Slam

Starred review from October 8, 2007
A highly companionable narrator, 16-year-old Sam Jones has spent his life coming to terms with having been an unwanted baby—his parents married because his 16-year-old mother was pregnant, and they divorced soon after. He knows better, in other words, than to make the same mistake. But by the time he learns he's going to be a father himself, he's not even dating Alicia, the mother, anymore. Devastated about how fatherhood will wreck his future, Sam, a skateboarder, talks things through with a poster of Tony Hawk, who “answers” in quotes from his biography, which Sam has read 40 or 50 times. Sam also credits Hawk with a magical ability to transport him to his own future, where he participates in dream-state scenes that actually do occur later. Like Hornby's adult bestsellers (High Fidelity
; About a Boy
), his YA debut features witty dialogue, a winning if flawed hero and wry insights into the male psyche, making this book a sure bet for Hornby fans of any age. Whether Hornby will find a new audience may be chancier—the readers attracted by Sam's skateboarding talk might want more action and less absorption in relationships than his craftily structured novel offers. Ages 12-up.

November 26, 2007
Hoult, who played the part of Marcus Brewer in the screen adaptation of Hornby's About a Boy
, does a credible job—perhaps too credible—as Sam, the 16-year-old hero of Hornby's first YA novel. His tone is conversational, and he relates Sam's story about inadvertently getting his girlfriend pregnant, with little variation in emphasis: he's the epitome of the cool, unfazed teen even in the face of impending doom. But the combination of Hornby's authentic dialogue and Hoult's convincing reading produces some passages of teenspeak, especially between Sam and girlfriend Alicia—“Dunno/ Me neitherâ€-type repartee—that is hard-going as entertainment. Hoult adopts a slightly deeper inflection for the part of Tony Hawk, whose poster Sam uses as a sounding board, but, comically, the quintessential California skateboarder speaks his lines (quotes from his autobiography, which Sam has memorized) with a British inflection. Overall, the audio showcases Hornby's skill at getting deeply inside the mind of his character. Sam, the most talkative teen ever to grind a skateboard, says, “Listen, I know you don't want to hear about every single little moment†and proceeds to recount every single little moment anyway. Ages 12-up. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 8).