Books now read in ’08: 1Title: Slam
Author: Nick Hornby
Date Completed: 1-2
Pages: 309
A new year, a new book.
Slam is ostensibly Hornby'ss first effort at juvenile fiction. I’m not at all certain what that means. Possibly his publisher believes this book will sell to the 15-year-old skateboarding crowd. More likely some 12-year-old.
In any event, it is an entertaining book. Sometimes wise and certainly wiseass. If one thing is true it’s that Hornby’s humor will appeal to the juvenile of any age. Sometimes I think he is perpetually 15. And I mean that in a good way.
This is the story of Sam, who is 15 when the story opens and 18 when it ends. He’s into skating and lives with his mom, who had him when she was 16. Sam goes down the same path and his mom – and the story is about all that befalls or can befall a 16-year-old prospective father.
What makes the book entertaining rather than preachy is Hornby’s humor and his way of looking at the world. Sam visits the future on at least three occasions and is given to taking fatherly advice from a post of skateboarder Tony Hawk. Yeah, it’s off-beat and good.
Can’t wait for the movie.
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