Thank you to Maya Sloan for sending me a copy of her book.
TITLE: High Before Homeroom
AUTHOR: Maya Sloan
GENRE: YA
RATING: 3 Stars
High Before Homeroom is either an extremely brilliant book or a highly dismissive one - and I am not sure what I think exactly.
The main character feels neglected by his mom and brother (isn't this kind of typical of kids that age?). He falls for a girl who seems to like bad boys - which means he has to "turn himself" into one.
Actually, this is kind of a clever twist on many other novels - where the girl does all the changing to meet the "expectations" of the guy she is interested in.
However, what I am unsure about is the fact that our main character chooses to "become" an addict in order to grab this girl's attention - he intentionally researches the entire subject and then works towards this goal.
Although, on some levels, the author did a nice job of presenting the subject in a sensitive voice - I have a problem with the entire idea. I do not "insult" easily, but for some reason, I felt upset by this development - it felt as though somehow the storyline made light of being an addict - which, of course, any addict will tell you that there is aboslutely nothing light of airy about it.
I know this is not the goal the author had in mind - but I could not shake the feeling and this tainted the book for me.
3 comments:
HMM yes I would have to say I agree with you about the idea for this book being a bad one.
You read so many books about addicts and how terrible it was and how hard it was to get clean.Then to have a book kind of glorify it seems wrong.
It does seem rather bizarre that someone would choose to become an addict.
It definitely sounds like a unique book that could cause controversy. I'm not sure how I would feel about deliberately becoming an addict to get someone to like me - but I wonder how the author makes it work in this case.
Thanks for the review!
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