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Schule > Englisch > Nick McDonell - Twelve > Twelve, McDonell

Twelve by Nick McDonell

At the center of the story is White Mike, a philosophical private school dropout who now sells drugs to New York's richest and most spoiled kids. His mother is dead, died of cancer. He helps his father by managing fast-food-restaurants, but this is only the official version, in reality he deals with drugs, weed, marihuana, coke and twelve, this new designer drug. The book is called twelve because of this drug-name. White Mike sells fun. "I am the party", he says in the book. But he had never smoked himself, never drank alcohol. He wears coats by Brooks-Brothers and pullovers. He looks like James Dean, very good, very cool.
The story begins four days before New Year's Eve and ends New Year's Eve.
What do you want? Sarah wants to be the same as her grandmother was, a star because she had once a big party at Long Island and was at the front-page of the people magazine. Sarah wants to be famous, too, and because of that she wants to have a party at Chris' house, with a lot of friends, an open-house party. Chris wants to have sex for the first time. Preferably with Sarah, so the party is okay. But Andrew wants to have Sex with Sarah, too. Claude, Chris' brother, wants to look like Bruce Willis and he buys a lot of weapons in Chinatown. Jessica wants to have this drug, twelve, she wants to have that feeling which twelve gave her. She wants to have much more of this and so she steals the money of their parents to buy this drug from Lionel, the dealer where White Mike gets twelve, too. Hunter is in jail because he is suspected to have killed a black in Harlem. And Charlie? Charlie doesnt want to have anything more. He is dead, shot, because he watched a drug-deal. He is the first person who died in the story.
Those teens in "twelve" are either very happy or very hopeless. They are all rich, in the upper-class, so money is only a little factor in their life, they want to have fun. Their parents live their own lives, often alcoholics like Hunter's father or never at home like White Mike's father. Everybody lives his own life, with a lot trouble but nobody is there for help.
Nick McDonell's story tells of a dozen friends who all know each other anyway. Everybody is searching for a feeling, a better feeling; usually it ends up in anger and pain, which is the following of the short happiness.
"Jessica does another hit, and the tingling gets fuller and goes from her spin into the back of her head. She locks her knees and tightens her buttocks and rests the back of her head on the top of the tank. A huge grin breaks out over her face, and the colors of the bathroom dance in her vision. Jessica giggles and flows off the toilet, her face sliding easily against the porcelain and leaving a trail of sweat..." p. 29
Claude had taken coke for a long time, but then he gave up. Now he has a real better thing than drugs; He collects weapons.
"Claude is in his room, stripped to his underwear, practicing with double-edged sword. Later, he sits on the edge of his bed with a whetstone, sharpening."
Ill fuck you." She doesn't even look at Lionel, just keeps staring at the bag in his hand, full of twelve. "I'm a virgin!" Lionel agrees to give her the bag for two fucks. She looks at Lionel and takes hold of the bottom of her sweater. She pulls it over her head, and in the blue light her pale breasts appear, supported by a simple white bra."
p. 225/226
That's the New Year's Eve party to which the whole story is walking to. This is the night in which the story ends, the night in which everything changes and everything will be new. They are all heroes, when they are having party at Chris's home, everybody is there. But in the end, they are all heroes in their own blood. And whose life is going on, will be changed forever. Maybe changed in a kind to manage one's life better.

Who is Nick McDonell?
Nick McDonell was 17 when he wrote this book, every day a thousand words; he finished at the end of his summer vacations. His parents are also very talented, his father Tery is a chief editor of a famous sport magazine, and his mother Joanie is novelist, too. Twelve is sold in about 12 countries; the film rights are also sold.
Nick McDonell is now 19 and studying in Havard. He wrote a story which was nearly his own, he said in an interview. Maybe this is the reason for writing that interesting and that exciting.
It was very interesting to read this book because it's about teenagers. They are all in the same age as we are at the moment so you can see exactly our lifestyle in comparison to the American. If you read it this way, it's amazing how many differences there are. I also like the book because it has only little chapters, about three pages, so it is very easy to read. The story is told in short sentences, but this makes the story very interesting! And McDonell can describe the feelings and emotions of the teens better that way! What I liked best of the book is that you cant stop reading. It is written in a way that you want to know more and more and then you are interested to know the end. I needed only two days to read the book.

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