Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book for people over age of 15
Review: Friday Night Light is an excellent book about much more than just football. HG BISSINGER creates not just a pultizer prize winning book, but a masterpiece that will be past down through my family and yours, for years to come. I found it sad, amusing, touching, and above all, Horrifying!

Rating:
Summary: Much More Than Game
Review: Pay absolutely no attention to the January 11th reviewer from Michigan. Bissinger's point in Friday Night Lights was never to just tell the story of a football team and ramble about unnecessary issues. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS IS ABOUT OURSELVES!!!!!!!!!!! HELLO!!!! No we do not all play the game of football but we all do obsess over things as stupid as a football game. And also apprieciate Bissingers style. I know I could never write that well and communicate such imagery. Michigan take another look through the book and then see what you see. If you don't there are many out here who deeply enjoyed it and feel incredibly sorry for you!!!

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book!!
Review: This is truely an amazing book written wonderfully so as to capture the reader and place him on the team himself. I haven't read a better book anywhere dealing with the issues FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS deals with.

Rating:
Summary: interviewed the author and documented this subject
Review: I used this as a reference and interviewed the author several years ago for a short documentary on the subject of Texas and football; found the book to be entertaining in its delivery as well as accurate; obviously it does not cover all sides of the issue but does an admirable job of conveying the emotion behind the zealous committment to football in Texas

Rating:
Summary: The Truth
Review: H.G. Bissinger tells the tale of the high school football team and it's players. I play football at a Paraclete,a small catholic school in So.Cal. I look at the characters portrayed, the lives portrayed, and I see my own, and those around me. Football wise our school has one back to back state championships and I understand the pressure faced by Boobie, Brian and all the Panthers players every Friday night. The book takes you on a surreal ride, a ride in which you are rooting for a team, but also rooting for yourself in a way. You are rooting for a chance to be on the field, a chance to win, a chance to be home again. Friday Night Lights doesn't tell the tale of the Permian Panthers. It tells the tale of the Paraclete Spirits, the Mater Dei Monarchs, the Carter Cowboys, the Alemany Indians, the entire high school football world. If you play, or once played, or know someone that plays, you have to pick up this book and truly realize what football really is.

Rating:
Summary: How could you give it less than five stars?
Review: This book is the whole truth, full truth, and nothing but the truth of corruptive competition in high school football. Sure it happenned in Texas, but the same deeds occur elsewhere. Beside the Bible this is the second greatest book ever writtedn.

Rating:
Summary: So so writing, rambles about things unrelated to the team
Review: The author writes a preface that gives away too much of the outcome of the team. He rambles on about things that are not only not related to the team but are just plain boring. The only good parts are when he talks about the players personalities.

Rating:
Summary: A great look at the truth behind high school football
Review: As I read through the book Friday Night Lights, I saw a lot of realism to what high school football is all about. The first thing that I could relate to, is the practices, and how much effort and time that you have to put into the sport of football. I don't think that I have ever read any books like this or by the same author but I hope H. G. Bissinger has written more books, because this is my favorite book and I would like to see more from this author. I think that everyone should like this book, even if you never thought you liked football, this book might even turn you on to it. Now you may say to yourself, why would I want to read about some dumb town in Texas that is football crazy? because there is so much more to the book than just the football. It deals with the situations and problems that the players and parents face, not just because they are football players, but because they are also teenagers. I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in a good story because even my mom, who isn't really interested in sports loved it!

Rating:
Summary: An extensive look at football and social issues
Review: I am a high school football coach, and I found Friday Night Lights to be a disturbing view of how we push kids too far. More importantly, though, it is about a town where most people think and act a like, where the only constants are death, taxes, and Permian Football. The chapters about the bust and segregation were struck me because Bissinger writes strongly, and backs his findings with people's actual acconts. Anyone who enjoys football will enjoy reading it. I've never been to Texas, but I fell in love with Mojo. It's the kind of pride I wish all towns could have.

Rating:
Summary: Superb. Get in shape to read it - you play the game, also.
Review: You will love it or leave it. You will appreciate if not understand what "MoJo" is. If you're still reading after the first chapter, find a comfortable spot - it's hard to put down. My fourteen year old daughter bought this book for me but I couldn't wrestle it away from her until she read it first (which didn't take long). Keep in mind that Bissinger wrote this book using his personal biases, perceptions and opinions. I found no fault with his interpretations of the issues and facts as presented other than the racial issue was not as severe from my personal experience. If you have kids playing football (or any competitive sport), if you played high school football, if you are a coach or if you just love high school football - this is must reading. I'll leave it at that. You form your own opinion, but you will appreciate the game in a different "light". I was born in Odessa at the same time Hayden Fry was playing there. I know all the "characters" in the book, although by different names. Yes, they are are all very real. I played football at Rankin (Red Devils) and later in Louisiana. Rankin is just south of Odessa about 56 miles and football there was intense, also. Intense football is prevalent in west Texas. Bissinger made it so real that the familiar taste of so long ago became noticeable in my mouth as he described the boys throwing up before the games. The smell of the locker room became real. I could feel the pain in Boobies knee (from my own seven knee surgeries). I was actually sore the day following finishing the book as if I had played the game, too. The book will have you cheering one moment, shaking your head in disgust one moment, and your eyes will tear from sadness the next moment. Prepare yourself for an emotional roller coaster. I was on a transpacific flight when I read this book in its entirety. It was pitch black outside and in the cabin, also, save for one single reading light - and that was me reading this book. Everyone else was asleep. Keep in mind what Bissinger says at the end in the Acknowledgements: "I remember the first time I saw them in the field house, with no idea of what they would be like and how they would take to me, or, for that matter, how I would take to them. And I remember how I thought of them at the end, as kids that I adored." So, some are critical of his presentation, but note that at the end and now - he adores those kids. You will not forget this book. And, as I read the sports section today, there are the Permian Panthers in Division 1 5A in the state play-offs. They just clobbered a team in El Paso and advanced. The MoJo continues today in its own unique and unparalleled way! The town, the team, and the dream are all still alive. Read the book and live it yourself.