Pure Sunshine

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Summary: Its all about pure sunshine
Review: An amazing book. It truely brings you into the life of a couple of teens on an acid trip. This is a book that i have read more than once. Brian James does a wonderful job with this book and i would absolutely recommend it to others. Even if you dont like to read, you will love this book, its very straight forward and brings you through the ups and downs of doing acid. Definately pick it up.

Rating:
Summary: 5 is not enough
Review: I finally read book! It took me two hours and Brendon and his friends are still swimming in my mind. Brian James ( the author) writes so poeticly its just beautiful. Even if he's talking about the highs and lows of acid its full of amazing words and analogies. I am so happy I read this book and I know I will soon again.

Rating:
Summary: boring and horribly written.
Review: i found this book to not only be extremely boring, but also horribly written. it sort of went on and on for pages about the same thing. the characters were a bit too wooden and fake, and the overall plot of the book seemed to be lacking anything great or exceptional.

Rating:
Summary: awesome read
Review: i read this book two years ago, more than once, and i have never forgotten it. it's written beautifully in first-person through the eyes of a seventeen year old dreamer. he and his three friends take acid, as they have many times before, but these 48 hours are different, and he starts to see the world and his friends differently. I absolutely loved this book, and i couldnt stop reading it. it's a nice departure form the usual anti-drug books for teens, it lets you make your own inferences for once. i recommend this book for anyone looking for a short, page-turner. it's extremely well written and keeps your attention until the end.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book, some flaws
Review: I really really liked this book. I think it's very craftily written, some parts even seem like prose. It's a very good coming-of-age type story. The narrarator, Brendon, has some Holden Caulfield type qualities. However, the book is based around acid, or LSD, and while the point of the book is not to discourage the use of this drug, I don't belive Mr. James does a good enough job of doing that. He almost makes the drug sound fun, good, and the only bad affects Brendon faces are a night of nausea, and anyone who can be easily influenced into doing something like drugs should probably not read this book, because they might like the sound of acid. Otherwise, it' a really incredible book with lots of good things to say. It mixes Brendon and his friends' "trips" with the time when they are somber with grace, and creates and very charming atmosphere. I'd even like a guy like Brendon (maybe minus the drugs though. Hee hee)

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: In my opinion, this is the best of the PUSH novels simply because of the beautiful writing style of Brian James. There's a bit of an implicit message but not one so deep that a teenager who reads for pleasure couldn't find it. The imagery was amazing, I felt like i was there, it was so realistic. Also, I liked how Brain James was not one to preach to his audience about the 'dangers of drugs' and the whole 'just say no' thing. Drugs are bad, it's a proven fact, but this book lets us see why and how they got that association. Certainly leaves the reader with the freedom of choice, experimentation, etc.

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Summary: Just a bit a Pure Sunshine...
Review: Loved it! Simply great...lots of nice details. The style Brian James used in his book was very good. When I was reading this book I had felt like I was standint next to Brandon watching everything happen. Great adventure that deals with 3 boys that do acid. If you love reading Realistic Fiction than you should love this one. Go out and read it, get a bit of Pure Sunshine.

Rating:
Summary: A Trip!
Review: Pure Sunshine by Brian James is a Young Adult novel chronicling two days in the life of an arrogant young teenager named Brendan. His world revolves around his friends, a group of boys who love to stir up trouble and indulge in acid and pot. One night, during a bad trip, Brendan discovers that the friends he has based his identity upon are not really his friends at all. The plot structure of the novel is unconventional, and its resolution quirky, but Brian James's prose is almost surreal at times and always engaging, making Pure Sunshine a delightful and worthwhile read.

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Summary: THE BEST TEEN BOOK EVER!!!
Review: Pure Sunshine is the best book I have ever read. I am 16 and have experienced drugs and alcohol and insecurities. This book is like my life written down. I feel like I could have personally wrote this book. This book can change your outlook on life and it certainly changed mine.

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Summary: Better Living Through Chemistry?
Review: Pure Sunshine places the reader inside Brandon's head during two nights of dropping acid with friends, and the day sandwiched between these two nights. His thoughts are somewhat random and extremely intense as he and his friends perform a wide range of stupid activities while under the influence. Some would criticize Pure Sunshine for not having much of a plot, but this lack of coherence is the point of the story. James obviously intended to paint this perfect portrait of directionless youth, and accurately portray the effects of LSD.
Brendon shares several traits with Holden Caufield from The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger, J.D. New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1951). Despite Holden's 1940s-appropriate inability to score a dose, the two young men are prone to wandering aimlessly based on whims attempting to relieve unrelenting boredom. They are both acutely aware of the people with whom they interact, and mull over several of their physical and behavioral traits. Both are intensely focused on their feelings at any given moment, and are extremely impulsive despite their almost constant thinking. Brendon's equivalent to Holden's rye field in which he catches children heading for a cliff is a garden with edible clouds, where blue children play, and rats follow him like the Pied Piper as he plays the flute.
Through Brendon, James accurately describes the teen angst that drives young people to drugs. Brendon, like all teens, lacks access to the adult pleasures of independence and a higher degree of control over one's life. Adult society has little use for him, and ignores him unless he acts as a menace to it. Devoid of any hobbies, sports, or vocational interests, in a world in which the joy of learning has been transformed into a chore divorced from real life experience, Brandon and his friends amuse themselves with increasingly destructive acts culminating in hard drug use. It is often difficult to determine where Brandon's real personality ends and the influence of the drugs begins.
Teen readers will be riveted by Pure Sunshine. Teens with more direction and/or emotional connection to adults will either pity Brandon or feel condescending towards him, and see his foolish behavior as proof that drugs should be avoided. Those more like Brandon, including drug users, will relate to the character more directly, and will probably miss the extremely subtle anti-drug message. Parents will strongly object to it for the following two reasons:
1. The anti-drug message is so subtle that it is easily missed. As any critic of Go Ask Alice (Anonymous. Riverside, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 1994) notes, while drugs usually negatively affect the lives of their users, they do not necessarily have extreme consequences almost every time they are used. It is possible to use drugs now and then without being arrested, getting seriously injured, or suffering severe social penalties. This book reflects this fact, as Brandon suffers nothing worse than a one-night spat with friends, the temporary behavior of a moron, and the type of mental activity that leads to bad poetry.
2. One really needs to have tried acid at least once to truly understand the behavior of the characters.