Ich kannte bereits Nick Hornbys "About A Boy", das wir im Englischunterricht einmal gelesen haben. Der Stil ist ähnlich und doch anders.
Die Story ist für Teenager perfekt und interessant. Ich fand es sehr amüsant, dass der Protagonist mit einem Poster sprach. Allgemein brachte mich der Protagonist mit seiner Unsicherheit mehrfach zum Schmunzeln.
Alles in allem ein recht unterhaltsames Buch, auch wenn es nicht immer spannend ist. Aus diesem Grund: 4 Sterne!

Review of 'Slam' by Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby's first teenage novel is about the 18-year-old Sam who is retrospectiving the last 3 years of his live.
Actually he had a normal teenage live, he liked skateboarding, his parents were divorced and he had a big idol -Tony Hawk- the most famous skater.
One day his life suddenly changed because of the gorgeous girl Alicia, his first big love. Unfortunately she got pregnant. Faced up to the responsibility adverse the unborn baby she decided against an abortion, without knowing what Sam was going to do.
The 16-year-old Sam did not know himself what to do, so his life-sized poster of Tony Hawk helped him. The poster wizzed him into the near future to show him how life would be like when he would stay with Alicia and the baby.
So he could decide what he was going to do.
Staying with Alicia? Or beginning a new life?

The novel Slam written by Nick Hornby is about a boy called Sam who is 18 writing about when he was 16.
He is living in the UK. There is the highest teenage pregnancy rate.
On his 16. birthday his life changed. He got to know that his girlfriend is pregnant and he has to handle the situation. Sometimes he dreams about his future and what it’ll be like.
Because of all his troubles he talks to a poster of Tony Hawk who is a famous skater.
Sam admires him a lot because he is skating too.
Despite the serious situations it’s a very funny book in places.
We enjoyed to read the book, because it’s not a normal teenage novel.

Review Slam

“I think I can remember Ms Miller telling us in religious studies once that some people believe you have to live your life over and over again, like a computer game, until you get it right”
This is one of the main thoughts of the main figure Sam in Nick Hornby’s novel “Slam”.

Sam is the first-person narrator in the book and talks about an important part of his life.

Nick Hornby is dealing with difficult but often accruing teenage problems those as the early parenthood. A fact proving this assumption is that Great Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the world.

Fanatic and childish Sam talks to the poster of his big idol Tony Hawk to tell him all sorts of daily problems but after some time a very big situation overtook him. His new girlfriend, the one year older 16-year-old, Alicia gets pregnant and he doesn’t really know how to deal with this situation. The only solution he sees is to run away from home, but then TH (Tony Hawk) took the matters into his own hands and shows Sam by a special way that life isn’t so bad as he thinks and there is always a way to manage everything.

The message the novel or better Nick Hornby wants to give not only to young people but to everyone is that you have to take the responsibility of every action you make no matters if you are young or old or if you want to or not. You can not run away because your life is always returning and you have to give your best although you don’t do always right.

I would recommend this book to everyone because it is very funny but at the same time serious and you can have a closer look to the thoughts of people being in at the first look bad situation. You can only enjoy reading it, really!!!

The story slam by Nick Hornby is about a boy named Sam who loves skating and adores his idol Tony Hawk. He is sixteen when his girlfriend Alicia, 15 years old, gets pregnant. Both of them have to manage now their new lifes. Lots of complications with Sam’s ex-teenage-mum and Alicia’s very high educated and well-living parents. What will the future hold? Will they stay together? How do they behave in such a situation?
All these questions are answered in a very original and funny way.
The story takes place in GB, where you find a very high rate of teenage pregnancies. Like in his other books, Nick Hornby deals with a serious topic, but not without with characteristic humour he is famous and popular for.

“There’s no point in being brave if you’re just going to be destroyed. Say you walked round the corner and there are fifty Al-Qaida there. Not even fifty. Five. Not even five. One, with like a machine gun, would be enough. You might not feel good about running your life, but what are your choices? Well, I had walked round the corner, and there was an Al Qaida with a machine gun, except he was just a baby, and he didn’t actually have a machine gun. But in my world a baby, even without a machine gun, is like a terrorist with a machine gun, if you think about it, because Roof was every bit as deadly to my chances of going to college to do art and design etcetera as an Al Qaida operative.”

I personally liked the book very much, it’s fun to read and simple as well. Because of Hornby’s unmistakably unique style of writing and his talent to create extraordinary characters it’s worth reading.

The novel slam by the British author Nick Hornby is not only meant for teenagers, also adults can have a blast reading it, even if teenage pregnancy is an exploited topic to write about.

The protagonist Sam who has a passion for skateboarding and who talks to a Tony hawk poster ironically gets his girlfriend pregnant and suddenly has to grow up and make a commitment. The reader witnesses Sam’s development from a little irresponsible, immature boy, to a caring father. To make this easier to understand, the author tried to get his self out of the tight spot by letting Sam travel to the future within a dream he has. That is where it becomes kind of awkward and confusing, because the things Sam experiences during his trip to the future actually come true later on. So basically it is all about the development from a young teenager who is not greatly concerned about the future to an underage father who has to take responsibility for his own actions and for his newborn child.

All in all this book can be a good read it just depends on the type of person you are.

Slam is sixteen years old and is in love with Alicia.
They met at Alicia’s mother’s birthday party and Slam realises that Alicia is a very beautiful girl and then they spend a lot of time together and after time they are in a relationship, but they have a lot of problems because after Slam slept with Alicia she recognizes that she is pregnant and for her an abortion is no way.
At first Slam is very shocked and has fear for the responsibility.
Because of this he runs away to Hastings to start a new life without Alicia, the baby and all the problems he has.
But after one day he thinks about that what he does and knows that it is a big mistake to leave the person who he loves and needs.
So he comes back and changes his feeling and thoughts about life and the baby.
...

We think this book is recommentable, because it is about the problems, which teenagers has in this age and it is interesting to read.
It is also realistic and we are happy to have read this book, because it was a lot of fun.

Slam tells the story of a sixteen-year-old skater called Sam.
On a boring party he had to go with his mom he meets Alicia. They fall in love and have a great time. But then happens what no one has expected: She gets pregnant.

Very interessting is, that Sam, the skater boy, gets whizzed in the futur by his idol, Tony Hawk. He sees what his future will be like and how it is to live with your girlfriend and your son.

The book shows how the protagonists handle with this new situation, although they are very young.

The story is very colloquial and funny written, very touching and comprehensible.
It's recommendable for teenagers and adults, too, because the plot is interesting for all age-classes.
On the whole, it's a great book that is worth buying.

The novel "Slam" by Nick Hornby tells about the story of a sixteen-year-old boy called Sam who has to arrange his life after his ex-girlfriend got pregnant.
The sixteen-year-old Sam falls in love with the sixteen-year-old Alicia. Everything seems to be fine until Alicia gets pregnant after they had unprotected sex. Sam's life starts to change. At first he tries to run away and to hide from becoming a father but then he realises that he cannot run away anymore...

The protagonist Sam is a clever young boy. He's a sixteen-year-old boy who loves skating. Furthermore he is a big fan of the famous skateboarder Tony Hawk. Sam is not very mature and he runs away from problems. He behaves very childish with the fact of beoming a father.
Sam's mother is thirty-two years old and she seperated from Sam's father a long time ago. She is very helpful and understanding but she works a lot and she looks for a new boyfriend.
Completely different are Alicia's parents. They are very rich and they are university professors. But her parents are not very pleased with the relationship of Sam and Alicia and they behave very rude with Sam because they think he's lower class.
Alicia is a young girl which gets what she wants. Her parents think she's a brain in school and they think she deserves someone better than Sam. Alicia behaves very egoisticly with her baby. Sam's opinion seems not important to her and she wants to keep the baby which is very immature because of all problems.

Nick Hornby wants to critizise all class differences. Everybody has the chance to become a good a father or to earn much money no matter in which class he is or how much money his parents have got. He also wants to show that we should face to our problems and we shouldn't run away of them.

The Subject of Slam is a big problem in the UK because the UK has the highest rate of teenage pregnancys in Europe. Moreover the novel shows the problematic class difference.
Nick Hornby uses a funny style. He uses funny comparatives and colloquial words to animate the reader. It is easy to imagine the situation of Sam and Alicia because of the young fresh style.

I would recommend the novel because it is a good book for everyone and everyone can laugh about it either young teachers which can imagine the situation or older people which can laugh about the immature characters.

The novel easy to read and to understand because of the author's style of writing. We liked it to read in case of the irony Nick Hornby puts in his felicitous novel `Slam`.

We definitely would recommend this successful novel because of those named points. In addition it shows how to face with problems of teenage-parents and perhaps it could also stop them having unprotected sex.
An important fact is the rate of teenage pregnancy in Britain, which is the highest, so the story is really realistic, too.

Written by Sulala=)

Finally we can say that we enjoyed to read the story because you realize how quick your life can be changed