Rating: 
Summary: Surprise?
Review: Since when is it news that parents don't know what their kids do? As a teenager in the 60's, I know our parents didn't have a clue what we did. Author must have led a very dull life as a teenager!
Rating: 
Summary: An Insight on the Segmented Society
Review: Taken alone this is a enthralling and interesting book that attempts to delve into the depths of the current generational dichotomy. I applaud the author's attempt to be an accepted outsider, and her willingness to let the subjects tell their own story. Their perspectives should give anyone not in their generation reason to pause and evaluate why it is so different, and how we have forgotten that we once lived their fears out in our own lives.I strongly recommend Jay Mathews' CLASS STRUGGLE, Jon Krakauer's INTO THE WILD, and Thomas Ricks' MAKING THE CORPS as accompaniment to anyone looking for the motives of those born after 1977. Taken together they create a mosaic snapshot of the segmentation of society that is found in fullest view within Generation Y, but is slowly permeating our whole society.
Rating:
Summary: Bourgeois platitude
Review: The book is a narrative composed of somewhat interwoven, but mostly disparate, profiles of eight Reston, VA teens. For several years, the author interviewed, followed, observed, and listened to these teens, and this book is the result of her efforts. But the trouble with the book is that its author faithfully recounts the teens' stories but goes no further than that. Hersch is a meticulous scribe, no doubt--she admits to having carried around her cassette recorder at all times during this research period--but she sorely and thoroughly lacks the wherewithal necessary to make sense of her findings except reducing them to embarrasingly shallow banalities. Despite her avowed objectivity as journalist, Hersch's book, in the end, reads mostly as an extended account of a white suburbanite growing horrified as she witnesses her bourgeois bubble shatter in her face. No surprise, then, that her jeremiad on Littleton (in the preface to the baperback edition) only serves to underscore the bourgeois, hypocritical stance of the author herself and so many others like her that America witnessed during the whole Littleton deal: "Things like these aren't supposed to happen in places like this, i.e. teenage pregnancy, drug use, and violence only take place in places where Negroes live." In addition, the author's choice of the interviewees is revealing of a typically bifurcated view (common among whites and blacks alike) of race in America. Among her eight subjects, six are white, one black, and one a Latina, but race is examined virtually only through Charles, the black interviewee. This is even more disturbing when one considers that the action takes place not in a homogeneous midwestern or southern town, but in Fairfax County, VA, which is home to tremendous ethnic diversity; there are many teens of Hispanic and Asian origins in the area, but of course, they are given no mention in the book (to be fair, Joan, one of the interviewees, is a Latina teenager, but very little is discussed of her ethnicity). Given all this, it becomes glaringly apparent that Hersch's vision of "regular" American teens, the subjects she sought in the first place, are a group of white teenagers, with a token black thrown in the mix for effect. In addition, this book suffers many other shortcomings, too numerous to critique here; I only rue the seven or so hours I misspent reading this book. The author then triumphantly concludes with the trenchant observation that we must pay more attention to teens. I imagine there are better books on the subject, but if you absolutely must read this book, save yourself twelve bucks and get hold of a copy from the local library.
Rating:
Summary: A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolesc
Review: The contents of this book can not and does not put forth the ability to profile all American teenagers. It remarks about the type of community in which this research was done and I found it very helpful. We do not live in a planned community, but teenagers are ignored here just like everywhere, and it is good to hear how different kids live in and react differently to their own communities. One of the messages of the author seems to be that parents and society needs to help these kids, help themselves. There are a lot of mentally ill teenagers and no one is aware which ones are not going to get over the hard work of growing up. I think this book puts some truths out there. If America has a handle on raising kids well, why do we have the outbreak of school shooting and depression and eating disorders in our children? Why does highschool tend to destroy so much of our children and turn them cynical? This book does not answer every question, does the author ever sound like she can? It was helpful to myself and I have reccommended it to several other parents.
Rating: 
Summary: A Real Eye-Opener
Review: This book is a modern-day account of what "normal" adolescence are doing these days. The message is very clear: We, as parents, have strayed from our responsibility to be involved in our children's lives, and therefore today's youths are being left very much alone to figure things out for themselves, in ways we probably wouldn't approve of.
Rating:
Summary: Realistic and engrossing
Review: This book offers readers an opportunity to see what teen life is like in one of the two "planned communities." I survived the Hip Hop Culture in Columbia, MD. I read a review crying "racism" regarding the book's focus on the detrimental factors of this culture. However, "Charles Sutton" offers a clear example of how what we in Columbia called the "Yo Culture" negatively impacts African-Americans who pride success. I lived through the "Charles Sutton" experience. One criticism of this book- The author should have interviewed parents before portraying them as evil.
Rating: 
Summary: Eh......
Review: When Mrs. Hersch set out to create a picture of normal adolescent life in a normal suburban town, she decided to labor for six years to create this book, hoping that it would create a picture of teenage life for the public. In my opinion, she has failed in this objective; however, she has made a very entertaining book. I live in Reston, VA and am a freshman at Thomas Jefferson High School (not the school featured in the book). I did, however, attend Langston Hughes middle school and have a great deal of friends that trudge off to South Lakes in the morning. I'm not going to challenge the truthfulness or fairness of her claims on life at South Lakes, as I don't feel I am qualified to do so, but what I do take issue with are her methods of information gathering. Early on in the book, she states that she wants to get a good picture of 'normal' adolescence ("...seek out the regular kids who appeared balanced." -p. 24). How does Mrs. Hersch, as much in the dark as anyone is about the teenage psyche, define a 'regular kid'? There is no explanation. And as we see, each of the kids turns out to be removed from the 'norm' in one way or another. Perhaps this is a point that Mrs. Hersch is trying to make; however, her unscientific methods begin the book's descent into shameless sensationalism. Another problem with Mrs. Hersch's method is that Reston, VA is not a normal town. It is a planned community with diverse social and economic groups at work in it that one would not find in a 'normal' town. Little is made of this important factor in the book, and it seems that Mrs. Hersch simply picked the most convenient town to conduct her study in. The eight teens that Mrs. Hersch bases the framework of her book around are certainly a diverse bunch: a graffiti artist, a hippie, a lacrosse-playing politician, an innocent seventh grader, etc. And while their stories are certainly an interesting read, Mrs. Hersch seems to abandon her quest to provide a picture of regular adolescent life and focuses instead on the abnormal and interesting (raves, dances, arguments, sex) things that happen in these people's lives. It appears that her journalistic training takes over: provide the biggest headlines, the flashiest story, the juiciest scandal, and people will read it. In the few first-person interludes, I also find her attitude to be infuriatingly smug. Spouting phrases like "Most kids found it hard to believe that I was willing to take so much time with them" and "I was involved in relating honestly, openly, and effectively with adolescents", Mrs. Hersch demonstrates an 'I'm so pleased with myself' mantra and refers constantly to the fact that she is the ONLY adult that takes the time to even contemplate caring about adolescents. Luckily, these sections are few and far between. If you really feel the need to have the worst parts of adolescence highlighted for you, summarized and made to look like the whole unabridged version, read this book. If you prefer the whole picture, take this book with a grain of salt, for it is truly the epitome of journalistic writing brought to a subject that doesn't really need any more added excitement.
Rating:
Summary: Caution about this book and author
Review: While I applaud the basic premise that teens have been allowed to raise themselves and society should correct its approach, I must tell you that my conclusion in reading the book and then hearing the author speak is that she is truly in it for the sensational and "what sells." I do not believe for a minute that she is truly impassioned with this topic but only as a journalist(and I count myself in that number) found a hot topic. By her own admission, she is working on another book of similar content and my only caution is not to hire her as a speaker. She has no professional background in this area except to realize what will sell books. A true word of caution do not use your organization's money to bring her in as a speaker, because that is truly how she plans to make more money. Just publishing a book does not make a writer an authority.
Rating:
Summary: A real shocker!
Review: While many who have contributed their thoughts on this book say the behavior of these kids is "old hat", I'm taken aback by the fact that some of these kids are involving themselves with drugs, sex and all around dangerous behavior at the age of 12 and 13. I'm sorry, but my god! I'm a baby boomer and I'm well aware that things have changed a great deal since I was that age, but I remember 7th and 8th grade very well and we were still children...acting like children at that age. I was considered on of the "popular" kids, and I remember playing jacks and jump rope in jr. high. We all liked boys, but actually "touching or kissing" them was something none of us were even close to doing at that age. I'm just amazed at these little girls and boys, finding themselves in such adult situations and feeling that's where they should be. My daughter in now in 8th grad in a bedroom community just outside Chicago. She says some kids (very few) are sexually active and she knows a couple who smoke, but it's the exception and no where even close to the rule. I related some of the stories in the book to my daughter, and while she said they were pretty extreme, she wasn't surprised in the least. What an awful thing.
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