Smack

Rating:
Summary: Captivating. A great adult read, too!
Review: A highly believable look at a world that most readers have wondered about. Burgess has portrayed adolescent angst with perfection. It's an adolescent "Trainspotting". A great adult read, too. This book is currently available in Canadian bookstores under the title "Junk".

Rating:
Summary: Smack- A wonderful book.
Review: I thought Smack was a great book. Every character in the book gets to share there point of view. You can feel everything in the book and almost see it as a movie running through your mind. I would reccomend this book to anyone who likes intence stories.

Rating:
Summary: BEST BOOK EVER!!
Review: Smack is by far the best book I've ever read in my life. It's about two 14-year old teens, Tar and Gemma, who run away from their hometown. They meet alot of people and end up moving in with Lily and Rob, older heroin addicts. They get Tar anf Gemma into heroin and the two teens get stuck in a whirl-wind of drugs, sex, and booze. It's a great book about how messed up a persons life can get if you're out on your own. Fourtunatlly, Tar and Gemma get their lives somewhat back together, but they'll always have that addiction with them. This book is real, intence, and a great book. I reccomend this book to a mature audience because of the graphic details and swearing. Everyone should read Smack.

Rating:
Summary: Good, a little drawn out
Review: "I'm really looking forward to being clean again. It's this weird thing with smack. First off it makes you feel so good. But after a bit, after your body gets used to it, it stops working like that. You start needing more just to stay normal..." In this book by Melvin Burgess you follow the lives of 2 teenagers who were once "perfect little angels" to when they become heavily addicted heroin users.

Most of the book takes place on the streets of an English city (Bristol). Tar (recognized by adults as David) and Gemma, the two runaways spend most of their time squatting in shut down buildings. They meet many strange characters while in the city that take them in and support them. Until they meet Lily and Rob, Tar and Gemma become close friends with them and are introduced to heroin by them.

In the begining all 4 never suspect that they are addicted at all. They believe the can quit any time they please. They find they are sorely mistaken when Lily gets pregnant and they decide to become clean for the good of the baby. The first one to use it again is sadly, Lily. They have many ups and downs with the drug, going in and out of rehab.


This is a very modern and youth appealing book. It uses a lot of slang (there is even a little slang glossary in the back) to make you feel like you are right there in the book. The one flaw in this book is that the ending was very drawn out and somewhat off the subject. But one fascinating aspect of the book was the way the author wrote it, he wrote every chapter through the eyes of different characters not just simply Gemma and Tar.

Rating:
Summary: GREATEST BOOK
Review:
This is the story Tar and Gemma, two teenagers, who run away from their families in search of freedom and end up in a prison of their own creation -- drug addiction. This is a truly compelling book and I felt myself swept along in total sympathy with the main characters. At first it's all fun and games until they realize that you can't run away from certain basic human needs: the need for a home (which becomes a squat), the need for family (which becomes a group of squatters, who sadly are also junkies). It's only a matter of time before the lure of drugs (as a bonding ritual) takes over -- and then we watch these characters spiral downward. I read this book right after another Amazon purchase -- The Losers' Club by Richard Perez -- and while that novel isn't about drug addiction, but a 'failed,' lonely writer addicted to the personal ads, I was reminded of the need we all have to belong, to feel ALIVE. The story of Smack reminds us that we can never escape from ourselves, from certain innate human needs. And when we try to break away from the more traditional ways of life, those needs, that loneliness to belong is still there. I truly love this book and would recommend it to anyone. It's beautifully written and compelling. And sadly true.


Rating:
Summary: Great book so far
Review: Although I haven't finished the book yet, i am definetly impressed. This book is excellent because it has so many characters with so many differnet points of veiw on whats going on in the 2 main characters Gemma and Tar's lives. This book is so good in fact that I am finding myself getting mad at certain characters like Gemma, who ditches tar (who obvioulsy needs her) to live with some random girl she met at a party and her boyfriend. I can't wait to finish "Smack" because I haven't even got into any part of their addiction.

Rating:
Summary: Best Book on Drugs
Review: This book is about a runaway couples deep desent into heroin. The compelling 1st person writing makes you become the charachter. Each chapter will be told by a different of the 5 or so Narrators. You get suxed into the book and whenever they get hiugh you feel high and on their comedowns you feel like your coming down. I really recommend this book for any teenager. It might not be apporpriate for anyone under the age of 15 or so. Melvin Burgess is very talented.
A con to this book is that it starts slowly...i actually read the first two chapters and put it down for a few months TWICE...how stupid it ended up being great.

Rating:
Summary: Heroin in Book Form
Review: When I first saw this book in my library, I thought it would just past the time. I had no clue it would change the way I looked at everything. I was immediately intrigued and couldn't put it down. Gemma and Tar were my age at the beginning of the book and I related to Tar so much because my own father was an alcoholic and abusive. It was also very easy to get hooked on this book because the first-person story-telling allowed you to really get into the characters minds and get close to them. I loved how sitting there reading this book, I could tell they were already way over thier heads in an addiction but they were still completely oblivious. It wasn't until Sally, Lily, Rob, Tar and Gemma went to the cabin in the country to get clean that anyone of them realized it. Tar walked and hitch-hiked half-way around the country for a hit, leaving the rest of them to argue over their last bit of smack. Only then does Gemma see what the drug has done to her and her friends. My favorite part of the book, is that is teaches you how awful drugs are without lecturing or cramming your brain with facts. You can sit safely at home but still feel the effects of heroin and watch as the characters lives slowly deteriorate and they spiral downwards into an addiction to heroin. It also shows the reasons people turn to smack. An escape from pain or problems or just a way to feel happy in a life that sucks.

Rating:
Summary: Pass the...
Review: ok. obviously i loved it. (hence the 5 stars). i loved how he used 10 different points of view. i thought it added to the understanding of the book. i loved some characters (who were probably not meant to be loved) and i hated others (who were probably meant to be loved), and i loved the twists and turns, the seeming honesty of the plot, and the desciptions.
i loved lily and rob. the only problem is that lily and rob are so wonderful in the book, and it makes heroin look fun. until the end anyway, but by then i was already so enchanted by all the happy free junkies that the end wasnt powerful enough to overpower my first inpression. its still a wonderful book. but it doesnt seem to be anti-drugs. just a narrative of what happened, which is refreshing for a change.
anyway, i loved it, give it a read through...


Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: Oneof my favorite books ever, I read it young and I've been reading it since.

It tells the story of what happens when someone really goes through with the things so many people threaten about. Horrible things happen, people fight and friendships break but someone you manage not to hate everyone in the book.

It's one of those books I'll always love and an insistant read if you EVER get the chance.