A List of Things That Didn't Kill Me by Jason Schmidt

From inside jacket:

"Jason Schmidt wasn't surprised when he came home one day during his senior year of high school and found his father, Mark, crawling around on the kitchen floor in a giant pool of blood. Things like that had been happening a lot since Mark had been diagnosed with HIV three years earlier. From watching Mark get arrested in their living room when Jason was three years old to enduring a series of house fires, homelessness, and a bout of flesh-eating staph infection, Jason had figured out a long time ago that his home life wasn't like most other people's."

 

This book may not be for everybody, that being said I think this memoir is great. Jason seriously lives through some ordeals that you can't even fathom happening. This isn't a very PG rated book. There is swearing. There are situations that some parents may not want younger teens to read, but ironically many of those situations happened to Jason when he was even younger. 

This is a great read for teens that thinks their family is dysfunctional, have issues in their home life, or even feel lost.  Many of us have lived a sheltered life compared to Jason, but there are plenty of times while Jason is growing up that we can all relate to him. I think the major benefit of reading memoirs like Jason's is being able to step back from your own life. We are all egocentric but it's memoirs like these that we can appreciate people like Jason for their perseverance and honesty about their struggles in life, and ultimately reevaluate our own major problems in life and downgrade them to annoyances or, better yet, take them on with a new sense of tenacity.   

My only issue is that while Jason takes the majority of the 419 page book to tell us about his childhood and teen years, once he is on his own really struggling with his future, we only get the last page in the book tackling that. I would have liked to read about his struggle with adulthood and how he eventually came to peace with his dad (if he really did forgive him) and how much he has "settled down." 

my rating: A-

 

A.B.

Twisted Fate by Norah Olson

Sometimes I think that authors are trying too hard to be original and cutting-edge that they end up failing in the final product. This one of those books that "uniqueness" made the novel confusing and a general struggle to get through.

The book starts off with the revelation that something happens to Syd's sister, something she wished she'd been able to prevent and it all had to do with their next door neighbor Graham. Syd's fascinated by him because he's odd and she knows there's something off about him, whereas her sister Ally is falling in love with him. Graham, though, is odd. He's moved next door to these sisters because of something that happened in his last town, something that has caused him to lose his best friend and have a juvenile record. To deal with this, he has an interest in recording people - making a record of the world and selling these films online. When Syd learns the truth about these videos and the consequences of them, she knows she has to do something to protect her sister.

This novel is told through different narrators, a number of them foreshadowing that something awful happens to Ally. With the different narrators, my first observation was the contradiction of stories. It made me think about the saying how every story has three sides - his side, her side and the truth. I thought this book was just about finding the truth, but there was something else going on. The contradicting chapters, however, bordered on confusing. To be honest, I peeked at the end of the book and knowing the truth helped a little. It made the signs more obvious, but yet it also made other things more confusing - especially the final scene. With the revelation at the absolute end of the book, the sequence of events in the final scene make little sense. So if anyone could explain it to me, I'd greatly appreciate it. Aside from the twist and the creative storytelling, another thing that bothered me was the prevalence of drugs in this novel. Graham gladly talks about altering prescriptions and combining drugs. Syd is always smoking weed. While I understand this happens, in my eyes, there's no need to glorify it. It'd be one thing to say he did it or to say she was high, but the novel goes into details about what drugs to mix and what he's doing. I didn't feel as if it was necessary, but maybe I'm too much of an innocent to accept these things.

In the end, this novel was a struggle to get through for me. Since I found the storytelling confusing (sometimes it read like a novel, sometimes it felt like telling the events in a documentary), it was hard to get into this book. The story as a whole is interesting and intriguing, but I think it could have been told differently and would be more successful.
MMK

The Hit - Melvin Burgess

A drug called Death is hitting the streets of Manchester, England.  When you take Death it gives you the ultimate high for seven days and then you die.  Adam and his girlfriend Lizzie are at a Jimmy Earle concert.  There have been rumors going around he took Death a week ago and tonight is when he's supposed to die.  When Jimmy dies onstage there are riots in the streets.  Death is being handed out freely to everyone including Adam and Lizzie.  They decide to live their lives and not have just a week left to live, so they throw the Death away.  They make it back to their homes where the rioting in the streets is the main news story.  Lizzie is grounded by her dad, but that won't stop her from seeing Adam the next night at a party her cousin Julie is throwing.  While Adam looks forward to seeing Lizzie again, a note is dropped off saying his brother Jess is dead.  His parents are devastated and all Adam has left to escape this life is Lizzie.  After Adam and Lizzie arrive at the party Julie pulls Lizzie away and tries to get her to dump Adam for a rich boyfriend.  Lizzie doesn't want to dump Adam, and can't convince Julie otherwise.  She goes and finds Adam who took a big hit of XL5, which has made him high as a kite.  As they leave the party Adam wants to go and have sex with Lizzie.  Lizzie wants their first time to be in a romantic setting instead of some random place.  They get into a fight and Lizzie gets a ride home.  Adam goes and finds Garry, a friend of Jess's, to see if he knows what happened to Jess.  Adam takes a bag of Death from Garry and heads home.  He feels like there's nothing left for him and he takes the Death pill.  The next morning he wakes up in a euphoric state because of Death.  He heads over to Lizzie's and she realizes he took Death.  Adam has a bucket list of things to do in the next week.  Lizzie agrees to help him do everything on the list.  After they have sex Adam gets a call from Jess, who he thought was dead.  Jess wants the bag of Death Adam stole from Garry.  Adam gives it back and tells Jess he took one of the pills.  Adam asks if their is an antidote.  Jess tells him no there isn't.  The next day Adam and Lizzie rob a liquor store.  Adam gets caught and taken to the police station where his parents have to bail him out.  Lizzie escapes and contacts Christian, a guy she met at Julie's party, to find out if their truly is a cure for Death.  Christian tells her that she has to sleep with him and the antidote is hers.  Lizzie heads over and Christian holds her hostage.  He forces her take Death.  Is this truly the end for Adam and Lizzie, or is there really an antidote out there?

I enjoyed this book and I was a bit surprised at the ending.  It was a good surprise to conclude the story.  The book gives us a reminder to live life to the fullest.  There will be pain, suffering, and/or loss in our lives, but finding a quick way out isn't the answer even if it seems like there is nothing left to live for.

T.B.
4/18/14

Futureproof - N. Frank Daniels

Luke goes to Peckerbrook High, which is a fine arts school, in Atlanta, Georgia. He lives with his mother, brother, his mom's boyfriend and three of his kids. As the school year progresses Luke gets fed up with living with everyone, and decides to leave and go out on his own. He makes friends with people who can get him drugs like heroin, coke, and crack. That then becomes his life. All he cares about is having sex, finding a job to get money, and getting his next fix. When his girlfriend, Andie, gets pregnant the first time they get an abortion. Later on she gets pregnant again, but is still shooting it up with Luke. When Luke finds out they go to a treatment center, and get Andie on medication. When she doesn't take the medicine for a few days, she starts having abdominal pains, and is taken to the hospital. The baby is born premature, and is in state custody until the courts determine that Luke and Andie are fit to be parents.

I enjoyed reading this book. It gave insight into how a drug addict acts, and thinks when all they care about is getting their next fix, and not caring about much else. It also gave a look into what people will do and sell just to get money. According to the back of the book, there will be a second book in the series, but there's no mention of when it will be released.

T.B. 9/9/10