Slam

                      I have just started reading the book Slam by Nick Hornby. This book is basically about a teenage boy named Sam who is basically enjoying his life until his ex-girlfriend tells him that she is pregnant.

            I really like this book so far because of the way the author set it up. He does a good job writing the first couple chapters because it is written in a way to show how great Sam’s life was before Alicia—his girlfriend—told him the news. The book is written in Sam’s perspective, and the reader can see how he talks about his life before so fondly and how it is clear how much he regrets his whole relationship with Alicia. I find this really sad because although the book is only written in Sam’s perspective, it is also clear that this has affected both him and everyone that he knows.

            In one part of the book, Sam talks about how he wants to be the first one in his family to go to college. Because his mother had him when she was 16, she did not go to college and her mother did not go as well. Further into the book, Sam see’s into his future, where he is living a depressing life with Alicia and his son where he attends a class once a week at a community college and hardly even has a job that he enjoys. After seeing this scene, I found it very sad because he now feels like this is destined to be the rest of his life and there is no way out of it. I think that this is not true because he could always work out a way to make his life better and make his situation work.

            All in all, this is a pretty sad story so far. Because the situation that they are in is so complicated, it adds a very nervous and frustrated tone to the story because as the reader, we have it in our minds that whatever Sam and Alicia will be dealing with in the future will not be easy. So far, I have enjoyed this book because of the well-written structure and good plot.