Rating: 
Summary: GREAT!
Review: I loved this book! It involved a lot of different aspects, leaving you to piece together the puzzle parts. I especially enjoyed the way it really flowed from one chapter to the next. I, also, feel that it was really easy to connect to written more from a younger stand point. I think that this book is deffinantly worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than what they say....
Review: If you judge the author as an inexperienced child author, you will not like this book. People are biased against it because the author is so young even though the book is very well written. It tells a great story in a small time frame and is very accurate to a rich Manhattan kid's lifestyle. This story can teache you a lot if you are willing to listen to what it's saying.
Rating:
Summary: Sure it might not be the best book....
Review: Sure this book doesn't have the descriptions and character developement as other books, but remember this book is being told from the head of a drug dealer. From his prespective, he has it right and i believe that having "White MIke" tell the story from any other angle or type, is fake. The critics are right when they call this book "relentless as acid," I mean c'mon! This book gave me those chills up and down my spine just thinking about how "rich" people live their lives. I STILL hate some of those characters even though i don't know how hey look. Not knowing the facial details only made my mind run wild as i thought about cluade's face as he shot the brians out of some teenagers. So thank u McDonell, u sure as hell wrote about how they feel and that made my reading a lot lot easier.
Rating:
Summary: hope for the future of american society? i think not
Review: I read many of the reviews of Twelve on this site. They all stated that Mcdonel's aristocratic connections got him biased rave reviews from top authors. Granted, this may be so. But I did not think this book was at all shallow. The so-called "shallowness" of the characters' descriptions ("In the spring Jessica ran track, and good for her, but now she was going into the bathroom not to relieve herself, but to snort a line of coke before the drunk boy returned." as i beleive it was) accurately portray the vapid, materialistic society which we grow up in today. The sheer lack of emotions and depth is what represents many people I've met, both in high school (yes, private prep or high-ranking public) and out. In fact, I think the world in which i live could be compared, though on a much smaller scale, to that of twelve. I recognized each morally bankrupt character as peple in my everyday life. With his hard-hitting writing style, he speaks only the truth. Finally, someone has come out and said what i (and probably many others) are thinking: [see title above]
Rating: 
Summary: Why isn't my father rich and powerful?
Review: If bloodlines is what it takes to get published, I guess I'm out of luck. This is a book that has one interesting character and he's a bum. That's too bad, since this book is about non-descript rich kids slumming during Christmas break. If these New York City kids think they have it bad because there's too much pressure to spend too much of their parents' money, maybe the should write their angst down in a college-ruled note book and give it to their shrinks instead of begging their fathers to get them to publish the dreck they scribble. No character development, no plot, no emphathy, and no style and up to a just-above-unreadable book. Don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: firing blanks
Review: I was completely unimpressed with this book. Although I know the reviews were biased, I believed them at least when they said it was worth a read. It wasn't. "Twelve" has been compared to "Catcher in the Rye." Please. Holden, for all his sarcasm, was ultimately searching for people to connect with. "Twelve's" protagonist, to quote the author himself, "is as thin and pale as smoke." Or something. Character description rarely goes past "blond and popular" or "tall and white." As for what these people think and feel and care about, besides drugs and sex, somehow that has been left out. Yes, teens today are involved in these things, but rich or not, they have other goals, other interests, other things on their mind. Although, I've never been to NYC, so maybe I shouldn't make such a broad comparision.
If the author were Nick Jones, and he had to start off, like 99 percent of unpublished writers do, with a plain old query letter, I'm sure he'd still be making the rounds. If he wasn't 18 and highly connected, and he did get it published, I'm pretty sure it would be panned. Amazing how the hype blinds you, it certainly hypnotized me into buying a copy of "Twelve." Essentially, this is Sweet Valley High meets Reservoir Dogs. No thanks.
Rating:
Summary: OK, but I wouldn't waste your time with it.
Review: Not bad, but well, not good either. I didn't like this book much at all. For a start, McDonell created characters that I didn't care about... something that is probably the most important job for a writer. If we don't care about a character, why should we care about their story? People say that this book is brilliant because it expresses "the vapid, materialistic society which we grow up in today. The sheer lack of emotions and depth is what represents many people". I would argue that yes it does do this, but it doesn't make this book brilliant. I think these elements could be expressed in a much better way.
The ending.. well, I wont ruin it for you, but I don't think it was shocking enough, or whatever effect McDonell was trying to create. Infact, it felt like a rip off, like an easy way out. LIke how Alice just "woke up". OK book, but atleast it is short so you can throw it away quickly and be done with it.
Rating:
Summary: twelve
Review: Twelve is a great book in which a reader can experience a variety of aspects when growing up. When reading this book, I felt like I could understand and feel the author's emotions. Connecting with the author was not at all hard because the author's language is oriented towards a younger audience.When I first began reading this book,it amazed me how Nick McDonell (the author) made the chapters through this book flow so well.
"Twelve" is definitely worth while reading and I recommend it to all teenage readers looking for a good book.
Rating: 
Summary: Lack of talent meets sickening nepotism: whee!
Review: As a college student, I felt embarassed for my generation when I read this miserable book. There are better writers on every block of Manhattan than Nick McDonell. Absolutely pathetic. Great to know that his godfather published the book, though, and his dad got it promoted. Joan Didion came to my school a few months ago and gave a talk. At one point, during questions afterward, I asked her point blank why she gave blurbs to books that it seems hard to imagine she could have had any respect for whatsoever. (I didn't mention Twelve by name, but I haven't noticed her name on many other books, and certainly none as wretched as this garbage.) There was a pause and then she sighed and said, "You get trapped into it. Old friends ask, and you don't want to put a sour note in decades of friendship because you wouldn't write a sentence or two." Joan Didion is old friends with Nick McDonell's father.
Rating: 
Summary: A Captivating Read
Review: The book Twelve was a pleasure to read. It is hard to believe that Nick McDonell was merely seventeen when he wrote this novel. When I read this novel, it held my attention so intensely that I was basically unable to put it down until I reached the conclusion of it.
The novel Twelve outlined basic problems that contemporary society faces. It outlined alcoholism, drug addiction, and the strong focus on materialism that adolescents have today. I was able to relate to the different things this book conveyed because of the kind of environment in which I am repeatedly exposed to. A kind of environment where kids have more money than they need and they spend it on shallow things to escape the misery and emptiness of their lives.
One of the things I enjoyed the most about the book is how it was made up of several different stories with characters that where all related in some way or another. It was well organized and smoothly connected, when all the characters ended up at the same place at a New Year's eve party.
Another peculiar and unique trait this book held was that it was set over a period of two weeks. Two weeks that were spent in Manhattan over Christmas break. Two weeks were there was a winter setting, dark and cold, traumatic and sad. This winter setting helped underline the dark tone the author was trying to get across. He wrote about the dangers of city life, and repeatedly referenced how characters suffered from the cold.
McDonell is an amazing author; for his young age, he writes extraordinarily well. His sentences are simplistic, short and choppy. He does not use many adjectives to describe scenes, but describes them by the actions of characters.
I was pleased with most of the novel but I was not completely satisfied with the ending of it. I felt it was a remake of the Columbine shooting, and that it did not exude creativity. McDonell did a good job in the rising action of the story but once the climax was reached, it unraveled too quickly and it left the book unresolved.
While I feel that McDonell was trying to end his book traumatically and with a sad effect, I think he ended it too quickly and with no real resolution. Aside from the ending, I was very happy with the book and overall I thought it was a pleasure to read. I look forward to McDonell's upcoming works and I will for sure buy his next novel as soon as it comes out.
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