You Are Here This Is Now: The Best Young Writers and Artists in America

Rating:
Summary: You are Here, Read this Now
Review: This book is amazing, there is no other word for it. These short stories, poems,and essays just are here to show people that High Schoolers aren't just shopping, boy-crazy, .... It shows the world that we are smart, and some of us are pretty great writers too. Some of these stories are so great, and touching. Read this book, and you WILL change.

Rating:
Summary: Brutally Honest
Review: What a novel idea (no pun intended). Find some authors just out of High School with something to say about how they survived the teenage years. That's what Push fiction is about, finding authors who write honestly about the ups and downs of adolescence: no sugar-coating allowed! And they do an excellant job-I wish these books had been around when I was a teenager. But this book isn't a novel, it's a collection of poetry, prose, and essays from young authors around the country. These authors won Scholastic's 1999, 2000, and 2001 Art & Writing Awards, and their collected works are presented in this volume for readers everywhere to read and enjoy.

So what's it about? It's about the confusion of youth: ("I clutch a dirty fist and run. I'm fifteen. I'm an empty battlefield. I'll go where the marching ghosts will take me.
When I die I'll be with the trees." ~"Remorse for Being Young, Written in a Kroger Parking Lot"). It's about coming face to face with death: ("You will look at her pale, blank face and she will looks so small. And you will jump every time her breathing stalls, even though she is hooked up to a respirator. You will place your hand on her foot, and your father will place his hand on your shoulder, and you will suddenly be aware that your mother's crying has ceased." ~"When You"). It's about your family: ("My parents never argue / Instead they sit side by side
On the couch, not touching / The television always on / Communicating something / They must have forgot" ~Breathing Under Water). It's about your friends: ("It must have been about a month or so after my brother got sick that Alex started giving me parts of his lunch. I never saw him in the cafeteria; I don't know where he went for that twenty-minute slice of time every day. But at the end of math he'd shove a rumpled paper bag across my desk before scrambling out the door like he had somewhere important to go." ~Alex). It's about life, folks, and it's what you always wished you could say but could never quite put into words.

The best writing touches us somewhere inside, saying both what we need to hear and what we need to say. And these poems/stories/essays do just that. They capture the spirit of life, so that for a few hours (or however long it takes you to read this book) you can walk a mile in someone else's shoes and find they fit much like your own. Whether you love them or hate them, you'll have to admit that these words are real.

Rating:
Summary: Brutally Honest
Review: What a novel idea (no pun intended). Find some authors just out of High School with something to say about how they survived the teenage years. That's what Push fiction is about, finding authors who write honestly about the ups and downs of adolescence: no sugar-coating allowed! And they do an excellant job-I wish these books had been around when I was a teenager. But this book isn't a novel, it's a collection of poetry, prose, and essays from young authors around the country. These authors won Scholastic's 1999, 2000, and 2001 Art & Writing Awards, and their collected works are presented in this volume for readers everywhere to read and enjoy.

So what's it about? It's about the confusion of youth: ("I clutch a dirty fist and run. I'm fifteen. I'm an empty battlefield. I'll go where the marching ghosts will take me.
When I die I'll be with the trees." ~"Remorse for Being Young, Written in a Kroger Parking Lot"). It's about coming face to face with death: ("You will look at her pale, blank face and she will looks so small. And you will jump every time her breathing stalls, even though she is hooked up to a respirator. You will place your hand on her foot, and your father will place his hand on your shoulder, and you will suddenly be aware that your mother's crying has ceased." ~"When You"). It's about your family: ("My parents never argue / Instead they sit side by side
On the couch, not touching / The television always on / Communicating something / They must have forgot" ~Breathing Under Water). It's about your friends: ("It must have been about a month or so after my brother got sick that Alex started giving me parts of his lunch. I never saw him in the cafeteria; I don't know where he went for that twenty-minute slice of time every day. But at the end of math he'd shove a rumpled paper bag across my desk before scrambling out the door like he had somewhere important to go." ~Alex). It's about life, folks, and it's what you always wished you could say but could never quite put into words.

The best writing touches us somewhere inside, saying both what we need to hear and what we need to say. And these poems/stories/essays do just that. They capture the spirit of life, so that for a few hours (or however long it takes you to read this book) you can walk a mile in someone else's shoes and find they fit much like your own. Whether you love them or hate them, you'll have to admit that these words are real.

Rating:
Summary: Book Review You Are Here This is Now
Review: You Are Here This is Now is a collection of poems, short stories, and art by the best young writers and artists in America.
It is the most powerful and emotionally active book I have ever read. The Writers are incredibly talented for their ages and so honestly display their emotions that I couldn't help but feel what they felt. There are stories of pain and joy, failure and accomplishment. The writers successfully portray their innocence as they learn the lessons the world has to teach them.
I read this book in sections, I had to. To read this book from the beginning to the end would assault your thoughts and attack your emotions so fiercely that you would likely have health problems. I guarantee that you have never read a book as honestly written or as truthful as You Are Here This is Now.