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Slam | 
 enlarge | Author: Nick Hornby
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $5.50
You Save: $14.49 (72%)
New (41) Used (33) Collectible (5) from $2.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 34139
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0399250484
EAN: 9780399250484
ASIN: 0399250484
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Just when everything is coming together for Sam, his girlfriend Alicia drops a bombshell. Make that ex-girlfriendbecause by the time she tells him shes pregnant, theyve already called it quits. Sam does not want to be a teenage dad. Theres only one person Sam can turn tohis hero, skating legend Tony Hawk. Sam believes the answers to lifes hurdles can be found in Hawks autobiography. But even Tony Hawk isnt offering answers this timeor is he? In this wonderfully witty, poignant story about a teenage boy unexpectedly thrust into fatherhood, its up to Sam to make the right decisions so the bad things that could happen, well, dont.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...
 The Compulsive Reader's Reviews July 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Sam figures that his life is going pretty well. He's doing all right in school, he gets along with his mom, he has a great girlfriend, and is getting good at skateboarding. He has aspirations of attending college, unlike his mom, who had to drop out of school when she became pregnant with him. But all of his dreams come crashing down when his girlfriend Alicia tells him that she's pregnant...and she has no intention of getting rid of the baby.
Sam spooks. He goes into denial. When that doesn't work, he tries running away, physically and emotionally. And then, an unexplainable thing happens...while he dreams at night, he gets whizzed into the future and is shown an unexpected life that will force Sam to face the facts and take responsibility for his actions.
SLAM is a frank, vivid, and highly realistic take on teenage pregnancy from a point of view that is completely different from what many are accustomed to. Hornby doesn't waste time by working in lectures of the consequences of premarital sex, but instead gives us Sam, who is a little selfish, very scared, a bit ashamed, but ultimately a strong character who, through many trials and despite his own feelings, manages to pull himself together and attempt to be the best dad he can be--and is surprisingly good at it. The more unbelievable element of the story, Sam's visits to the future, gives the story just the right dash of unique appeal without seeming too implausible. Hornby does more than just give us an intriguing account of teen parenthood, but reveals each emotion, thought, and feeling with startling clarity and humor, until you understand and empathize with Sam. SLAM is a fascinating, compelling, and even poignant read that won't be soon forgotten.
 good but not hornby good July 14, 2008
"How to be Good" was my first hornby read so i'm a latecomer. However, since then, I've read most everything he's put out including Fever Pitch, About a Boy, High Fidelity, etc...Slam, although not a bad read, was by far the least interesting for me. Hornby gets into the mind of a 16 year old kid but in the end, that's what made me question the quality of the book or it's readability at least. Sam's vernacular and pubescent bearing just kind of got on my nerves...they do, however, make for some fairly funny moments but nothing to write home about.
Bleak and moving June 9, 2008
Slam moved me enormously, though I'm not sure I enjoyed the experience. I haven't felt so much existential angst since being a university student.
It's about teenage pregnancy, obviously, but also about growing up and being a parent, about our ability (if any) to control our lives, and about the consequences - intended and unintended, predictable and unpredictable - of the small decisions we make every day. The book made me feel a lot of things about the pointlessness of life that aren't in accordance with my core beliefs; and I'd actually like to stop feeling some of those things now. If I could. There are lines in the book that will haunt me for a long time.
Sam - like Rob in High Fidelity, and like many of his male characters - writes his life in a tone that sounds to me exactly the way I sound to myself. (I'm not necessarily proud of this; I find them all a little whiny; though Sam at least has something to complain about.) So I find him a totally believable character and, since finishing the book, my mind just keeps turning back to him as if he was someone I know in real life. The parents - and particularly the mothers -also come to life in interesting ways as the story unfolds.
Alicia is not developed much as a character. I came to see this as necessary, since the story is told entirely from Sam's perspective and we need to see her as being however Sam is perceiving her at the time. And there is of course a strong female character in the form of Sam's mum.
I admired the flash-forward technique. Sam is thrown into future situations where he doesn't know what's required of him and barely has the knowledge or skills to make it through the day. It's a great way of illustrating what Sam's actual day-to-day life has become as an expectant and new father.
I should give this book to my teenage son, as a warning, but I'm not sure that I want him to be as unhappy as I was while I was reading it.
I haven't read a book that had such an emotional impact on me for a long time. I found it very bleak. I don't understand how others found it funny. I'm awed by Hornby's ability to provoke such a reaction by his writing, even if I'm left wishing I could be whizzed back in the past to the bookshop and walk on past the shelf without picking it up. Like Sam, at the end I felt very tired.
 Rubbish abstinence propaganda (Skaters look elsewhere!) June 8, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Ok, I'll go straight to the point:
The book is written on a first person perspective (oh how lovely and how interesting!) but Sam is no writer, I quickly got tired of "like", "dunno", "er..." all those things we teens (I'm 18) say according to society.
I thought this was a bit about skating, the UK version has a picture of a skate ramp on the front. There's nothing but "See, I can be cool too!" name dropping of tricks, and lingo. No skaters besides Tony Hawk are even mentioned, I thought perhaps Sam would skate a bit, become pro, something! but no!
The book is really sexual, its not explicit but it makes you quite an image. I found this rather insulting, maybe English boys lose their virignity at 15 but for me that was too far. Sam seemed smarter than that at first.
The book is not that deep, even if the way Sam described some things are the way I'd describe them in my head but not really somehting I'd talk about, the book does a good job there imitating the strange comparisons we can make. I'd like to know more about the environment they were in, the places, what was going on in everyone's life. Sam doesn't even have a friend he can have a rational conversation with.
Overall I would definitely NOT recommend this book except to extremely dim people who I'm scared would run off and have unprotected sex.
If I wasn't smarter this would be a good "scare" book about the dangers of sex and the struggle of parenthood.
But most people are over that (I hope) and quickly tire of the cheesy language and badly developed plot.
THIS IS NOT A BOOK ABOUT SKATEBOARDING!!
Check out "The Mutt" for a good skateboarding book.
I feel bad about giving it one star, I don't know why but I read halfway into it before wanting to burn the book.
Well, that's all I have to say, thanks for your time.
Not a Bad Novel, but Not Hornby's Best June 8, 2008
As a devoted Nick Hornby fan, an avid reader, and a middle school teacher, I was thrilled to see the addition of a YA book to his collection. I eagerly picked up the book and delved into it, expecting to walk away from it as I did all of his other books-having laughed, having found characters that are incredibly true to life, and having been sad to reach the end of the novel. I was disappointed to not have had that experience with Slam.
Don't get me wrong, there are many classic Hornby elements in Slam. The main character, Sam, fits into the "young man expressing his views on life in a witty way" quite well. He's even a believable teenager-varying from immature, silly thoughts to insightful realizations. Further, Hornby does an excellent job of exploring teen pregnancy. Unlike the recent hit film Juno that portrays the topic fairly lightly in many ways(once the baby is adopted, the teen parents can go back to living happily ever after) , Slam exposes the difficulties such a situation presents. From Sam thinking his life is over, to the way his girlfriend Alicia's parents treat him, the reader never gets the sense that teen pregnancy is easy. Sam never really portrays himself as a victim for too long; instead he looks at the situation as incredibly difficult, but not one that will ruin his chances of ever liking his life again. Hornby shows teen pregnancy's dark side without becoming preachy or defeatist.
The Tony Hawk theme was my least favorite part of the novel, as well as what made me less than thrilled with it overall. The "conversations" Sam had with Tony get less interesting as the book progresses, but the time warp idea is what really did in the story for me. I actually found that those sequences distracted from the story as opposed to adding to it. One of my favorite aspects of Hornby's writing is that it is so often believable. You don't feel as if you're reading about something that could never happen. However, Sam being projected into the future defies that element, and it does so (somewhat) at the expense of the story.
All in all, I think many readers would enjoy Slam. It just didn't deliver what I've come to expect from Nick Hornby's writing as strongly as his other novels.
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