Smack

Rating:
Summary: Smack in the face
Review: Smack is an awesome book! Everyone should read it. It's true to life in every aspect and doesn't sugar coat anything. This is my FAVORITE book, it's original and suprising...
... you have to read it!

Rating:
Summary: Never Read One Like it
Review: This is a great and interesting story. Two teens run away from thier parents for completely different reasons, and learn a little bit about life. I love Burgess' style of writing, how he switches the chapters between the character's point of veiw, it makes the book a really good read. Smack is a very true to life kind of story, you can feel for the characters in the book. Sometimes you'll laugh, sometimes you'll cry. It's truly amazing.

Rating:
Summary: Heroin chic ... what a joke
Review: Just about everyone has heard (although they may not heed) the message "drugs are bad," and heroin especially conjures up a vague fear of needles, AIDS and white powder. After you read "Smack", those fears will be sharpened into an acute knowledge of a horrible drug; a so-honest-it-hurts portrait of addiction that holds you fast throughout the book, daring you to even look away for a second.

Tar and Gemma are two fourteen year olds in 1980's England who run away from home. Tar has two alcoholic parents and his father beats him, while Gemma is a fairly priveliged girl who feels smothered by her parents and wants to rebel. Once they get to Bristol, they are accepted by a group of anarchist squatters. Gemma especially enjoys the carefree life of joints, booze and gluing the bank locks shut, and gets involved in the punk scene. Even after Tar and Gemma consummate their relationship, they start to grow more and more distant.

Along with the punk scene, Gemma meets Lily, a vivacious and charming teenager that she bonds with immediately. Lily and her friends later teach Gemma to smoke heroin. Tar is wary at first, but Lily pressures him into it. From there, Tar and Gemma's already gritty crashes and grows darker. They both become addicted and start to use needles. Gemma and Lily turn to prostitution to pay for their habit and Tar begins to steal.

"Smack" has an unfortunately slow and boring beginning that may turn some readers off at first, but you should definitely stick with it, as it gets much more interesting and gripping later.

The best thing about "Smack" is its reality. "Smack" does show why people do heroin, and it does reveal that a heroin high is supposedly an incredible state of bliss. But it doesn't flinch from showing the dark underbelly of drug use in a starkly realistic light. On Tar's struggle to free himself from heroin's sweet snare, he doesn't get off right away and meets many stumbling blocks to being clean. The ending is also excellent, not overly tragic, but realistic, and with an ambivalent mood of hope and dark outlook.

Rating:
Summary: Biased, Stereotyped, and Based on Total Ignorance
Review: Smack is honestly the worst book I have read. Its writings are atrociously biased and are deplorably unrealistic. This book was created solely to scare teenagers straight and ANY teenager knows that this book is based on total ignorance. Foreigners and outcasts of the media-society will be brainwashed and be taught that this is what life is really like for teenagers; false. Also, characters were poorly manifested and even mediocre detail was lacking. The best description for the high of heroin is this: "All of my problems seemed to have floated away." .... This book is truly the weakest attempt to show the life of a drug addict.

Rating:
Summary: Brain Muzak.
Review: i picked this book up on a heroin-fiction binge, anticipating a realistic, engrossing, and straight-up novel -- what the reviews and summaries touted. Instead, i found stereotypical, two-dimensional characters, unrealistic and once again, stereotypical situations, and an attitude throughout the book that could only be described as "this book wants to be deep and thought-provoking, but instead we're easy-listening for your brain." As you've probably heard already, Smack is the supposed story of Tar (aka David, also Gemma's somewhat-boyfriend) who runs away to Bristol to escape drunken parents, and "abusive situations" with both. Gemma, who is supposed to be the WILD FREE SPIRIT, is actually just a weak, middle-to-upper-class brat who will lap up anything that reeks of "rebellion." Her personality is rather fluid. The first time she meets a "punk" or "anarchist" she'll take off her plaid jumper and saddle shoes and spend a hundred quid to become the overnight Real Anarchist Rebel Punk Rock Free Spirit Chick. Then when someone new comes along, she latches onto their point of view and holds them up as her god, casually booting the previous deity.

So our little friends leave home because of their taxing and not-so-taxing home lives (TAR--Predatory, dependent and drunk mother; "He-beats-me-and-mum-up" Father, who also seems to be an alcoholic. GEMMA-- My Parents Dont Let ME Do ANYTHING!!!! I am SOOOO SICK of having warm croissants every day for breakfast! GAWD! WHY can't things just be MY WAY?)

They move about the city, finding new homes and new people, and meet and consequentially fall in with a couple. Rob and Lily live in a vacant house they've taken over-- a squat-- and invite Tar and Gemma to stay with them. Obvious, not-so-subtle foreshadowing lets the reader know that things wil be "taking a turn for the worse." Nearly everything happens just they way Mommy told you it would. The Bad Guys--Lily and Rob--have a white powder on aluminum foil which they are preparing and inhaling. Come on, guys. It's JUST heroin. It won't hurt you. You can stop anytime you want. Try it, you'll like it. It just makes you happy, that's all. The Rebellious Risk-Taking Friend takes it, and convices the Innocent, Concerned, Shy Nice Boy to "DO IT." Gemma in particular holds the belief that she's STRONG so nothing can "get" her. In each chapter written from her point of view, she constantly states that she's not an addict, she's having fun, Lily would NEVER do something that could hurt her,--everyone's typical idea of a budding junky. She's not in real-life, actual junky denial, she's just playing to the camera.

Nearly every situation in the book refers to a standard belief or stereotype of exactly how one "falls into" junky-dom. Blaring, ominous foreshadowing jumps off the page at each "wrong turn" the characters make. You wouldn't even have to read the rest of the book once you got about 2/3 into it. They take a little. A little more. If you're going to inhale it, why not pop it? If you're going to pop it, why not mainline it? (quote courtesy of The Basketball Diaries.) So they start out small, move on up to daily usage, etc etc etc, and of course their lives are falling to pieces. Everything happened like it would in a Disney documentary of users-become-addicts. Focusing more on the relationships and petty, trivial incidents rather than the actual heroin use, it was just a soap opera at many times. Actually, no. At least soap operas don't try and take themselves seriously. The highs and lows of addiction as presented by the book could be summed up as "It made me feel sooo happy" and "My stomach has cramps. I am in withdrawal. Wow. This hurts badly. I wish I had some methadone. Oh wait, hi Tar! I missed you! Wow! Let's Have a Party!" I'd hope that anyone who has read books other than Bugsy Goes to School and The Little Engine that Could can tell you that the storyline was nicely packed up and in to give standard, cooky-cutter descriptions of situations, characters, and later on, junkies. Even removing the situation (heroin), the writing itself screams "Condensed Version. Abridged and Simplified." It's like a Drug Addicts On The Street Baby-Sitter's Club novel.

Overall, a predictable, rather boring attempt at being dramatic, chilling, eye-opening, whatever cliched words you'd want to describe your "groundbreaking report on how heroin ruins one's life." If you want a book to read on the beach while you watch your kiddies play, or during Silent Reading at your school, fine. Here it is. i gave it 2 stars not because it deserves more than the lowest possible, but because there could be worse. The only merit of the book that could deserve the extra star would probably be the fact that there was no in-your-face preaching. That was attained by the sheer ridiculousness of many of the chapters or characters, and the author's obvious lack of actual heroin-user knowledge.

Many people know that heroin and drug-addiction fiction is too many times garbage anyway. If you want UK addiction in poverty, with the whole 3 situations offered by Smack PLUS-- all the ACTUAL happenings of the day to day life of a junky, just go with Trainspotting.

It's really not surprising that the book is found in the Young Adults Fiction section, and Amazon has it categorised as Young Adults Grades 10-12, Children 12-Up Fiction General, and Juvenile Fiction. Because right there's your ultimate overall description. Juvenile.

Rating:
Summary: Story Pulls At Heart Strings
Review: In an attempt to liven up the content of my classroom library, I have been reading several young adult novels this summer. When I started this one, I felt that the first person narration was a little slow. I worried that students might lose interest or become confused by the multiple narrative technique. As I continued to read my opinion changed. Characters started to come alive on the pages. The world of heroin addiction was depicted in an unforgetable manner. The images that will stick with me the longest are those of "Sunny" the innocent baby of Rob (maybe) and Lily. Gemma describes that the baby's eyes are "glassy" and the baby is already a "junkie". Lily uses heroin on the baby's gums when he's fussy or teething. Also, heroin is transferred to the baby through Lily's breastmilk. Gemma remarks that "Sunny is such a good and quiet baby." Of course he is! He is stoned!! All the other characters chose heroin, the baby did not. I believe that students can learn a lot from this novel (including English slang).

Rating:
Summary: So good I read it in a day and a half
Review: I loved this book. I'm not a big reader so if I'm going to read a book and finish it it has to be a really good book, and believe me, this was great. The way that Melvin Burgress portrays the relationship between Gemma and Tar is amazing. You can really see how the two of them change during their relationship and how smack effects it. You can almost feel what they are feeling while it happens. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a book that they will enjoy and relate to. I would put this book in my top favorite books of all time, it is truely amazing.

Rating:
Summary: IT IS A LIFE RULE
Review: THIS BOOK IS THE GREATEST I COULDN'T STOP READING IT

READ IT, BUY IT IT IS A MEMORY WHICH U WILL CARRY ON FOR LIFE NOT ONLY FOR TEENAGERS BUT FOR ADULTS ALL AGES NOT ONLY ABOUT DRUGS BUT ABOUT PEOPLE RELATIONS ETC.. READ IT U WON'T REGRET IT

Rating:
Summary: Smack by: Melvin Burgess
Review: I am an young adult from Oak Park. This was a good story. It was about a 14 year old boy named Tar. He was having trouble at home. His father beats him black and blue. Tar is fed up with his father, so he decides to run away. He also conviences his girlfriend to go with him. So her and her friends tell Tar to do "Smack" for the first time and it happened. I would recommend this book to mature teens or young adults.

Rating:
Summary: astonishing
Review: Not only a beautifully written account of addiction, but a book that acts as a bible of truthful advice. A flawless and disturbing tale of loss and depletion that leaves readers with images to last a lifetime.