do you want to hear the first three words that come up to my mind about the first chapter?
cool, interesting and good to read for non-native speakers.
In the following I will write about the setting and the narrator of "Slam" and I'm going to analyze Sam's character.
The protagonist Sam describes the situation when he was almost 16 years old. Now he's around 17 or 18 and looks back to when everything seemed to be fine for a short period of time.
You could guess that the story takes place in England, because Sam is an english native speaker and he says something like
"(...) that sounds a bit American to me." (p.13, ll.26f),so he's probably not from the US.
The story is written in the first person perspective which I like pretty much. For me it's easier to empathize with Sam when he's the narrater and when it's no outstanding person.
Sam is soon turning 16. Around this time his life is better than it has even been before.
"(...) this feeling that my life was OK was new to me. I'd never had the feeling before, (...)." (p.10, ll.18f).I think everybody knows a time in their life which has been hard and where there were things to worry about, but to have the feeling that your whole life has never been OK before, is something else...
Sam tells all the good stuff that happened to him, like a teacher talking to him about doing art at college, learning two new skating tricks or meeting a girl namend Alicia.
His parents are divorced and he's living with his mum. Tony Hawk is a very good skater and he's Sam's big role model.
"He's the J.K. Rowling of skaters (...)" (p.11, ll.20f)like Sam describes him. He has got a poster of Tony Hawk in his room that he talks to about eveything. Sam imagines out of Tony's book "Hawk - Occupation: Skateboarder" answers his idol could give.
At first it's really strange to read that somebody talkes to a poster but Sam also mentions the sentence:
"Who doesn't talk to God, or a pet, or someone they love who has died, or maybe just to themselves?" (p.15, ll.4-6)and he's right. Many people talk to someone who isn't real. I do this aswell, but regardless it's been strange to read.
In general Sam is a person who I can identify with. He's self-confident and open because he tells that he's talking to a poster.
"I'll just say it, and you can think what you want." (p.11, ll.7f)shows that he isn't ashamed doing this even if it could sound really mad to other people.
Sam is a passioned skater and he's also really ambitious because he won't stop trying his skating tricks until they work out . He is orientated on his role model Tony Hawk and tries to be a skater as good as he is.
Sam's artistic and probably you can also say that Sam's appreciative. The sentence
"And that summer there seemed to be more money around." (p.10, ll.30f)shows that Sam and his mum usually don't have much, so he appreciates that this summer there has been more money around. Sam's also caring because at the beginning of the book he mentions that his
"Mum got rid of (...) her rubbish boyfriend." (p.9, l.4)It shows that for him it matters with whom his mum is in a relationship.
Actually the book surprises me a bit because I would've never thou,ght that I could identify with so many things in there. Most of them are too private so I won't share them here :) , but I can say that I really like reading the book and that I'm excited for the coming chapters.
In my first blog post I said that maybe there will be things I can identify with. Here they are, so let's see if there will be even more :)
Greetings,
Maike
