Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 31-35 of 35
 More Important Than The Title Might Suggest January 27, 2009
K. Beach (Minnesota)
"Destroy All Cars" can and should be read at a minimum of two levels.
Level 1: This book is built upon a humorous first-person account of a young nerd/rebel's attempt to navigate the shark-infested waters of high school normalcy while hanging onto his own principles in the face of social/sexual pressure to do what's expedient and pleasing to the adolescents and adults around him. The author keeps the story moving forward quickly with rapid-fire sentences and ADHD-friendly story structure. As a result, "Destroy All Cars" provides realistic, entertaining, and useful insight into the psyche of an underachieving, probably developmentally-immature gifted male adolescent while, thankfully, not attempting to resolve the "inscrutable mystery" of the young women he faces.
Level 2: This book is laced with cutting social commentary that illuminates...in concise and funny occasional paragraphs...the "population paradox" that stands between us and our collective ability to quickly and effectively respond to environmental crisis. The protagonist decries large families and gigantic family-sized vehicles even as he desperately seeks the solace of intimate female companionship that will, most likely, lead to his own child/children and a minivan. The book also takes lighthearted aim at the "Carnegie credit and GPA conspiracy of convenience" that links secondary and post-secondary educational institutions to the benefit of those who "play the game well" and the detriment of those who don't. In both regards, the author provides much food for thought in a refreshing and compassionate way.
Bottom line: 5 Stars. Any adolescent or adult with an open mind should enjoy this one...and cheer for James Hoff!
Fascinating realistic character study January 26, 2009
A. D. Boorman
This book has little plot. It is a fascinating multilayered character study of an adolescent struggling with impending adulthood. He meets with success and frustration in various endeavors.
James Hoff is the main character. He is a high school student who is very concerned with the world. He is, at turns, both cynical and optimistic. He is a self-styled idealogue. He is a talented writer, passionate in his condemndation of American consumer culture, and equally passionate about finding emotional (and physical) love.
James has friends and meets various girls. He has an on-again/off-again relationship with a girl named Sadie, and this causes him great angst throughout the story. There is a discretely described sexual encounter. Safe sex is described. The emotional consequences are shown in calm detail.
James relationship with his AP English teacher is a constant throughout the story, and the teacher is portrayed as a positive, caring professional. James relationships with his parents and family are realistically presented. They are not perfect - James parents are trying to reunite after a separation.
This book does not have the happiest ending - nor does it end in tragedy. It ends in growth.
I enjoyed this book very much.
 Find the likable James January 24, 2009
Todd Stockslager (Raleigh, NC)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Self-centered, self-righteous, humorless, arrogant, self-consciously disagreeable, sophomorically self-confident,--that is James Hoff, the narrator of "Destroy All Cars", which is also the title of an essay he wrote for his 11th-grade AP English class that embodies all those characteristics. The essay opens the book, before we have even met its writer, who I found even less likable than his essay.
Now, in tribute to the writer's skill or to the impossibility of shrinking even further in esteem, I will confess that as the book progresses James does become a bit more tolerable, but ultimately he is not an admirable or likable character. Like many young people we all know (my three children passed through this age range within the last decade), it is a difficult time of life, and while most will display one or more of these disagreeable characteristics at least some of the time, I have found that they usually disguise a fragile personality preparing itself for adulthood. As with my own children I sometimes found that I had to fight through the dislike these disagreeable characteristics engendered to find the tender and lovable person underneath the facade, I eventually found James a smart, funny, scared, and lonely kid lookinf for a foundation to the adult he was on the edge of becoming.
This book, while published by Scholastic Press, pulls no punches about the world in which teenagers today are fighting to establish their adulthood--at the same time they are locked in artificially-extended childhood, they are bombarded with "adult" messages about sex, drugs, and lifestyles from the ubiquitous media. Therefore, James talks frankly, in sometimes vulgar language, about teenage beer parties, sex, masturbation, and sexually-transmitted diseases, and he describes the date where he loses his virginity. This is not a book for younger Scholastic readers.
So, stick with this book long enough, and you will find the likable James. However, I still only rate the book three stars because I can't shake the thought that the author's political attitudes and actions are those of the James at the beginning of the book: self-centered, self-righteous, humorless, arrogant, self-consciously disagreeable, sophomorically self-confident--and reflexively Sierra Club ultra-environmentalist. I find those political views at best misguided when expressed in the simplistic terms of a high-school student with much to learn about economics, history, politics, and human nature; I find them reprehensible when expressed by an adult who should know better.
 A funny inside 'Not Portrait' of High School January 23, 2009
J. Marsano (Urban Gristle Mill)
There are a lot of things to like about this little book. It's funny, it's about the prison sentence of high school and it has a smart, smart-aleck narrator. It might not be too far off to say there's spiritual kinship between James Hoff, our protagonist, and Rob Gordon, same of 'High Fidelity', in a sort of weird slacker/dismissive-yet-trenchant observer sort of way. He's the burner, the fool who sees reality, the self-defeating mope, all rolled up into one likable character who we get to see grow through his Junior Year of high school.
Blake Nelson captures a lot, but what strikes me as so pitch-perfect is the unnerving way that teenagers can have of catching you (and the world) with your drawers down. Hoff's various English papers move the narrative along and provide plenty of the kick.
This is a great little book.
Heartbeat City January 20, 2009
Mr. Richard D. Coreno (Berea, Ohio USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
James Hoff is searching for the truth; but he won't do it through prime-time channel surfing.
James Hoff is pondering his future; though he isn't logging onto those cool Internet sites.
James Hoff wants to change the world; and he has a plan....if people would just take a minute to understand.
Author Blake Nelson delves into the views, goals and ambitions of American teenager James Hoff in this witty and poignant "young adult" novel. Give Hoff a minute or so and he will tell it to you straight about the consumer-driven culture that numbingly dumbs down the trivial and keeps locked in the basement the real issues that are plaguing society. He will also point out the problems (pratfalls?) surrounding his former girlfriend Sadie, who refuses to make a firm commitment to changing the world (which may mean she will not alter her ways enough for the relationship to blossom).
There are valuable lessons to be learned - for readers of all ages - as Hoff tries to make sense of the world around him, while trying to wedge tangible experiences into his vision of life. And though Hoff may have different items in the shopping cart, his needs just may be closer to the things in the long aisle he refuses to travel down, since looks can be very deceiving.
Nelson - through Hoff - demonstrates that the most valuable classroom cannot be contained within four walls or lodged in a closed mind.
Showing reviews 31-35 of 35
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