Exploring

Glancing at the long list of references, the title that stood out most to me was Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia’s Dead End Kids by Donna Gaines. Initially my thoughts about the book based on the title and the cover were suburban, sheltered , white kids who were influenced by rap music because they thought it was the ”cool” thing to do. After reading the first couple of pages I found it hard to put the book down. The story is based on true events of four youth that made a suicide pact. Their interest in heavy metal is that assumed reason why the group of kids committed suicide. This book is interesting because I never understood why people would voluntarily want to kill themselves. It would give me somewhat of an idea of how and why people, especially kids would want to kill themselves. Reading several paragraphs from the novel, her passionate style of writing made it very clear that she cares about the youth the today’s society. I did my research and discovered that has a Ph.D. in Sociology, and a Masters degree in Social Work. She is also an international expert on youth violence and culture. Due to her extensive background in sociology and other social work with the youth, she is a perfect candidate for writing this book.