- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Trophy Jr Pape; Reprint edition (May 1 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060521872
- ISBN-13: 978-0060521875
- Product Dimensions: 16.8 x 10.4 x 3.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 200 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (124 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #569,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Like so many teenagers, Tar and Gemma are fed up with their parents. Tar's family is alcoholic and abusive, and Gemma feels her home life is cramped by too many restrictions. The young, British couple runs away to Bristol in search of freedom, and finds it in the form of a "squat." This vacant building is also occupied by two slightly older teens who share everything with Tar and Gemma (including their heroin habits). For a while, everything is parties and adventures, but slowly Tar and Gemma find themselves growing more and more dependent on the drug--whose strict mandates are even less forgiving than those of the parents they fled. As Gemma says, "You take more and more, and more often. Then you get sick of it and give up for a few days. And that's the really nasty thing because then, when you're clean, that's when it works so well."
With Smack, winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize for Fiction, Melvin Burgess brilliantly sketches a gradual descent into drug addiction. There is no preaching here, just the artful revelation of cold, hard facts. Burgess's use of the first-person voice--for not only the main characters but those in the background as well--brings you into the mind of every character in this homeless, hooked culture, offering a (sometimes terrible) glimpse of the motivations and transitions of each person. (Tar's personality changes dramatically over the course of the book, from sweet-natured, lonely boy to hard-edged, hit-seeking addict.) More subtle and less graphic than Beauty Queen, Linda Glovach's tale of a girl's downward spiral into heroin addiction, Smack will linger in the your mind long after its haunting conclusion has been reached. (Ages 13 and older) --Brangien Davis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In a starred review of this "searing" account of teens who become addicted to heroin, PW wrote that the "unflinching depiction of the seductive pleasures as well as insidious horrors of heroin... will leave an indelible impression on all who read it." Ages 12-up. (May)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love this book!,
By Brianna Johnson (A 13 Year Old Reviewer) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smack (Hardcover)
I really like this book and i recommend everyone to read it... ... trust me everyone will love this book! ...this is my favorite book of all time! You should buy this book for yourself or for a friend that you would know who would like this.
4.0 out of 5 stars
As addictive as the drug itself,
By Julia (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smack (Paperback)
Smack is an amazing, powerful, amazingly powerful book. It portrays a side of the world that you don't normally see. It pulls you head first into a world of drugs, sex, and booze. Mainly drugs, particularly smack (smack, junk, heroin, whatever floats your boat). And there are some strange parallels between smack and Smack. When you start the book, you think, "This is a good book. I like it. I can take it or leave it, but I'd rather take it." Then, as the book progresses you find it harder and harder to put down. And when you HAVE to put it down for something else, you find your mind wandering back to the book, and you become more absorbed in its reality than your own. And finally, you may as well be surgically attached to it, because you just CAN'T put it down. And (here's where it's different) when it's all over and the dust clears, you have NO regrets. So, I guess, the book is better than the drug. But read it in moderation because you may get so wrapped up in the characters' lives and neglect your own, eventually causing your friends and family to leave you all alone with Smack. And the lesson: Be careful with Smack, kids; it could ruin your life.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Boring in the beginning but I bet it would be good later...,
By Hanna (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smack (Paperback)
My gosh the beginning is pretty boring. Okay the first 2 pages or something are pretty interesting but when you enter the first chapter you begin to lose motivation of reading the book. Then you just can't continue. At least not with me. I'm sorry but I need books to be consecutively interesting. This one was not. So I never finished it. But I'm sure it would be pretty good later in the book. It's just I never got that far. If you're a reader who really likes reading and isn't that picky of books and stuff like that, then go for it. Read it. But if you're not, then DON'T!
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