Slam

Slam
by Nick Hornby
YA fiction. 309 pp.
Putnam. 2007.

flap copy:

Things had been ticking along quite nicely. My teachers suddenly started talking to me about going to college, my mum had ditched her rubbish boyfriend, and I had a gorgeous new girlfriend. You know that bit in a film when they show couples laughing and holding hands and kissing in lots of different places while a song plays? Alicia and I were like that, except we didn't go lots of different places. We went to about three, including Alicia's bedroom. Anyway. It took years for everything to come together like that, and it took two seconds to screw it all up. One mistake and my life would never be the same.

When the wheels come off the trucks and your life slams into a wall . . . who do you turn to then? I turn to Tony Hawk. You maybe wouldn't expect the world's best skater to know everything you need to know about your life, but he does. And if you don't understand what he's saying, then he'll just whizz you into the future.

Okay. So this is yet another book I read way back when. Yeah. Looking at Gooreads, I finished it January 28. And, as per usual for me, I don't remember many details.

I do remember that I picked it up because I like Nick Hornby and I was interested in seeing what he would do when writing YA. Truth be told, I recall being a bit disappointed. The writing was fair enough, it's just that neither the book nor the writing stood out.

If you want to read a book about teen pregnancy from the male perspective, I don't think there's one that doesn't hold a candle to Angela Johnson's The First Part Last.

If you want to read a book where the protagonist carries on conversations with a real imaginary friend, The White Darkness gives you a much more intriguing relationship with the real imaginary friend.

If you want to read a book by Nick Hornby, I think you're better off sticking to About a Boy or High Fidelity.