Breaking Boxes

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: This book is just amazing! Its a book anyone can releated to. The charaters are very real and intresting.This book will put a smile on your face after reading and you will never get bored of reading it.The content is very well written. A job well done by A. M. Jenkins.This book is a must for every teen out there.

Rating:
Summary: Clearly a good book!
Review: This book, by A.M Jenkins, could have an incredible affect on your heart. The plot, while it is somewhat predictable, has interesting twists and turns. This book is very realistic about what happens in it.. The main character is sixteen year old Charlie Calmont. His parents are gone, his father left the family and his mother drank herself to death. He lives in a poor neighboorhood with his down to earth brother, Trent. Everything's fine in Charlie's world until some rich boys at school make fun of him and he lashes out at them. Only one of the boys who harassed him is punished, Brandon Chase, the class leader. Brandon and Charlie get to know each other while they are punished at school. Then Brandon offers him a ride home in his Corvette. Their friendship comes quickly after that. Brandon tells Charlie that he is a real person in a world of fakes, and Charlie feels that Brandon is not who he seems to be, and that Brandon is trapped in a bad nightmare. Eventually, Charlie feels close enough to Brandon to reveal his biggest secret about Trent to him. Brandon has a bad reaction and the whole school knows about Charlie's secret. With this Charlie tells himself he will never let someone get close to him ever again. One last fight brings the boys back together again, and helps Charlie to admit that he really does care about things. Charlie's story is in a voice that most teens can understand. Yet, Charlie is someone to care for. This novel tells with clarity the risk of opening up to others.

Rating:
Summary: A story of a teen who finally discovers who he is.
Review: This book,{Breaking Boxes} by A.M Jenkins was truly touching. The plot focus is on Charlie Calmont, who is very much a teenage loner. He has grown up with both of his parents gone, and has lived with his older brother Trent. Everything is fine until he gets into a fight at school. He and one of the guys he got into the fight w/ {Brandon} both have on campus suspension. Charlie thinks nothing of it, then Brandon gives him a ride home. They become friends and through Charlie, Brandon sees how superficial his world is. Until Charlie reveals somehthing to Brandon that threatens to rip their friendship apart, then they have one last fight.....

Rating:
Summary: A Heartbreaker
Review: This story is an uncompromising view of teen lives. It examines the expansive role of peer pressure and how it forces young people to trivialize major life experiences and choices. The characters engage in casual sex, alcohol consumption, vicious behavior toward each other just to win acceptance, and yet the book manages to make their participation seem effortless and at the same time lets us see how uncomfortable they really are with the choices they make. One wonders if the age of the reader plays a role in the impact of this book; this novel's abrupt ending and under-developed subplot made the story all the more painful and left this 39 year-old reader unable to let the characters go long after the book was finished.

Rating:
Summary: The characters in this story had few redeeming qualities
Review: This story left me feeling very unhappy with the state of Young Adult literature. I recognized the basic idea behind the book to show the angst and termoil in the teen years and the difficulity in dealing with homosexuality at that age, however I found myself feeling very sorry for the children in this story. I never saw any real progress in the improvement of the Charlie character and I felt the book had a lot of negative messages. Unprotected teen sex with no mention of abstenince, drinking to solve your problems and make things "fun", fighting to solve conflicts, and a general distain for teachers. I will not be offering this book to my teen to read.