Twelve

I loved this book! It involved a lot of different aspects, leaving you to piece together the puzzle parts. I especially enjoyed the way it really flowed from one chapter to the next. I, also, feel that it was really easy to connect to written more from a younger stand point. I think that this book is deffinantly worth reading.

I can see why some of the other reviewers don't like this book. Is this a great work of literature? Clearly no. But it is gripping social commentary for those of us who actually live this life.McDonell's unpretentious prose is delightful. Some of the older, more stodgy reviewers can't appreciate his authentic language. High school english teachers who criticize his dialogue clearly haven't been paying attention to the way their own students talk.I think you also have to be of my generation to appreciate how real the characters are. They are not caricatures; they are snapshots. The white FUBU wannabes, for example, are as central an image to my generation as the flower child was to my parent's. The older reviewers probably thought it was ridiculous when they read it, but I was struck by how close it was to the truth.Literature lovers, knock this book all you want. But it is the best social commentary on my generation I've ever seen.

Apparently not everyone liked this book, but I thought it was incredible from start to finish. It was an extremely quick, compelling read, and while predictable at times, I found the ending to be a rush of emotions(call me naive). The author's age, I think, lent itself to his style of writing, which I enjoyed for its crispness and brevity; many chapters were only 1 or 2 pages in length. It was an easy read in that way, but full of moral dilemmas with which the reader could grapple along with the characters. Don't believe all the positive hype or the negative; read the book and decide for yourself.

Astonishingly well written. A good hard look at the life of privileged young New York teenagers. Scary.... reminiscent of American Beauty. Every parent should read.

I wonder if the dislike people seem to have for this book is a disliking of it really, or its subject. I was impressed. I'm a 37 year old who hasn't forgotten what it was like to be 17. My youth played out differently from the priveleged have-it-all adolescent drug users in the book, but there is a common thread.An excerpt from the book:"...Just a couple of soft kids standing on the street, trying to get some weed, have some fun, fill the time, talk a certain way, dress a certain way, walk a certain way, be a certain way because the way they come from is unclear and uncool and with no direction, because no one really has anything to do, all across the city no one has anything to do, so they all do the same thing and make the same references to pop culture and their childhood cartoons...and everyone wants to get laid and be the cool kid and everyone wants to be a jock, and everyone wants and wants and wants."Sound familiar?I don't know why everyone is so hard on Nick McDonell. In my opinion he is extremely observant and an amazing storyteller. Remember, at seventeen he doesn't have hindsight or accumulated wisdom about this stuff. He's telling it as he sees it.And this deserves a moment of our silence.