Smack

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Chilling! keeped me up all night wondering whats going to happen even thought this book is aimed more at teens i still recommend it to pre-teens(like me) i do have to admit it was confusing because i didnt know there was a glossery located at the back of the book since i'm not fermilyer with the bristish wording but after everything seemed to fall in place i'm not acutley done with the book but so far its been great.

Rating:
Summary: arrogance and angst
Review: Gemma and David aka Tar are full of angst and rebellion at the world. For Tar its understandable. He had really crumby parents. For Gemma well her parents were just being a bit too protective over her. No need to run away, but she did a couple weeks after tar ran off. This book was excellent. I agreed with them, disagreed, felt bad for and nearly cried for them. They thought they could handle the world on their own but alas they could never because they weren't ADULTS yet. They didn't know between right and wrong. They thought they did but don't all kids think this way? All the characters in the book were lively and so interesting, even mister scholly who is a raging racist and hypocrite. The confusing parts about the book are you have to get used to the title at each different chapter. If it says Gemma , gemma is talking , if it says Tar on Top its Tar talking, if it says Richard.. get my drift ? And I live in the USA so reading the English (UK) slang was hard to understand at first. Just to let you know "pull a chase" means to snort.

Rating:
Summary: Careful
Review: This book is a must read for all teens!
If you have tampered with this kinda stuff before you can really relate to Mr Burgess discription, even if you havent its a once in a life time chance to see the drug world from another side.No matter how you have grown up and what you have tried in the past or what you havent, you will love what tar and gemma get up to.really really amazing book!!!

Just be carefull the book Smack and Junk are the same don't get caught out like i did!!

Rating:
Summary: i LOVED it
Review: i read Smack two years ago while recovering from a tonsilectomy. being an anti-authority teen at the time, i loved the characters' views on parents, control, and life in general. I adored the descriptions of highs and lows, and i loved the entire plot. I highly reccomend this book!!!!!! i've gotten many friends to read it and they love it as well. Very thought provoking and exciting. My absolute favorite. ;)

Rating:
Summary: Smack
Review: The book smack was a good but, it has its good and bad parts and confusing.Its about a girl who runs away from home with this boy to live in abandoned places with other runaway teens.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling and Scary Downward Spiral
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: smack a story of depravity.
Review: I wanted to put this book down several times but I didn't. It read like an interview of two fourteen year olds who decide to runaway from home. Tar (David) runs away from alcoholic parents and an abusive home. He just knows things will be better away from home just anywhere. Gemma runsaway to be with Tar and find freedom from overbearing parents. Gemma's home isn't so bad but she is compelled to follow Tar out of a sense of duty.

Tar falls into a life squatting with older persons and enjoys his new found tranquility. Then Gemma joins him but do to some personality conflicts with other squatters she is forced to find other living arrangements and moves in with other squatters. Lily and Rob. One problem Lily and Rob are heroin junkies.

One thing leads to others and soon their living the life of Junkies of smack(heroine).

As I said before the book reads as an interview of Tar and Gemmas four year journey into streetlife,addiction, and many revelations of life. Each chapter is an interview with Tar, Gemma, or another one of the many people they come in contact with. Each person tells their tale of streetlife, squatting, drugs, sex, fear, sadness, and addiction. It's a slow deliberate journey into depravity. It's true this book does not preach drugs are bad but if you read it you can't help but know what these children do and go through no one should.

I can also say that these fourteen year olds seemed older to me but in the end the point is the same. Read the book it surely will leave you thinking.

Rating:
Summary: A Literary Smack in the Face
Review: I was in line at Barnes and Noble when I first discovered 'Smack.' It was on sale and, intrigued by the title, I bought it. I was reading other books at that time but I soon was so hooked on 'Smack' that I decided to take a break on the other ones and devote my full attention to 'Smack.' I enjoyed it because it was a story, not a sermon. It was also a fast, easy read that didn't talk down to its readers even though the majority of its readers are probably 13. Anyway, this book was fascinating and horrifying. It gives a inside view of a life of addiction.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling and Scary Downward Spiral
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: "Smack" almost as Addicting as Heroin
Review: "Smack" is a novel about two teenagers, David (Tar) and Gemma, who run away from home, squat with an eccentric, peaceful, pot smoking guy, and gradually become addicted to drugs -- eventually, heroin. Tar has been abused by his father, and Gemma is just a normal girl from a fairly normal family, just fed up with her parents' imposing control over her. Tar, so nicknamed because he would always tell Gemma that cigarettes would make her lungs black, eventually started having a lot of fun smoking pot. It's interesting to see how slowly and subliminally abuse sneaks up on them. Gemma starts spending all the money she went away with on whims -- like crazy clothes and boots, going to punk shows, having parties -- but eventually they're stuck with prostitution and stealing as their only means of getting by. They witness deaths. Lily, the beautiful girl Gemma first admired (and whom Tar and Gemma moved in with), has become pale and sickly. And she becomes pregnant. They all want to get off junk, although sometimes it's only in the back of their minds -- but can they?

The criticism I've heard most frequently when it comes to Melvin Borges' "Smack" is that it glamourizes drug addiction. My take: yes, but no. I would have to admit that, if you read only the first half of the novel, this is the impression you would typically get. Melvin does glamourize drugs. I even envied Tar and Gemma, and all their freedom, early in the book. But Borges only glamourizes drugs through the eyes of the characters he creates.

The style of this book is very original. It's written in first-person (except the first chapter) and the speaker changes from chapter to chapter, so you get to see everything from everyone's point of view -- and more interestingly, just when you start to hate a character or question his or her intentions, you really get behind their thoughts and understand why they act the way they do. It's not a question that Gemma is a selfish brat, but you begin to understand her, and why she's like that. It would be unrealistic to expect Borges to write a book like "Smack" in which the characters were always completely against drug use from the beginning; if the characters always considered the risks involved, nobody would ever take drugs in the first place. So of course, from the eyes of the characters, heroin is a really cool thing to do -- at least until later in the book, when they begin to fall apart because of it, and realize they have to find another way to live -- and this struggle is very emotional. After I'd read about 3 or 4 chapters, I couldn't even put "Smack" down at night to go to sleep -- it's that good.

There's a British slang dictionary in the back -- which you might miss if you don't look for it (there aren't references to it in the text). The dictionary is helpful at times, but even without the dictionary you'll still find yourself learning a lot of the slang.

Also recommended: THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez