Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by jamiedarlin
Apple: Skin to the Core by Eric Gansworth
5.0
I loved this book, beginning to end, and I think prose poetry is a perfect and beautiful format for the author's story—what better way to capture the nuance of complicated human experience, which itself can be fragmented and full of stops and starts, cliffhangers and unjustified text/events? I also loved the use of the Beatles's Apple Records albums as framework for the text/life experiences. All of it so carefully and intricately woven together.
I've read some critiques about this not being for young adults, and I'd like to posit that perhaps we don't give teenagers enough credit. So much of the required reading in a teen's curriculum is about adult experiences (literature, history, civics, etc.)—we should anticipate and hope their intelligence and imagination would afford them the ability to understand and be interested in a narrative that begins in youth and extends into adulthood, and that explores themes and experiences that may be outside of their own. Plenty of teenagers have to read Shakespeare or Homer or the Canterbury Tales in their coursework—if they can navigate those works, I assure you, they'll have no trouble with the format here.
I've read some critiques about this not being for young adults, and I'd like to posit that perhaps we don't give teenagers enough credit. So much of the required reading in a teen's curriculum is about adult experiences (literature, history, civics, etc.)—we should anticipate and hope their intelligence and imagination would afford them the ability to understand and be interested in a narrative that begins in youth and extends into adulthood, and that explores themes and experiences that may be outside of their own. Plenty of teenagers have to read Shakespeare or Homer or the Canterbury Tales in their coursework—if they can navigate those works, I assure you, they'll have no trouble with the format here.