| Smoking when Gambling | If you are smoking when you are playing online poker, then look at alternative ways to relax. By participating in a rakeback scheme for Poker, you can take a share of the house pot and see money returned. |
|
|
| Smoking in cars and vehicles | Stop smoking in your car; smoking in your car can cause problems with selling it later on it's life. Car lease suppliers also have rules on vehicle wear and tear. Smoking in cars is dangerous and can cuase untold damage. Stop smoking in cars with our help. |
|
|
| Smoking Holidays | Forget smoking with an activity holiday at Torquay Hotel TLH. An activity holiday can help take your mind off your smoking habit whilst you are looking to quit. Activies include Ballroom dancing, golf breaks and bowling. |
|
|
| Smoking While Surfing = FAIL | Stopping smoking isn't eady. The hardest part is finding the willpower to MAKE yourself stop smoking, one way to do this is to overcome your habit by replacing it with a new one, a healthy one. My suggestion to you? Surfing, its an amazing sport and by next year you'll be able to do it all year round in massive indoor surfing centres that are opening around the country. Get yourself some surf gear in preparation.
Surf Clothes
Surf Clothing. |
|
|
|
Junk (Puffin Teenage Fiction) | 
 enlarge | Author: Melvin Burgess
Publisher: Puffin Books
Category: Book
List Price: £5.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £5.98 (100%)
New (28) Used (94) from £0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  96 reviews
Sales Rank: 3934
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0140380191
EAN: 9780140380194
ASIN: 0140380191
Publication Date: April 24, 1997
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Junk is an extraordinary book, and walks a terrain that is at once terrifying and totally compelling.Tar and Gemma are in love. Tar has reasons for running away from home that run deep and sour, whereas Gemma, with her middle-class roots firmly on show, has a deep-rooted lust for adventure. Together they explore the dark world of the streets as, together, they explore the dark world of drugs, moving quickly on from the first hit of heroin that takes them towards bliss, to the next hit that ultimately leads to despair. Melvyn Burgess packs one hell of a punch in Junk, a book that is certainly unnerving in its honesty about two teenagers and their very different reasons for wanting to flee their families and their lives. The narrative is simple and to the point, adding fire to the characterisation of the two main protagonists as they dive deeper into their love affair with heroin and each other. Burgess hits hard with his convincing handling of controversial subjects ranging from alcohol abuse, prostitution, teenage pregnancy and child abuse, skilfully moving the plot and the characters forward with a pace that mirrors Tar and Gemma's spiralling relationship. Junk is a must-read for any teenager who enjoys gritty realism and a gutsy, honest approach to the books they read. But be warned, this book is not for the faint-hearted: the language is realistic, the situations are occasionally terrifying, and Burgess certainly does not glamorise any aspect of Tar and Gemma's lifestyle. Parents of teenagers should take a close look too. Age 12 and over--Susan Harrison
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 91 more reviews...
 One of the greatest books of all time... July 9, 2008
I never read Junk until i was in my late teens/early twenties and it is still my favourite book now.
I love the story of Tar and Gemma. I like the way Melvin Burgess writes as the different people within the story and each chapter is told from a different perspective.
Melvin's take on teenage life is spot on and the way he gets the social issues across is fantastic.
It's a book I can read over and over again and as soon as I open to the first page I don't put the book down until i've finished it.
Everyone should read this book!!!!
He has a unique way of writing and i'm currently working my way through as many of his books as I can manage.
 Great but completely overrated February 20, 2008
When I first read this I thought it was wonderful. I marvelled at the character relationship development and it completely sucked me into the world of drugs and prostitution. The characters have clear voices. However the book does ramble a little and the plot move quite slowly.
A truly incredibly book! February 2, 2008
When I first purchased this book, I didn't know what to expect. Upon the first few chapters, for me the book was a little slow to pick up, but I preserved. The book then spiralled into events which prevented me from putting the book down. Yes, I admit, the fact that the book switches from so many different characters views confused me slightly, I still hung on. I'm glad I did however. This book gave me such an insight as to what it's like for teenagers on the streets, on drugs, prostitution that at the end I wasn't satisfied. I simply had to read it again. A truly great purchase and I recommend it to anyone!
JUNK July 13, 2007
JUNK
Junk is an extraordinary book, and walks a terrain that is at once terrifying and totally compelling.
Tar and Gemma are in love. Tar has reasons for running away from home that run deep and sour, whereas Gemma, with her middle-class roots firmly on show, has a deep-rooted lust for adventure. Together they explore the dark world of the streets as, together, they explore the dark world of drugs, moving quickly on from the first hit of heroin that takes them towards bliss, to the next hit that ultimately leads to despair.
Melvyn Burgess packs one hell of a punch in Junk, a book that is certainly unnerving in its honesty about two teenagers and their very different reasons for wanting to flee their families and their lives.
The narrative is simple and to the point, adding fire to the characterisation of the two main protagonists as they dive deeper into their love affair with heroin and each other. Burgess hits hard with his convincing handling of controversial subjects ranging from alcohol abuse, prostitution, teenage pregnancy and child abuse, skilfully moving the plot and the characters forward with a pace that mirrors Tar and Gemma's spiralling relationship.
Junk is a must-read for any teenager who enjoys gritty realism and a gutsy, honest approach to the books they read. But be warned, this book is not for the faint-hearted: the language is realistic, the situations are occasionally terrifying, and Burgess certainly does not glamorise any aspect of Tar and Gemma's lifestyle. Parents of teenagers should take a close look too.
By The Muscle Man
junk July 13, 2007
There's a reason why this book won both the Guardian Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal and that's because it's simply brilliant - a Trainspotting for teenagers. Told in the first person mainly by teens Tar and Gemma and set in Bristol in the early 1980s, it's a very believable look at how two teenagers descend into drugs and whilst it doesn't hide from how drugs make the characters feel, it's also very good at showing what comes along with that high.
What particularly impressed me is the way that Burgess plays with the reader's sympathies. At the beginning of the book, you find yourself really sympathising with the hapless Tar who is running away from two alocholic parents - one of whom emotionally abuses him, the other physically abuses him. Gemma by contrast is shown as being quite selfish - her biggest concern is to get away from two parents whose love is suffocating and she's happy to use Tar as a means of getting away, giving him sex even though she knows that she doesn't love him. As the book progresses however, you see how drugs affect both characters and as Tar steals to fund his habit and Gemma sells her body to fund hers, you become aware of how selfish and hard Tar is becoming and how Gemma is starting to realise that she can't lie to herself much longer. It's particularly interesting to see Gemma become the stronger character towards the end of the book - she's given something to get clean for and she's determined to do it, even though it means having to return to everything she gave up. There's a good contrast here between Gemma and the apparently glamorous Lily who is unable and unwilling to make the same choices and who is revealed to be living in a pathetic state of self-delusion.
Burgess gives other characters, including Lily, her boyfriend Rob, anarchists and squatters Vonny and Richard and tobacco shop owner Skolly to give an additional perspective on Tar and Gemma's story and also to flesh out the attitudes to and affects of taking heroin. The effect is to reinforce the drastic nature of Gemma and Tar's decline and Burgess is not afraid to pull his punches - his look at Gemma, Sally's and Lily's descent into prostitution is chilling. Neither does Burgess pull his punches when it comes to showing how difficult it is to come off heroin - Tar in particular is used to reinforce what an ordeal it is and Burgess doesn't shy away from describing the physical as well as the mental affects and also how the temptation to use is always there, even when the characters have come off the junk.
It's difficult to find anything to criticise about the book - Burgess keeps his character's voices distinct.
Anyone who thinks that their children will find drugs attractive as a result of reading this book is a fool. It's genuinely horrifying and chilling and I don't think that any teenager with half a brain would come away thinking that heroin is a great life choice.
written by HOBO
|
|
|
Powered by UK Medical Health - The UK's leading health information site | |
