Slam & Twilight

I've been a fan of Nick Hornby for ages, reading pretty much all of his novels, and if you've been checking out my book posts here over the last year or so, you will know that I am all about the YA genre, so it should be no surprise that Slam would be on my short list of must read books.

Slam by Nick Hornby is the story of a teenage boy who knocks up his girlfriend, but doesn't find this out until they have broken up. His parents -- now divorced -- had him at a very young age so there is another dynamic at play. In addition, the boy is an avid skateboarder and idolized Tony Hawk -- going so far as to "talk" to him when trying to work though his problems.

I felt that the voice here was authentic -- not sure if that's entirely a good thing  -- as an adult reader, I found it to be a bit too easy to read and wanted a little more. However, it was authentic to my ears, so I have to give him credit for that. All in all, I think it's a fresh look at the whole teen pregnancy issue and am guessing it would be greatly enjoyed by any teenager.

Continuing the YA theme, I've taken the plunge and started reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I simply could no longer resist as just about everyone around me is reading it -- including 2 of my sisters who are not big readers. My sister who says she reads one book a year has breezed through the first two books recently and is ready to read the third. So I have to stay in the loop! I bought the first book for my Kindle and I'm flying through it. It's certainly not high literature, but it's quite entertaining and is better than I thought it would be.

Comments

[pixie]

I wrote a big ranting entry on my blog a little while back about twilight, but basically I enjoyed the first book and was not so pleased with #2 and #3. I would like to hear how you like the others.

[Laura from Italy]

I read Twilight before there was all the publicity about it. I have to confess I am partial to books about werevolves and vampires, but the story entranced me and I read all the four books in less than a month. I think the best one is Eclipse, but I am biased because my fav character is not Edward but Jacob Black. I found a great difference in style between the first book and the following ones, too. The style was more grown up in later books. Let us know how you like them and which character you prefer. How do you like the Kindle? I live in Italy and am not sure yet I can have it or download for it here...

[sequinK]

Contgrats on your Kindle! My husband asked if I wanted to get one, but I think I'm going to defer a bit. I'm all about audiobooks these days -- you know, the multitasking thing!

I got sucked into the whole twilight saga, too. Listened to all four books via audiobook over the past three months. The only downside is that if I read the books I could have probably knocked them off in a couple three hours, but each audiobook is like 12 hours long! Some of the books drug a bit, but since I already committed I soldiered on. Have fun!