Have you ever had one of those days?Well...Tyler has had one of those lives.
Laurie Halse Anderson, the author of Speak, tackles another prevalent teen issue in Twisted.
Tyler has had enough. Unappreciated by his parents, bullied at school, ignored by the female population...he's fed up.
The novel chronicles his coming-of-age journey. He commits the Foul Deed, spray-painting graffiti on his high school and is forced to complete mandatory hours of community service and probation to pay for his crime. Tyler assumed anything was better than jail time. That summer spent working long hours landscaping transformed Tyler into a strapping young man. As the novel unfolds, we see the days in the life of a teenage boy.
As a female, I had no idea the violent thoughts that run through teenage boys heads. Is this normal? This book will serve as a companion to Speak. Both novels tackle tough teen issues with grace. Teens do not feel like adults are talking at them about prevention or rape or teen suicide. They feel like someone is "down in the trenches with them" helping them find their way out.
Anderson effectively wrote from the male point of view and tackled current teen issues.
She discusses this below:
2 comments:
I am excited to read another book by Anderson. I think she really has a unique take on the struggles that different teens go through and is able to provide the reader with really thought provoking plots without overdoing it. I think it will be interesting to see a young adult novel from a teen boy's perspective. I also like that you included the video. Great post!
First of all...I watched Speak (the film) on Lifetime about a month ago. The book is way better. Now, to get to the review. I laughed out-loud when I read "landscaping transformed Tyler into a strapping young man"...from now on I'm only dating young landscapers. I should have taken the hint from Desperate Housewives (if you don't know what I'm talking about, one of the "wives" has an affair with a young landscaper and he is uber-strapping). I am very interested, on a more serious note, to read this novel because it is from a male perspective. Pretending that classroom time wouldn't be a limiting factor, do you think that it would be a good idea to teach Twisted to girls and Speak to boys? I am not a teacher so I don't know how possible that is. But I just imagined that you could split the students into groups of 4-2 boys, 2 girls- and then each class have a dfferent topic...gender difference, conflict resolution differences, teen issues, etc. I think it would be interesting for boys and girls to read from opposing perspectives and then discuss a topic from that perspective, knowing what they know about the other perspective. I'm babbling. Great review!!
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