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|  | Author: Blake Nelson
Publisher: Scholastic Press
List Price: $17.99
Buy New: $5.61
as of 11/23/2009 05:39 CST details
You Save: $12.38 (69%)
New (36) Used (11) from $4.94
Seller: flyhigher88
Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 474465
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0545104742
EAN: 9780545104746
ASIN: 0545104742
Publication Date: May 1, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Why buy used when Brand New is this low?!Expedited orders ship on or before next business day!
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 21-25 of 35
 Fun from the first page. . . March 8, 2009
Mary Ann
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This one was a hoot from the word "Go!" The book catches the teenage mood quite nicely, and enchanted me, as an observer of teens, and all the teens with whom it was shared.
Unique Character, Engaging Story, Entertaining February 24, 2009
christinemm - The Thinking Mother (Connecticut, United States)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
James Hoff is the main character, a gifted seventeen year old boy. The story takes place from January to June of his junior year in high school. He likes to write and journal on his laptop more than chat on the phone with friends, and this story is told through journal entries as well as with essays he wrote for his AP English class. He spends a lot of time alone pondering the injustices of the world and hatching ideas for solving the world's problems with extreme measures (like destroying all the cars) and zero population growth.
James is an ultra-environmentalist whose favorite person is Karl Marx. He hates the consumerist mindset and detests things like Americans (including his own parents) owning status symbol cars and teens wearing certain brands of clothing. We learn his views through his ranting essays (which don't garner good grades or much praise). James wants huge change and wants to play an active role to affect that change. He is of the mindset that he should feel guilty for existing simply because he is human and because humans are wrecking the Earth.
He is a unique person not just due to his opinions but through his actions. He has chosen to eschew typical American teen culture. Wearing thrift shop clothes which he further cuts up to make look worse, despite being from a wealthy family, not wanting a cell phone or the car that his father offers him are just a few small ways that James chooses to act different even though all but a couple of kids at school hate him for being different.
The extreme viewpoints can be take one of three ways by the young readers or adults. First, if you like some of those views (or all) you may be happy that in the book the character is trying to persuade others to see that his way is right. Second if you hate those views you may hate the book for that alone. Or, you may find his rants funny and get a good laugh out of the extremist views and realize his views begin to shift over time. His rants tone down as he realizes that some do-good efforts are not always fixing the problem and that sometimes activism even with good intent is futile.
James is a typical teenage boy with a normal sex drive. The book does include one not-too detailed sex scene in which he loses his virginity. He admits to masturbating but there are no scenes which describe it. He starts to date a bit and comes out of his shell more and more and then the rants begin to subside. The book does have an angry tone in the rants especially in the beginning, and profanity is used (even in the school assignment essays).
I liked that he showed leadership skills by volunteering for a nonprofit organization to try to save some wetlands and a pond from being filled in and turned into a housing development. Also while at a high school party he declines to drink alcohol and stays with a soda instead.
I found the story engaging and I didn't want to put it down. I liked seeing James change over time as he grew and matured a bit, and as he shifted from a self-isolated ranter to someone whose views calm down the more he becomes more socially active. I found the character of James unique and refreshing, and funny.
The publisher, Scholastic recommends this book for readers in grade 10 and up (age 15 and up). It seems to me the reading level of the book is younger than that, perhaps at a 6th grade level (however the content is more mature then I'd recommend for 6th grade). Due to inconsistency with Scholastic's assignment of recommended reader ages to content I'm feeling confused about how Scholastic arrives at that determination, so I won't comment on the appropriateness of the content to the age of the reader.
As an adult I enjoyed the book mostly for the unique voice of the main character. I'm not sure it would be a top pick for my sons to read when they are in 10th grade, that will depend more on which genre of fiction they prefer (so far they prefer the fantasy genre rather than realistic fiction problem novels set in the present day).
My rating: 4 stars out of 5 "I Like It"
 A teenager's quest agasint cars February 19, 2009
C. Merced (Stamford, CT and sometimes in Puerto Rico)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
James Hoff is a 17 year old high school students hates cars. They are destroying the environment. They are destroying the Earth. They must all be destroyed. He also hates consumerist society. It is also destroying the environment. James is an angry environmentalist that sees little use in food drives, bike paths, petitions, etc. They are not radical enough. The solution is to destroy all cars. But, James can't stop thinking about his ex-girlfriend Sadie. She is the president of the Activist's Club and is all for the petitions, food drives and bike paths.
The book is in the format of a diary, with James as the writer, which also includes samples of James' rather interesting essays, passages from a book he is reading and his daily life. The format is engaging and easy to read. It makes the book a bit more interesting. A book for teenagers.
I was not blown away by the book, but entertained. James is likable and his radical ideas keep the book going. His anger and creativity fuel the narrative and it is engaging. It is a fast read and entertaining enough for an afternoon.
Fun book February 17, 2009
K. Kraus (Pleasant Prairie, WI USA)
This is the second book I've read in a the past month that's written from the point of view of a teenage boy. That's pretty uncommon for me. This book's narrator, seventeen year-old James Hoff, is a bit of an iconoclast. He worries every minute of every day about the future of the Earth. He looks at other teenagers and knows they are happier than he is because they're too stupid to see the inevitable, that the world as we know it is doomed. His biggest pet peeves are SUVs and trucks with their 10 mpg engines and their emissions that are choking the life out of both humans and animals. Unlike perhaps every other 17 year-old boy in America, he does not want a car. He's perfectly happy riding his bike. He's not so extreme that he doesn't ride in other people's cars, though. James spends his free time writing essays and rants in his journal. When he is given writing assignments for English class he often gets bad grades because his passion makes his essays veer off the course of the assignments.
A year ago James was dating a girl named Sadie who, like him, is environmentally aware. He was initially attracted both to her beauty and her activism, though he thinks her type of activism is silly. What good is a canned food drive going to do in the grand scheme of things? But Sadie is the only girl he wants to talk to. No other girl stimulates his mind the way she did. They're broken up now and James can't seem to get past it. He compares every other girl he meets to Sadie.
A community pond is in danger and the project to save it brings James and Sadie in contact again. He can't take being that close to her and not being with her. Meanwhile, he's getting pressure from his parents to think about college. They try to bribe him to go by offering to buy him a car, but that doesn't tempt him like it would most teenagers. And Sadie urges him to do something with his writing, share it with the world and not just keep it to himself in his journal.
I feel for James because he feels so much. It's hard for him to just be a normal, happy teenager when he thinks the world is going to end. He's so different from any of the kids at his school he can't help but be lonely. In the end he finds a creative outlet for his frustration and I'm happy for him.
This is a nice, fun teen book. I recommend it for both teen girls and teen boys.
 Shooting high, aiming low February 17, 2009
Cecil Bothwell (Asheville, NC USA)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Writing for young adults isn't easy and Blake Nelson's latest novel offers an exemplary illustration of the potential pitfalls. Unfortunately, Nelson doesn't avoid them. The temptation is to dumb down the telling of a story to "their level" but tender some coming-of-age issues that offer guidance or food for young thought. The former can easily be interpreted as pandering and the latter as pedanticism.
"Destroy All Cars" principally fails by trying too hard on both scores. The author's treatment of teen angst might work for 4th to 6th graders, but the language and characterizations are far too elementary to appeal to the mid- to late-teens who constitute "young adults." (For example, James Holt, the protagonist, is purportedly in Junior AP English, but his class papers come off as so childish that no real high schooler would believe he was accorded Advanced Placement. He writes at, perhaps, junior high level.)
Meanwhile the issues of first love and first sex; alcohol and drugs; political activism; college choice; and automobiles and driving are too adult for those younger readers who might enjoy the humor and language. While I applaud the author's endorsement of condom use and mild criticism of alcohol for minors, I don't think it's going to reach the right age group.
I interact with children from grade school through high school in my capacity as a mentor and tutor and I tend to evaluate books aimed at that audience by asking who I would give them to. In this case, I wouldn't give it to the youngsters because of the grown-up subject matter and I wouldn't give it to the teens because of the goofy tone and language. I find I really can't recommend this book.
Showing reviews 21-25 of 35
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