Slam

By Nick Hornby.

Published by in 2007 by Puffin, London.

Nick Hornby does an amazing job of creating likable characters that resonate with readers. He is especially adept at presenting the heart and soul of the modern man. His novel High Fidelity is a comedic masterpiece of heartbreak and rock music, one that I loved as a teenager and still love now. I found Slam slightly more difficult to get into. High Fidelity is about a man in his 30s (and I read it when I was probably about 18), Slam is about a young boy-man who is 15 (and I am now 27)- so it's not the fact that my age is different from the protagonist that is keeping me away from the story. Instead I think that Slam is more about the story than it is about the character, and character is the thing that really pulls me in and makes me love a novel. In this case I just, sort of, read it. It was fine, parts of it were interesting, parts of it were funny - but I didn't love it.

Slam is about 15 year old Sam. Sam's mum had him when she was 16, and will soon become a 33 year old Grandmother (although no one is pregnant at the start of the novel, but this development is far from surprising when it unfolds). Sam's father is on the scene, but at a distance, and Sam's true male role model is Tony Hawk (pro skateboarder - sorry, skater). Sam has read Tony Hawk's autobiography multiple times, and when Sam talks to his poster of Hawk he hears passages from the book that fit (or sometimes don't) his situation. The novel is a fairly straightforward account of how Sam goes from a 15 year old kid to a dad, although there is a strange phenomenon occurring wherein Sam is rushed forward in time for a few days, and then wakes up to find himself back in the present. This happens twice, and while it is odd, these passages make for the most compelling sections of the story, with Sam puzzling out how to fit into his new reality.

Overall the book makes for an interesting portrait of teen dads, and explores a side of an issue that is usually only seen from the perspective of the mother (there are lots of tales of young mothers and teenage pregnancy, but I have come across very few - if any - about young fathers).

7/10.
Ages 12-16.

Crush

By Carrie Mac.

Published in 2006 by Orca Book Publishers, Victoria.

I've been sort of dreading the Hi/Lo category. I've always been a reader, and I assumed that the books for reluctant readers would be too simple, not very well written, or boring. I was surprised when I started reading Crush, which was actually quite engaging. Hope is the child of hippies, raised in a commune, who is spending the summer in Brooklyn with her older sister. 17 year old Hope has been having sex since she was 15 (virginity doesn't last long in a commune, she says), but is surprised to find herself attracted to a girl, Nat. The novel is dedicated to deciding what to do with those feelings, and what they mean for her sexual identity.

Crush is only 106 pages long, so the story unfolds quickly, with little extraneous detail. From the first page, each moment in the story is designed to build towards the final climax. It was definitely not boring, nor was it overly simplistic, and it was actually fairly well written. It's not great literature, but it is a nice story that deals with queer issues simply and honestly.

7/10.
Ages 12-16.

Skim

Words by Mariko Tamaki.
Drawings by Jillian Tamaki.

Published in 2008 by Groundwood Books, Toronto.

Kimberley "Skim" Keiko Cameron is sixteen, and as she puts it, "Being sixteen is officially the worst thing I've ever been." Skim's all-girl private school is knocked off its axis when a student's ex-boyfriend kills himself. Her outsider tendencies leave Skim vulnerable to the attentions of a well-meaning school counselor and other students who seem to think she might be next. While externally quiet and somewhat withdrawn, internally Skim is almost exploding with emotion and newness. Something is developing between Skim and her English teacher, Ms. Archer, and it's taking up her world.

Skim is a really beautiful graphic novel that captures the pathos of high school and friendship and being in love, whatever that is. The characters and their emotions are beautifully rendered on the pages, and the drawings, while simple, hum with life. Skim's internal monologue is full of perfect descriptions of her feelings, phrases that brought her feelings into my own body. My favourite: "My stomach feels like it's popping, like an ice cube in warm Pepsi."

Real. Honest. Funny. Sad. Brilliant. Awesome.

10/10.

Ages 13+.