false 824508 21 Originally published in the UK as JUNK. Like so many teenagers, Tar and Gemma are fed up with their parents. Tar's family is alcoholic and abusive, and Gemma feels her home life is cramped by too many restrictions. The young, British couple runs away to Bristol in search of freedom, and finds it in the form of a "squat." This vacant building is also occupied by two slightly older teens who share everything with Tar and Gemma (including their heroin habits). For a while, everything is parties and adventures, but slowly Tar and Gemma find themselves growing more and more dependent on the drug--whose strict mandates are even less forgiving than those of the parents they fled. As Gemma says, "You take more and more, and more often. Then you get sick of it and give up for a few days. And that's the really nasty thing because then, when you're clean, that's when it works so well." <p> With <I>Smack</I>, winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize for Fiction, Melvin Burgess brilliantly sketches a gradual descent into drug addiction. There is no preaching here, just the artful revelation of cold, hard facts. Burgess's use of the first-person voice--for not only the main characters but those in the background as well--brings you into the mind of every character in this homeless, hooked culture, offering a (sometimes terrible) glimpse of the motivations and transitions of each person. (Tar's personality changes dramatically over the course of the book, from sweet-natured, lonely boy to hard-edged, hit-seeking addict.) More subtle and less graphic than <I>Beauty Queen</I>, Linda Glovach's tale of a girl's downward spiral into heroin addiction, <I>Smack</I> will linger in the your mind long after its haunting conclusion has been reached. (Ages 13 and older) <I>--Brangien Davis</I> 2756729 1996 Smack total:1022|5:264|4:311|3:305|2:112|1:30| 1022 3733 1491 139 4 1 false false Fri Nov 21 08:07:44 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 21 08:11:52 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Feb 07 12:33:26 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 01 14:37:12 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Sun Nov 30 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 13:17:33 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 13:25:36 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Apr 05 16:30:19 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 05 16:37:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Dec 04 04:48:28 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 10 16:44:03 -0800 2008 Smack was one of those books that made me miss dinner and not get any of my homework done. It was as addicting as the drug it describes. The story of two runaway lovers and they're tale of the people they met and the adventerous ride of being an addict of herion, and the struggle of getting out of a...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Oct 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 14 08:31:17 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 16:54:49 -0700 2009 Gingerbread, Can Steffie Come out to Play, and Go Ask Alice. If you loved any of these novels containing painfully obnoxious teens who mess up their lives, than you'll love Smack. This would be dangerously promoting drugs if the reader doesn't finish the novel, as the narrators glorify the drugs w...more...]]> 1 0 false false Tue Sep 01 11:50:45 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 01 11:51:45 -0700 2009 Go Ask Alice, though it’s not a true story. It is British, with the rough frankness and assumed amorality of much of British YA fiction. It deals with two young runaways who escape their abusive families to embroil them...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Sep 16 10:48:33 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 16 10:51:24 -0700 2008 3 1 0 true false Sun Jul 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 13 10:31:09 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 10:08:18 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 02:55:05 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 03:00:51 -0700 2009
It is for m...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Mar 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Feb 17 04:53:38 -0800 2009 Wed Apr 01 06:09:48 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Sep 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 18:01:56 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 03 11:35:04 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Oct 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 30 08:57:01 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 12 05:55:17 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Feb 01 09:18:20 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 01 09:23:13 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Feb 06 09:27:31 -0800 2008 Wed Mar 12 10:00:16 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 0 false false Tue Nov 10 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 02:14:41 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 10 01:56:13 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Sep 02 13:25:11 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 13:27:16 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu May 21 19:02:44 -0700 2009 Thu May 21 19:08:15 -0700 2009
I'm not one to get involved in any -hard- drugs, but I am a chronic g...more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Sep 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 09:44:57 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 09:51:45 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Fri Nov 16 22:21:05 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 16 22:21:37 -0800 2007
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