Slam

This is Nick Hornby's first YA novel, and the result is something a little less edgy than his earlier books (About A Boy, High Fidelity, etc). Slam's protagonist is Sam -- a 16 year-old skateboarder who gets a teenage girl pregnant, and struggles with the fallout. Adding an interesting SF/fantasy twist to the otherwise straightforward YA novel are the moments when the boy is transported forward in time to live out a day of his future (the good news: the future isn't set in stone). It adds a worthwhile element to the story, though at first it's a bit confusing. Slam is a good and insightful read -- Hornby's a brilliant writer after all -- but the characters feel a little flat and uninteresting. My sense is that Hornby writes the protagonist a hair too realistically (he says "I dunno" a lot), and as a result -- and like most real teenagers -- he's not interesting or endearing. It's as if Hornby attempted to write to a less sophisticated YA crowd and in the process shaved away many of the bits that made his other characters interesting. I enjoyed Slam, but unlike many of Hornby's other novels, I probably won't re-read it.

I think this book is good but it is not my favourite. I like it when he does a runner all he way to Hastings to get away from his terrible life.

Good book haha