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Gemma:"My parents are incompetent. They haven't got a clue..."Tar: "I know it sounds stupid, but it was like the flowers had come out for Gemma..."Lily: "They did everything they could to pin me down...my mum, my dad, school..."Rob:"We stood for a while breathing big long breaths of air. It was cold and pure...You could feel it inside you, doing you good."How do these teens come to run away from home? To be users? Addicts? As their stories intertwine and build, SMACK never lets up the pace. It is a book about people, families--real and those constructed by young people with no one to turn to but each other. SMACK is a book about a drug and the hold it can have. Written directly for its audience of young people and unflinching in its honesty, SMACK is the teen book of the year.
Paperback: 293 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen (May 1, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0380732238
ISBN-13: 978-0380732234
Product Dimensions: 7 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (243 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #1,575,782 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #185 in Books > Children's Books > Growing Up & Facts of Life > Difficult Discussions > Runaways #227 in Books > Children's Books > Growing Up & Facts of Life > Difficult Discussions > Drugs #295 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Runaways
Age Range: 12 and up
Grade Level: 7 and up
When I picked this up, I was expecting some kids to think drugs were cool, then run with a fast sex, drugs, and rock n' roll crowd, have a huge tragedy strike, and then get the propaganda message that DRUGS ARE BAD (think "Go Ask Alice"). Boy, was I in for a surprise. This book is an easy read, but a much more complex tale than a simple parable about how drugs are bad.The two main characters, Tar and Gemma, leave home for things that every teenager in the world has felt in some way. Tar is abused, and leaves the hell of homelife for peace on the streets. Gemma represents every teenager who is smarter than her parents and resents their control over her life. She leaves for less justifiable reasons than Tar, but her emotions are ones anyone can identify with.There are a lot of people on the streets and in the squats--anarchists, straight-edge vegans, punks, pot smokers, and heroin users. Tar and Gemma find friends and their own form of a family, and it is very easy to see how they slipped into the world of drugs, namely heroin.This book has shocking events in it, but the characters are so numb to it all that they describe it in a subtle and offhand manner. Girls who sell the bodies for drug money in no way consider themselves prostitutes, because they have standards and they do it "on their terms," and on and on. The reader gets sucked up in this life and I found myself wanting to smack these characters and say, NO, what you are doing is not justifiable.This book has a beautiful ending that took me by surprise. No, the world is not covered in roses in the end, but neither has everyone succumbed to hell.I'd like to make a comment about the appropriate age for this book. My sister is a voracious reader.
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