The book everyone is forced to read in high school
344004
I read this book 4 years ago when I was a freshmen in high school and this book still left a strong message. Harper Lees view on racism and mob brutality were dead on. This book shows how deindividualization can cause people to lose their identity and cause them to lynch and hurt other innocent people for no logical reason. The message is hammered in many ways, that racism and prejudice leads to everyone being more miserable and people lossing their sense of personality. Boo Radley is an interesting character who helps hammer the message of this book more clearly. My memory of everything that happened in this book might be a little foggy, but it is a classic and may change your views on racism and why people treated each other so cruely before the civil rights era. In the end, racism is never right, and people need to get to the roots of it before it grows out of control and infects more people.
4198617
I'm in the 8th grade and had to read this book for anassignment. During the first chapter I got bored and didn't even giveit a chance. But when I was forced to pick it back up so I could finish the assignment, I really liked it. It was a great story about a 13 year old girl ion the 8th grade whose mother is dying and she lives with her grandmother. Dicey makes new friends has a boy fall in love with her and gets through all her problems. I liked it alot and I think it is a great book for teenagers
404139
The book makes you long for the friends that meant so much in High School.  It's definitely a must read.
4401295
This is an easy flowing book. I read it in a day. However, I purchased it for my high school class and it contains so much drugs and sex (in a pretty positive light), there's no way I'm comfortable with making it available for my students. I read reviews after I bought it that say it was a frequently banned book. I didn't see them before. Just a warning. I plan to let my teenager read it because we can discuss it but I won't make that choice for other parents
4485140
Anthony Breznican's "Brutal Youth" will bring back the reasons why some (or most) look back on high school as the years we survived rather than thrived. My high school wasn't nearly as brutal as the one depicted in the novel, but pretty much every freshmen, every year, dreaded Senior Week.

That's what Brutal Youth reads like... a nightmare Senior Week that is extends for the year as three freshmen have to survive a cycle of karma in which the previously bullied upperclassmen get to be bullies.

There is Peter, Noah and Lorelei, the freshmen, and then there is the upperclassmen and then there is the faculty who if they aren't being useless, they are useful to the wrong side.

Breznican writes in a straightforward way that isn't trying to be literary. This isn't a book that he hopes freshmen will be required to read in a 9th grade English class one day. It really is more for the adults to read and remember how crappy high school could be.
2100544
My son read this in school & insisted I read it. It was a page turning adventure into the life of a high school epidemic that plagues our youth. Bulling, drugs & having to make decisions that are life changing. Every high school kid and their parents should read this.
2938321
I think every high school student in the United States should read it. It might give them nightmares but  they would understand freedom and learn what oppression is really about.
2125731
In English class, each class got assigned a book to read. Out of the three classes, my class was the only one who enjoyed their book. This book brought up so many disscusions and interesting "off the subject" talks that everyone had a good time reading it. We even had almost the whole class doing their homework on it. So, I must say, to have a class of about 25 seventh grade kids liking the assigned book, is pretty impressive.
3462242
No exaggeration. I read it in high school. I pray to God high schools and colleges don't abuse students with this garbage anymore, but it seems like they do. I recognize that it's a classic, but it's a classic that sucks. The torture needs to stop.
397649
Alter Wiener has written a book which brings the Holocaust alive for students.  His story is captivating.  In addition, the book is extremely accessible for high school students.  All of my students that have read this book were extremely moved.
1684303
this book is long. but it was the best book that i read in all my years in highschool. now that is saying something.
193328
Many teens spend their high school years longing to escape from the artificial confines of curfews, grades and deadlines, eager to launch themselves into the so-called real world. But what happens if those expectations and hopes about life in the real world are dashed by grim realities? As editor Jill Santopolo notes, the six stories written for the collection entitled NO SUCH THING AS THE REAL WORLD are about characters who "are thrown into the `real world,' find out it's not exactly what they imagined it would be, and struggle to find themselves." Written by some of contemporary young adult literature's most respected authors, the stories share, for the most part, an appropriately serious tone.

In An Na's "Complication," a rape victim whose attack leaves her with a young son blatantly uses her attacker's brother to gain the freedom she longs for. M. T. Anderson's "The Projection" is a continuously shifting dialogue about two improvisational theater students assigned to construct a "situation." Readers (especially those who choose to re-enact the drama by reading the selections aloud) will be challenged to revise their understanding and expectations throughout this mind-bending selection, an intellectual exercise that seems to reflect the process of adapting to the adult world.

In K. L. Going's "Survival," a high school graduation speaker uses the last 20 minutes before commencement to replay her sister's ongoing betrayals and the real meaning of "Surviving High School" and beyond: "This wasn't what we learned from high school; it was what we learned from life. It was what we would always have to learn again and again. No invisible line would be crossed, no diploma handed out, no age limit surpassed that would ever change this fact."

Beth Kephart's affecting "The Longest Distance" is about a young woman struggling to move on --- and even find laughter --- following her best friend's suicide. "Arrangements" by Chris Lynch, probably the lightest-toned selection in the bunch despite its sobering topic, illustrates how nothing makes a young man grow up as fast as the sudden death of his father. Finally, in Jacqueline Woodson's "The Company," a gay young man grows up quickly when he witnesses the dark underbelly of professional dance from the inside.

Throughout, the realizations of the characters are complex and somber, providing plenty of fodder for reader reflection about their own lives and situations, and perhaps even the realization that the artificial, safe environment of the teen years might not be such a bad thing after all. These stories may also provide inspiration as the collection includes an invitation to aspiring teenaged writers to contribute their own selections on the theme for possible publication.

  --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
3614358
I had to read this for school. I don't know what I liked better about this book, that I finished it finally or that I wasn't the only one that had to suffer through the book alone as my entire class also had to read and eventually hate this book.
1493736
This book was assigned reading for my daughter in her freshman year of high school. The reading level, in my opinion, was college-age, so she struggled with it to begin with. I wound up reading it aloud to her and falling in love with the book. It will be confusing for anyone young enough to have missed the Cold War, and there are things abbreviated like ICBM's (Inter-Continental-Ballistic-Missiles) that kids today probably couldn't guess what it means. However, the book is FULLY PERTINENT today as it was during the Cold War. At some point we all have to learn that money means nothing when there are no resources left to be had - nothing to buy, nothing but relying upon each other and our wits for survival. GREAT BOOK. Surprised I didn't read this along with Brave New World and Animal Farm in high school!
2152265
This book is amazing for most age, but as the negative reviews show, it's not for everyone.
It's a long book. You need to have some sort of attention span to read it. Which is why so many high school students dislike it when forced to read it.
It's "about" rabbits. They talk. If you can't get over that, skip this book. There are made up words too. Oh the horror. It is in part a fantasy. If that genre repulses you, skip this book.
That's part of the reason so many people loved this book as young kids. If you know a child who's not too easily scared (because some of the book is dark) they'll love it for the pure fantasy elements of it, though they might need it read to them if they're really young.
It's great on so many other levels too. I first read it the summer before freshmen year (yes, it was required for school). And each time I've read it since I have gotten more out of it. It's a moving story, a fanciful adventure, an allegorical tale, and more, all in one.
865740
A book That I was unable put down before I read it in its entirety. A must read for High School students.
3803000
I had to read this book for a high school english class...and I actually read the book...all of it. The book is about a man telling the story of his life. The man is beginning to realize that that his life is near an end and he decides to take a trip with his cancer striken wife. The husband and wife take a road trip and reflect on their lives. The author sets up the story for an expected ending, that is still unbelievable. A must read.