Smackkk

SMACK by Melvin Burgess is a 237 paged adventure tale of two runaway kids named Tar and Gemma. They get away from their houses and meet up in Bristol. Tar runs away because his father is quite abusive toward him and he cant take it anymore. Gemma on the other hand runs away simply because she feels the need to have more freedom than she already has. by the way, shes 14 and can go out on the weekends wherever she wants until 12. So she seems to be a bit foolish in her decision to leave home to make her parents worry. Gemma is dating Tar and they live together "squatting" in a vacated house with some other young people. because tar and gemma are so young, they cannot get a job. so they do the housework and so on. luckily the people they live with are willing to feed them and house them.

Eventually, Gemma meets a girl named Lily. now Lily is not the best person although she is an interesting character and by that i mean she is dangerous and exotic at the same time. she too lives with some of her friends but is defiinitely not in the same sort of situation that gemma and tar are in. she lives a life of narcotic addiction and practices other things that no teenager is fit to experience at such a young age. she introduces this world to Gemma who, because of her fascination and rapt attention of Lily"s every action, pretty much does what Lily does. therefore, Gemma becomes involved with drugs and brings Tar into the picture as well. they both wind up living with Lily and this move on their part was probably one of the worst things they could have done to help their already complicated situation.

i wont give anything away, but the two go through some really hard life problems that most adults dont even go through at all in their lives. some of these problems deal with addiction, trying to become unaddicted, having to go through the relapse process, prostitution, and even imprisonment. i know right? it sounds insane. well, it is.

My personal thoughts on this particular book are that it captures the carelessness and thoughtlessness of adolescence. It shows the reality of what can happen if we do what we want when we want without any guidance or supervision of some sort. sure, we all go throught the phases of "rebellion" towards our parents. but this book takes it to a whole new level. it actually opens your eyes to kids and why they think its okay to do certain things like run away from their problems. for tar this worked considering his difficult home life. but for gemma, like most of us, she was just annoyed with her parents. no excuse to reallyyyy run away and go out of control like she did.

All in all, its a great read and will keep you captivated throughout. I reccommend it strongly for those of you who like to read about adolescence and its craziness.