Review : Slam

Slam by Nick Hornby

Slam is a novel written by the famous English author Nick Hornby, who was born in Great Britain on 17th April, 1957. The books he is best known for are Fever Pitch from 1992, High Fidelity from 1995 and About a Boy from 1998. Slam was published in 2007 and it deals with the small and big problems of teenagers. The book is written from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old boy called Sam.

The main character of the story is 15-year-old Sam. He loves skateboarding and lives together with his 32-year-old mother in Islington. His life is not very special or exciting, except that he talks to his poster of Tony Hawk to reflect on his problems.

One evening his mum wants him to come with her to the birthday party of her friend Andrea, because she thinks that Sam could get along well with Andrea's 16-year-old daughter Alicia. Sam and Alicia like each other from the first moment so they decide to go to the cinema the next evening. But instead of watching a film they go to Alicia's house and have sex. They fall in love and are very happy together, but one day they break off because their relationship does not feel exciting any more.

After a few days Alicia begins to worry about being pregnant. When she tells Sam about it he is so shocked that he switches off his mobile and goes home while Alicia is buying a pregnancy test. After that he is suddenly whizzed into the future by the Tony Hawk on the poster, where he lives together with Alicia and their son called "Roof" for one day. When he comes back to his real time, Alicia tells him that the result of the pregnancy test was positive. Although Sam already knows this from his trip to the future, he is surprised and does not know what to say, but Alicia is sure about keeping the baby.

The next day Sam and Alicia talk to Alicia's parents. They are angry at first, but when they realize that Alicia really wants to keep the baby, they have to accept it. After a long conversation they go to Sam's mum together. And by this news Sam is breaking her heart. She is very disappointed, because she has always worried about her son being a father at the age of 16. But in the end she wants to support and help Sam to deal with the situation.

Sam and Alicia spend a lot of time together in the next few months. They even visit prenatal classes and fall in love again.

On September 11th Alicia goes to hospital because of her contractions and on September 12th she gives birth to Rufus. On the next day Sam moves to Alicia's house, because they want to live together as a family. Soon they notice that everything is very exhausting, for example waking up about five times a night because of the crying baby. One day Sam talks to his dad, who has never really been interested in him. But that day he helps Sam to realize that he does not love Alicia any more. Sam wants to avoid telling Alicia about this, so he says that he thinks they live in different worlds and that they are not compatible. Alicia cries and he leaves her house.

At the end of the book Sam is whizzed into the future again, where he has a new girlfriend called Alex and Alicia has a new boyfriend called Carl. They have dinner together and everything is fine.

I think the book is very interesting, because it deals with important problems of teenagers.