots of twists and turns to come.”

And by the end of the book, Sam seems ready, even eager for those twists and turns. I don’t know if there will be a sequel to Slam, but if so, I will be first in line to read more about this wonderful character.

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This book got its half a star because it was written in reasonable English. The contents, however, deserve no marks at all. I presume that this is supposed to be that dreadful thing, "teen lit." If so, why does Mr Hornby feel the need to explain skateboarding and such like, all of which he clearly

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feels to be an intrinsic part of yoof culture (should that have been spelt with a 'k'?)
The story, I use the term loosely, is of a young lad who gets a girl into trouble and how this poor boy copes. we have flashes from the future to move a turgid story on in a way that nobody can be asked to take responsibility for their actions, (oh, sorry that I've left you, but it's not my fault, I visited the future through my Tony Hawkes poster - I kid you not! - and we're not together: what's a guy supposed to do?
The story is trite. Whilst I am fully aware that teenage pregnancy is not the terrible thing that it was in my youth (and good that youngsters aren't forced into doomed marriages as they once were) this "heart warming, funny" treatment belittles the situation. This read much more like preparation for another not too serious Nick Hornby film than as a book with anything to say. A vacuous waste of 304 pages.

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Why, Nick, why?

Such a silly little book. Yes, teen pregnancy is indeed painful for the participants. But being "whizzed" into the future??? One good line in the book about fathers: "If he only had one piece of advice for me, it would break his heart to find out it was useless." (270) A good passage

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about marriage and disillusionment: "You think you are doing the right thing, sleeping with the father of your children, because you want everyone to be together. And then one decade goes past, and another, and you realize that nobody else would ever want you, and you've wasted all this time sticking with something that any sane person would have got out of years before." (302) But overall this is a below average book by a writer who has written good ones.

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A bit of a let down after A Long Way Down, Horby tried to write from the prespective of an 18 year old boy (reflecting on when he was 15 or 16). Trouble is, it doesn't really work. He just sounds like a forty-something's idea of an 16 year old, or, more often or not, just like Nick Hornby (you

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know, the one prone to ending sentences with a superperfluous ',not really'. As in, "He tried to write like a 16 year old, but it didn't work, not really'.

It was entertaining enough though, a book to zip through in a hour or so, probably worth the £3 you'll inevitably pay in the supermarket.

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I really liked this book told from the point of view of a teenage boy who gets his girlfriend pregnant. It was fascinating to me as a female to hear what seemed to be a fairly realistic account of the male's point of view in this unfortunate situation. The book had enough humor and quirkiness to

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make it really interesting, yet at the same time seemed to be a realistic treatment of the subject.

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Sam gets his girlfriend pregnant (he's 15). His mother gave birth to Sam when she was 16, so he realizes what a life-changing event he is destined for. He wants to do the "right thing". Ultimately both realize that they are responsible for the welfare of the child, but will not have a relationship.

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Prior to the pregnancy, Sam only thought about skateboarding and his hero, Tony Hawk. A cautionary tale for all teens.

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"What's incredible to me is that you can keep out of trouble pretty much every minute of your life apart from maybe five seconds, and that five seconds can get you into the worst trouble of all, just about." That is the very tough lesson that Sam learns as a young teenager who, along with his

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girlfriend, is faced with an unwelcome pregnancy. Sam is an easy-going, likeable kid who loves to skate (a.k.a. skateboard)and often has meaningful, life-affirming conversations with his Tony Hawk poster. Author, Nick Hornby, has successfully turned to a YA audience by writing a touching and witty story which both high school boys and girls will truly enjoy.

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Sam is a typical 15-year-old boy, more interested in skateboarding than anything else. Until he meets Alicia and things begin to get out of hand. Suddenly Sam is going to be a father and the advice he gets from his poster of Tony Hawk doesn't seem to be enough anymore.

Sam is a great narrator, with

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a wonderfully English voice. He's a regular guy going through some tough times and trying to do his best. He screws up but freely admits it.

Sam has always "talked" to Tony Hawk by imagining him saying quotes from his autobiography, but now that he is facing fatherhood, Hawk doesn't just talk to him -- he sends Sam into the future, where poor Sam is even more clueless than usual.

Sam has screwed up his life, but as he learns, he's not the only one and things will likely work out okay in the end. Not great, but okay. And that's a lesson everyone should learn.

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Really unusual. It has a very British voice, which made it more endearing, somehow. It would have been just a story about a seventeen-year-old boy who gets a girl pregnant, which is so common, but when skateboard idol Tony Hawk zaps him into the future, it became much more interesting. Good blend

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of humor as well.

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This is Nick Hornby's first novel for teenagers. It is written in the "voice" of 18 year old Sam. The novel opens when Sam, who was born when his Mum was 16, in his turn fathers a child at 16. Up till then the most important thing in Sam's life is skateboarding (though Sam would say skating).

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Hornby manages the boy's style convincingly and amusingly. I felt that, on the whole, everybody in the novel behaves well and I wasn't going to get any nasty surprises. I can't work out what real teenagers will think about the book, and I'm looking forward to finding out.

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He tried something different here with the time travel. It didn't work for me. I love his other books, but this wasn't his best effort.

I usually adore Nick Hornby. I did not; however, enjoy this book. In fact, I couldn't bring myself to finish it.

Who doesn't love Nick Hornby? That's what I'm saying. Again, he proves that he is one of today's most brilliant writers with Slam, the story of 15-year-old Sam's catapult into adulthood without warning. Well, that's not entirely true. Thanks to Tony Hawk, Sam does get whizzed into the future to see

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what's to come.
It's a wonderful blend of coming-of-age, heartbreak, identity, and desire and how all of that stuff mixed up can be a dangerous mixture.

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Thoughtful novel about a skater boy who becomes a father. Lots about responsibility and fate, he is a likeable and funny character as he learns to face up to his responsibilities. Realistically drawn but not very exciting!

Hornby's narrative voice is smooth as ever in his first young adult effort. The characters are charismatic believable, the story compelling and clever. I highly recommend this novel for both Hornby fans, and for anyone wanting something light and heartwarming to read.

The thing is, this is a book narrated by an eighteen year old, written by a fifty year old. I am thirty, and the characterisation of the eighteen year old seems reasonable to me, but I have no idea whether it actually gives any insight into what it really is like to be inside the mind of an

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eighteen year old.
Having said that, Hornby, as usual, serves up a cracking read that has a simpler plot than some of his other books, an interesting narrative technique, and some classy characterisation. Another solid contribution from a master of the genre.

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Although this book was mainly about a teenager and was obviously targeted as a young adult title, I still enjoyed the book and did not feel it was too juvenile for me. I have read all of Hornby's fiction, and this effort was not as captivating as other titles such as How To Be Good and High

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Fidelity, but it did not disappoint overall. One thing I would have changed would be to have created a skateboarding hero instead of plugging Tony Hawk in -- the hook of real life into fiction was a little too much and cheapened the relationship.

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Our narrator is the 16 year old son of a divorced mother who had him at a young age herself. Narrator gets first girlfriend pregnant and family drama ensues. Oh, he's keen on skating and skating legend Tony Hawk provides inspiration and guidance. A good read.

Hornby's first YA novel has, like his adult novels, an extremely appealing voice. The narrator himself, 16-year-old Sam, isn't so likable - like many teenagers, he seems to communicate to the other characters mostly in grunts and mumbles. Luckily, his narration is a bit more articulate, as he

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relates how for once in his life, everything is going just fine - and then SLAM, his girlfriend gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby. Sam's reactions are all-too-realistic (denial, panic, obliviousness, etc etc) - but again, it's that compelling voice that keeps us reading. The only jarring note - the use of Tony Hawk as a plot device. Not only does Sam confide in a poster of TH (that I can almost buy), but TH seems to engage in mystical time manipulation, dropping Sam twice into his own future. Or was that three times? Anyway - slightly amusing but NOT necessary.

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Good YA effort from Nick Hornby. It takes you convincingly inside the mind of a fifteen-year-old boy (well, I assume convincingly ... I've never actually been inside the mind of a fifteen-year-old boy) who seems destined to repeat his parents' poor choices. Add to the mix a touch of time travel

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courtesy of Tony Hawk (I'm not totally convinced the time travel works for the novel, though). Will appeal to fans of Nick Hornby of all ages, even though it's aimed at teens.

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Nick Hornby is known for his adult novels About a Boy and High Fidelity. Slam is for the YA crowd, but also very appropriate for the willing adult reader, who may occasionally wince while personally remembering just how naïve 15 really was. The subject headings in Amazon have the story dead on:

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Children: Young Adult, Social Issues-Pregnancy, Babies, Teenage fathers, Humorous Stories. The last subject heading is the most telling; Slam may be voiced by Sam, a teenage father dealing serious issues such as dealing with a pregnant ex-girlfriend around his schoolwork and skating. But it is also –funny-, from its descriptions of British teen life (such as Sam talking to his Tony Hawk-which talks back) to situational humor arising from Sam’s unexpected visits to the future. This novel might just be enjoyed best by the YA male reader, as long as he can be convinced it is not simply a morality story but a good read.

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I keep wanting to like another Hornby book, but it’s just not happening. As with A Long Way Down, this is not a bad book, but one in which I just can’t believe in the character. In this one sixteen year-old Sam, skateboarding son of a divorced Mom who had Sam when she was only sixteen,

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impregnates his girlfriend on practically his first go at “it.” Hornby tries to bring some hip-ness to how Sam deals with this and to how he views life, but it felt false, pedantic and moralistic to me. I’d like to hear how others react to this book.

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Set in Britain, Sam idolizes Tony Hawk, and is on his board most of the time he's not in school. His mom introduces him to Alicia, the daughter of someone from her workplace. While the two don't hit it off initially, eventually they become boyfriend and girlfriend, and despite Sam's desire not to

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be like his mother and become a teen parent, Alicia gets pregnant. Author Nick Hornby captures the fear and isolation of Sam as he copes with the thought of being a teenage father with very few options. Sam's closest confidant is Tony Hawk-- which are Tony's words from his autobiography spoken through the Tony Hawk poster hanging in Sam's bedroom. The book is funny, sad, scary, and poignant, and on the short list for the 2009/2010 Gateway awards in Missouri.

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