Smack, a brilliant druggie novel out of England, chronicles the lives of Tar and Gemma, two teens who run away from home in search of freedom from their parents and authority. What they find is a squatter’s paradise and an addiction to heroin that ends up being stronger than their love for each other. Burgess slowly develops his characters, showing the gradual but devastating effect that regular drug use can have on a human being’s personality and mind. Gemma and Tar became so real to me that I had a hard time leaving them to their fate at the end of the book. No, they don’t die. But sometimes, learning to live after addiction is worse.
this sounds like a really good book
This has been one of my favorite books for the past decade, starting when I was fourteen years old. I’ve read it and re-read it and the only thing I can think of in life that might be worth doing is writing the screen-play so that it can be made into a movie someday. I deeply love this book.
Thanks for sharing the love, Gemma. One of my all time favs, too. Shocked that it hasn’t been made into a movie yet.
This book struck me like no other, I found it in my high school library my freshman year. thank god that i did i was becoming depressingly bored with all the happy yuppy bull covering the book shelves. this truly is a realistic perception of todays adolescents I should know being from a small drug infested town yet still trying to find my way. i’m sixteen now i wonder how i’ll feel in ten years
the book is amazing it cleared me off of drugs by the end i probably owe my life to it
This book is one of my ultimate favorites! I have read it over and over again and it scared me into not even thinking about doing drugs, I cant think of living like that
this book sounds so grrrrrrrrr8!