Book Rewiev about Slam by Nick Hornby

The novel is about Sam, a teenage skater (as in skateboarding) who seeks advice on life from Tony Hawk and talks to a poster of Hawk on his wall. When Sam talks or asks the poster, Tony Hawk doesn't really talk back, Sam just pretend that he answers him and can respond to every question he has, Sam knows what Tony Hawk will say because he have read his book many times, which Sam claims to have read thousands of times Early in the story Sam meets Alicia, the two begin dating and shortly thereafter have sex and end up with a child. Once Alicia becomes pregnant anyway, they tell their parents immediately, and both Sam's and Alicia's families are supportive, understanding, and help them learn how to handle the adult responsibilities they have stumbled into. The story is about Sam becoming a teenage father, written from Sam’s point of view.


Sam makes loads of mistakes, but he's such believable character that you want things to work out for him. One of the things I liked best with the book was the humor;

“I knew I was being a coward, but sometimes you have to be a coward, don’t you? There’s no point in being brave if you’re just going to be destroyed. Say you walked round the corner and there are fifty al-Qaida there. Not even fifty. Five. Not even five. One, with like a machine gun, would be enough. You might not feel good about running for your life, but what are your choices? Well, I had walked around the corner, and there was an al-Qaida with machine gun, except he was just a baby, and he didn’t have a machine gun. But in my world a baby, even without a machine gun, is like a terrorist with a machine gun, if you think about it…” (Page 109.)


I hav been thinking about why the name of the book is "Slam", and now I think I understand why it has it's name. The title comes from skateboarding slang, a slam is a wipe while attempting a trick, and you can see the similarity of the story in the book, the fifteen year old skater Sam, suffers a particularly nasty experience when he accidentally gets his girlfriend pregnant.


Of course it's very well-written and it's also very funny and very touching. I have never really thought about how teenage pregnancy could affect the baby's father before and this book was a great insight into this thing. Plus it's just a really good book to read.


I think this is a very good book to read not only for young parents,but also non-parents. It’s both humoristical and teaching. This book shows you the result of having unprotected sex as a teenager, and what happens if you are forced into having sex without your own will.
All in all this is a very funny book which will give you many minutes of laughing, and teach the cause of having sex at a young age. I would recomend this book to the age of 14 to the age of 17.