Ballads of Suburbia

Kara's favorite songs are ballads, the ones that tell about someone's life and numerous screw ups, the songs people can relate to and learn from. Because Kara's first three years of high school were full of screw ups, and not all of them her own. Insecurity that lead to cutting, casual highs turning into drug addiction, secrets, lies, and suicides all plagued her life in a deluge she thought she was dealing with until her near heroin overdose finally woke her up. Memories documented in her and her friends' "Stories of Suburbia" notebook will never fade, but now, it's Kara's turn to pay her due and write her own ballad. When I first read a synopsis for Ballads of Suburbia, I was excited to see more from Kuehnert after I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, which I loved, but also wary because I was afraid Kuehnert was being too ambitious. Thankfully, though, I was wrong on the second account; my initial fear that Ballads of Suburbia's large cast would be overwhelming to the story proved false. I really must say that Kuehnert does a fantastic storytelling job in this novel, from setting the story up, to the realistic characters, to the overarching theme, that people are more than just a snapshot of their lives. Kuehnert paints a very gritty and depressing picture of a "suburb" of Chicage, a grim place only an invisible line marks as no longer the city filled with dysfunction and all the wrong ways to escape. This setting makes the characters easier to understand, because each comes with a history of at least one hardship or difficulty continuing to affect their lives. I found that for me, Ballads of Suburbia was less about the plot than it was how Kara responds to it. I mean, the turning point of the story is revealed in the first few pages of the novel. So even though most of this novel was extremely sad and depressing, the ending was slightly more uplifting and inspirational. Ballads of Suburbia is another great novel for fans of Kuehnert's debut, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, Purge by Sarah Darer Littman, Perfect by Natasha Friend, and Identical by Ellen Hopkins. I'm thrilled Kuehnert was able to pull off such an incredible story in Ballads of Suburbia despite its depressing content and continue to look forward to her next work.

Kara hasn't been back to Oak Park since the end of junior year, when a heroin overdose nearly killed her and sirens heralded her exit. Four years later, she returns to face the music. Her life changed forever back in high school: her family disintegrated, she ran around with a whole new crowd of friends, she partied a little too hard, and she fell in love with gorgeous bad-boy Adrian, who left her to die that day in Scoville Park....Amid the music, the booze, the drugs, and the drama, her friends filled a notebook with heartbreakingly honest confessions of the moments that defined and shattered their young lives. Now, finally, Kara is ready to write her own. A painfully realistic, no-holds bar depiction of teenage life in 21st century suburbia. Parents who work full-time, who are divorced and caught up in their own struggles...unwitting accomplices in the downfall of their own children. This point of the book just stood out to me so much. It felt like a slowly spreading plague of destruction. Kara is your typical high school student with the regular ups and downs of being an adolescent until her father decides to move out. His departure initiates a spiral of bad decisions that ultimately leads to Kara overdosing on heroin. Although she has used other drugs before, Kara is introduced to heroin by Adrian, the "bad boy" she falls for. As she describes it: "I couldn't have scripted a better entrance for my first love, as ripe with impending disaster as the beginning of Mickey and Mallory's romance in Natural Born Killers." I really didn't want to put this book down. I found myself hanging on every word, stressing out about what would happen next. The vulnerability of these characters is palpable and the consequences of their actions is heartbreaking. Thankfully, not everything is gloom and doom. Expertly woven through out the story is a small yet consistent flicker of hope. Kara's relationship with her mom and brother show that some bonds are not easily broken. Adolescents will certainly relate to this tale of broken families, drug addiction and lure of premature independence. A cautionary tale that is subtle and honest...teens love and need their peers, but nothing replaces the strength and support of families. I loved this book...read it now! Best for 9th grade and up.

Whoa. Ballads of Surburbia was a gritty, real and honest book. It doesn't hold back AT ALL. It's one of those books you couldn't really say you enjoyed per say but are really glad you read. Another book I've said that about is Wintergirls but I much prefer Ballads of Surburbia, I sometimes felt like the book was suffocating me, but there is a reward within it when reading this book. While the story was rather depressing at times and hard to read it was also exciting and tender. I love how the story of Kara's years in Oak Park are framed by her homecoming. You know she's come out of this almost disaster zone ok, but how did she make it, how did she get there? That's the story of Ballads of Suburbia. I love that the author didn't just start with Kara in high school, she picked pieces of her younger years that made her the person she was when she started high school, and because of that Kara comes off as a really sympathetic character. Yes, at times I wanted to smack her upside the head but for the most part you were taking the journey with her wanting her to come out of it ok. Another interesting thing the author does is share all the main characters ballads (or stories) in the form of a notebook they all share, giving a snapshot of their background and the reason they are the way they are. And because of that all the character come off as sympathetic, some more so than others but still they all do. Weaving these rich stories for all the main characters makes the story a lot deeper than you would expect, it's really packed to the brim with emotion.

I loved Kuehnert's first book, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, so I was very excited for this one and I was in no way disappointed. Ballads of Suburbia is a fantastic book and one that will stay with me for a long time to come. I graduated from a Midwestern high school in the nineties. I'm a couple years older than the kids in this book are, but for the most part, they are of my generation. The music mentioned in this book is the same stuff I was listening to at the time and am still listening to today. Kuehnert's work transports me to another time and I can't get enough of it. Her writing is incredibly powerful and each separate "ballad" in the book captures that power. Each of these vivid character studies link seamlessly together to tell the story of not just this group of lost souls, but of an entire generation. At the heart of the story is Kara, who without knowing it, really holds the group together. As she starts to lost touch, we see her world crumbling around her and we are powerless to stop it. Ballads perfectly portrays that slippery slope of adolescence. It's so easy to lose your way when everything and everyone around you is changing so rapidly. Often as teenagers, I think there's this fear that if we don't catch up, we'll be passed by, at least that's how I felt in high school. This was just a really moving book and at its heart it is very hopeful and optimistic. It seems really bold to call someone the voice of a generation, but that's how I see Kuehnert. I may not have shared the experiences of the characters in the book, but I recognize their journey and their voices. Stephanie Kuehnert is amazing and I will gladly read anything she writes from here on out.

I can count on one hand the number of books that have "wow"ed me this year. I've read some meh, average, better than average, and the occasional awesome book, but only 4 or 5 that have made me go "wow." This book is one of that wowed me. This book is definitely not an easy read- it's full of hard-hitting issues: drugs, cutting, all sorts of others. With heavy books like this, I usually need to stop every so often and think about what I'm reading, but I could not put this one down. I found myself going "one more chapter, just one more" and then I'd go from page 100 to 250 without even realizing it. Reading about Kara is heartbreaking- I almost cried at one point- but I was compelled to keep reading about the many ups and downs in her life. There's never a dull moment- even in the beginning, when older Kara is speaking, not teenage Kara. The ballads- stories of the characters' lives and why they act like they do, basically- give each character unexpected depth. Many of the characters make awful, questionable, or even bizarre choices, and although the other characters only spoke for about a chapter, their motives are explained and their personalities make so much more sense. Kara is given more depth as well from the epilogue in the beginning of the book- seeing how Kara ends up makes reading about her journey more interesting, and also makes it easier to see how her decisions effect her. All that really needs to be said about Ballads of Suburbia is that it's spectacular, and that I can't recommend it enough.