Customer Reviews
What was that all about? - By: Will Joseph, 03 Jul 2008 
I've just finished Slam & wonder why I bothered. This book jumps about from one thing to another & never reallly lets you know what it is supposed to be doing. I thought it was about a skater; he skates probably three times in the whole thing. I thought he spoke to Tony Hawk; he does this too infrequently for what I thought was the main focus of the book. Then he gets a girlfriend pregnant & then he starts time travelling would you believe? Then he moves to Hastings & we are introduced to a whole new range of characters who stary the course for about a minute - this after we have been introduced to his friends in some detail who occupy less than nothing in the story.
I'm going to get a glass of warm milk & have lie down. Maybe I can forget spending my precious reading time on this debacle.
Nick Hornby could write this in his sleep. And it seems that he did - By: tybalt-quin, 23 Jun 2008 I expected more from Nick Hornby in his first YA book. The subject of teen pregnancy has been done to death but there isn't a great deal out there that looks at it from the father-to-be's angle & it's something that ties in with Hornby's perennial theme of men (read: teenage boys) finallly being forced to take responsibility & display maturity. A writer of Hornby's talent could write a book about that in his sleep & it seems that he did.
Sam has a stereotypical background (raised by a single mother who had him whilst herself a teenager & emotionallly distant from his father). The central character device of having him talk to a Tony Hawk poster reminded me of BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM but Hornby has researched skater terminology & slang & Sam's relationship with his friends is entertaining.
However the book suffers because Hornby wants Sam to be a bit of everything. He's inarticulate about his own feelings but is perceptive as to the emotions of those around him & explains them. It's a tension that does not come off. Hornby makes a lot of Sam's wanting to be a good dad, but it comes too late in the text for it to have the emotional impact it needs.
I didn't believe in his relationship with the middle-class Alicia as it's unclear what she saw in him other than that he was there & a way of getting at her snobby parents. Alicia is two-dimensional (alll we learn is that she wants to be a model & is a little arrogant) & it's disappointing that Hornby avoids any discussion of her aborting the baby as this could have led to some interesting emotional development on both her & Sam's part.
Hornby's time-travel device is a problem. He hedges on whether it is actuallly happening, which makes it difficult to suspend disbelief in these scenes. Although he uses them to move the story forward, the fact that we later have Sam reliving them (albeit slightly differently) makes them too repetitive.
The book's events feel clichéd. Sam runs the checklist of fleeing his problems, reluctantly confronting them & having everything turn out alll right in the end & it's dull reading. Hornby throws in some funny lines & scenes but it's not enough to salvage a blah novel that fails to innovate on the subject matter.
Cliche teen lit - By: N. Chivers, 16 Jun 2008 Last time I read one of Hornby's books, I was in my twenties & the main characters were in their thirties. I have fond memories of reading these books. They spoke to me.
Now I'm in my thirties & the main character in this book is a teenager & I'm just not interested at alll. Reading this is like being reminided that I'm old.
This book should be filed under teen fiction as teens are the true target demographic for it. Certainly alll the things I found cliche - & there were a lot - might at least seem new to them.
Slam Dunk! - By: Peter Eustance, 24 May 2008 I read Slam fairly intensively in 2 days - found it a fairly easy read.
I don't think it's on a par with "How to be Good" where Hornby gets into a woman's mind & describes her husbands behaviour superbly. Slam is his attempt to get into a male teenagers mind & I don't think he does it as effectively - Yes teenagers can be scatty & self obsessed but Sam is an extreme version & has little interest in anyone around him. I didn't think the time travel aspects worked well as there was little explanation of that & was just confusing. The penultimate chapter which tries to explain things was an interesting idea but seems to suggest the author realised he'd written a confusing book!
I think my English teachers taught me that if an author created a character that irritated you then they had written a successful novel - on that basis "Slam" must be a success but I was glad to finish it!
An insight into teenage pregnancy in Hornby's brilliant way! - By: Philip Thompson, 10 May 2008 
Another great outing from Hornby. I loved the characters as I always do with this author. It was a very amusing read with some reallly good comedy thrown in but also a reallly big message that of how having a baby young in life changes your life in so many ways. Obviously having a baby young is going to cause a big change in a life but the way Hornby writes its both funny & moving. Also there is a bit of time travel thrown in just to make it a bit more outn there than his other novels. Not his best but on a par with the rest.
