Rating: 
Summary: Conclusions accurate - but too much Donna
Review: As a baby-bust kid raised in Bergenfield, I found Ms. Gaines conclusions pretty much on the mark. However, her constant references to herself were not relevent to the topic. Growing up in the sixties in Long Island and having beach parties was nowhere near growing up in Bergenfield in the eighties even if you knew the names of heavy metal bands. Several points she failed to make well were: Reagan's trickle-down economics and not raising the minimum wage failed us completely. (I am still paying off college loans from 1988.) Also, she completely missed the connection that my generation's parents were fifties kids who idealized Ronald Reagan, bought the whole Father Knows Best thing and still truly believed in Camelot and the American Dream. How could we but disappoint? Many of our parents had cars when they were teens, got good jobs without college degrees, got married and had kids, and also bought a house all before they were 25. Hippies frightened the bejeesus out of them. And, they were in no mood to believe that hope was dead for those of stuck at $3.35 an hour. Ms. Gaines religifying music was a little much as well. Being a musician, I know that kids as well as adults need to have a good time, blow off steam, to escape. The energy of rock, heavy metal, thrash, etc. appeals to them often on a visceral, not always intellectual level. Kids out there often enjoy music when they don't even have clue what the lyrics are. Also, her slang to sound cool was a little much. On the topic of the kids feeling worthless, she was dead on. There was another name they were given, not even mentioned in the book which breaks my heart when I think of it. Dregs.
Rating: 
Summary: AS COOL AS A NARC
Review: Gaines is a condescending, overblown hack who strokes her own ego through a series of punk rock name drops in an effort to inflate every maladjusted teen into James Dean or Sid Vicious. This self-serving book was written exclusively to validate her own hipness - which is outdated at best. (Although she'll tell you otherwise - over and over and over.)
Rating:
Summary: What a disgrace
Review: Gaines should be put in the same category as Taliban. I grew up in Bergenfield, did lines with the Buress sisters', Olton, and Rizzo at Garvey's house. Yes, alot of children back then did waste time just as I did. But don't think that Gaines few moments in Bergenfield could sum it all up. Gaines knew nothing but to be a glory stealer for a book that was going to happen anyway. How about the other suicides, Like Paul Murphy and Chris Hurt. You should have done your math Gaines. Cooper's Pond had finger digits from snapping turtles that were restless. Gaines had nothing in mind but selfishness intentions. I'd like to meet Gaines and do a reminder. A product of the Teenage Wasteland she has described makes me think..I got a B.S of Science in M.E. a few years ago and I've been serving in the military as well. Ms. Gaines should remember me if we ever cross paths. Bergenfield was a town at that time that was showing the future. Ms. Gaines didn't see that, she just wrote a book....Words, they are so easy
Rating:
Summary: Self-important rubbish
Review: Gaines spent a month in Bergenfield and tried to turn others' pain into her gain. The book reads like her website: Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! She should be ashamed of herself.
Rating: 
Summary: Things changed over the years
Review: I am a senior in college and have grown up in Bergenfield my whole life. I was around 10-11 when this book took place and do remember my parents talking about the events. Donna was correct in describing the atmosphere of the late eighties and it was filled with all these "white trashy" teens who drop out, have the long hair, and walk around town. Now you do not see that. You see teens who are more "put together." They wear designer clothes and seem to be more "socially acceptable." It's almost as if they are more knowing of their surroundings, which makes them smarter. Times have defiantely changed in the 10 years.
Rating:
Summary: I can't believe this is still in print!
Review: I can't believe this book is still in print. It reads like a flow of conscientious and is based on faulty research skills. There are numerous erroneous statements that reveal much about the author but little about the teenagers of Bergenfield. This book is less about exposing "suburbia's dead end kids" and more about an image of "how things must have been" produced by the ego of the author.
Rating:
Summary: I went to BHS and I hate this book!
Review: I don't get it, did the author go to BHS? From the way this book is written, one gets the feeling that author can "feel the pain" of the teens of that time because she lived it. She didn't.
I did.
The author implies that this kind of stuff happens all the time with these burn outs in the ugly town of Bergenfield, what can you expect?
It ripped our town apart, and brought us together.
Rating:
Summary: I went to BHS and I hate this book!
Review: I don't get it, did the author go to BHS? From the way this book is written, one gets the feeling that author can "feel the pain" of the teens of that time because she lived it. She didn't.
I did.
The author implies that this kind of stuff happens all the time with these burn outs in the ugly town of Bergenfield, what can you expect?
It ripped our town apart, and brought us together.
Rating:
Summary: Me! Me! Let's make this book about me!
Review: I have been trying to get through this book for a few weeks now, and am about half through. I am still waiting for things to pick up and some sort of story or analysis to appear. Donna rambles about her "rebelious" youth as a "rocker", interjecting anecdotes of her own in a thinly veiled attempt to show us how much she understands the youth of the late 1980s. Or maybe she just didn't have enough material and interest in an autobiography. Donna sensationalizes the reality of growing up in suburbia and does so under the guise of trying to help the kids she is writing about. Donna is like your high school guidance counselor: talking at you while you dart your eyes around her office looking for a distraction until you are no longer in her presence.
Rating:
Summary: Worst book I have read in a long time
Review: I have been trying to get through this book for a few weeks now, and am about half through. I am still waiting for things to pick up and some sort of story or analysis to appear. Donna rambles about her "rebelious" youth as a "rocker", interjecting anecdotes of her own in a thinly veiled attempt to show us how much she understands the youth of the late 1980s. Or maybe she just didn't have enough material and interest in an autobiography. Donna sensationalizes the reality of growing up in suburbia and does so under the guise of trying to help the kids she is writing about. Donna is like your high school guidance counselor: talking at you while you dart your eyes around her office looking for a distraction until you are no longer in her presence.
|
