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    Punkzilla
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    Punkzilla
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    Punkzilla
    Audiobook4 hours

    Punkzilla

    Written by Adam Rapp

    Narrated by Matthew Stadelmann

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Fourteen-year-old Jamie, aka "Punkzilla," is on a mission: to see his older brother, Peter ("P"), before P dies of cancer. Hopping a bus while still buzzing from his last hit of meth, Jamie embarks on a days-long bus trip from Portland, Oregon, to Memphis, Tennessee, writing letters to his family and friends-letters so honest he may never send them.

    Along the way, he sees a sketchier side of America the Beautiful: seedy motels, dicey bus stations, and a colorful, sometimes dangerous cast of characters. In letters he writes to P, he catalogs them all-the freaky but kind transsexual, the old woman with the oozing eye, the girl with the long wavy blond hair. But with each individual he meets and each interstate exit he passes, Jamie grows more anxious. Will he make it to Tennessee in time?

    "Beneath a surface of disease, despair, and disfigurements, Rapp's road trip is populated with good souls who, despite their circumstances, make significant sacrifices to help Punkzilla....Devastating stuff, but breathtaking, too." -Booklist, starred review

    "Reads like a contemporary version of On the Road....Fans will be more than happy to be in Adam Rapp's company again." -Kirkus Reviews

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateDec 28, 2010
    ISBN9781441892997
    Unavailable
    Punkzilla
    Author

    Adam Rapp

    Adam Rapp is an OBIE Award-winning playwright and director, as well as a novelist, filmmaker, actor, and musician. His play The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois had its world première last month at South Coast Repertory. His other plays include Red Light Winter (Citation from the American Theatre Critics Association, a Lucille Lortel Nomination for Best New Play, two OBIE Awards, and was named a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize), Blackbird, The Metal Children, Finer Noble Gases, Through The Yellow Hour, The Hallway Trilogy, Nocturne, Ghosts in the Cottonwoods, Animals and Plants, Stone Cold Dead Serious, Faster, Gompers, Essential Self-Defense, American Slingo, and Kindness. For film, he wrote the screenplay for Winter Passing; and recently directed Loitering with Intent. Rapp has been the recipient of the 1999 Princess Grace Award for Playwriting, a 2000 Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the 2001 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, and Boston’s Elliot Norton Award; and was short-listed for the 2003 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, received the 2006 Princess Grace Statue, a 2007 Lucille Lortel Playwriting Fellowship, and the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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    Reviews for Punkzilla

    3.5/5

    98 ratings18 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Fourteen-year-old Jamie (aka Punkzilla) is AWOL from military school. He's already lived hand to mouth in a west coast city, stealing iPods, doing cheap drugs, and getting the occasional joyless hand job. Now he is headed to Memphis where his oldest brother, Peter, a gay playwright, is dying from cancer. His story is told through his letters to Peter as he hitchhikes across the country, written in the backseats of cars, under a tree where a man hanged himself, and ultimately in retrospect when he reaches his journey's sad end. Raw, devastating, astonishing, exquisitely bleak. Rapp never disappoints.
    • 4/5
      Grade 10-12. Fourteen-year-old Jamie ("Punkzilla") has run away from military school, spent time living hand-to-mouth, and is now traveling across the United States to see his gay brother, Peter, who has been case out by his parents and is dying of cancer. Told through Jamie's stream of consciousness letters to his brother, the narrative feels both wandering and authentic. Coming down from his last hit of meth as he hits the road, Jamie is not a blameless youthful narrator. His journey puts him in contact with a whole host of disenfranchised, broken characters, and further introduces him to the grittier side of life. Through his letters, Jamie reveals to his brother (and readers) his history of isolation, crime, sexual discover, familiar frustration, and hope despite it all. Raw and filled with the clash of idealism and reality, "Punkzilla" reveals the rougher edges of modern life while still offering a glimmer of hope both for readers and for Jamie.
    • 4/5
      The story of fourteen year old Jamie, aka Punkzilla, is told through a series of letters he receives and writes. He is on a journey to Memphis, TN, to visit his sick brother. Unbeknownst to his family, he has gone AWOL from his military school. While on this journey to his brother, he has to deal with harsh realities and several problems.This book was way too raw for me to even think about sharing with a seventh or eighth grade class. There was really bad language, and though I'm sure most students these days know all these words and more, I would hate to be the one to deal with the parents that disapprove of the story. Besides the language, some of his experiences would not be something I would like to study and explore with young students. I loved the book, but at the same time, I'm a fully grown adult and the language doesn't bother me. It was so all over the place that I couldn't help but be interested and want to keep reading to see what would happen next. It is funny how, on a couple of occasions, his androgynous looks worked in his favor because people are usually more prone to help a female in distress. His relationship with his brother was sweet, and it was good that he had someone there for him.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books of 2009. Too bad I didn't get around to reading it until now because I definitely would've fought for it to be included in the Mock Printz.Rapp has created some amazing and unforgettable characters in this road trip novel. Punkzilla is a 14 year old boy who runs away from military school and starts living his own life. After discovering his brother is dying of cancer, Punkzilla leaves Portland, OR and begins an adventure full of buses, bullies, transgenders and others.Rapp really knows how to write about those who live on the fringe. The stream-of-consciousness writing is unbelievably honest and gut-wrenching and puts you into the mind of the main character.I can't recommend this book enough. It's a Diane Arbus photo come to life
    • 4/5
      Jamie sets off on a journey across the country to see his terminally ill brother before it's too late. As a ex-military school runaway, Jamie has led a full and sad life encountering other unfortunate kids. Rapp's language is raw and realistic, and the stream of consciousness narration is reminiscent of Holden Caulfied. Issues of sex and gender accompany Jamie on his cross country trip from Portland to Memphis. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      14-year-old Jamie -- known as Punkzilla to his friends -- describes his journey from Oregon to Memphis in letters to the dying brother he's on his way to see. Zilla's life has been a banal teen tragedy since his flight from military school; he lives in a Portland flophouse, pays his way with petty scams and pettier theft, and makes life bearable with meth, pot, and huffed glue. When his adult brother writes that he's dying of cancer, Jamie hops a Greyhound. His journey introduces him to people in all their complications: the good, the bad, the confusing, the bathetic. He encounters the woman with the dripping eye, the overly-lucid child who provides him with sympathy when he's mugged in a bus station toilet, and the fatherly man with questionable motivations. Some of the people he meets, such as the transgendered Iraq war vet with diabetes, become real people to him. Others remain just a collection of oddities: drivers who pick him up, victims of Zilla's own robberies, or potential sexual exploiters. Zilla's lens on the world is painful, and his isolation painful to inhabit. But though this book lacks surprises, the emotional investment (will he reach his brother in time?) is enough to keep the pages turning. Gritty and inexplicably touching.13-up. (Casual sex, sexual abuse, casual drug use)
    • 4/5
      High School and Up - Fourteen year old Jamie, or Punkzilla, as he's come to be known, has been living the past few months in a Portland low-rent home for street kids and the otherwise homeless when a letter from his older brother sends him busing and hitch-hiking across the country. In Memphis, his 27-year old brother Peter has cancer, and Punkzilla wants to see him before he dies. Punkzilla tells his story through unsent letters to Peter written in a notebook - where he's also tucked some letters from his brothers, parents, and friends. Punkzilla introduces us to a host of unusual and memorable characters, and its honest portrayal of life on the street and its inherent reliance on strangers, makes for a sometimes disturbing, sometimes hopeful, always compulsive read.Recommended for public library teen collections and medium to large high school libraries.
    • 4/5
      Jamie's family sent him to a military academy to shape up. Failing at drill, he ran. After a stretch in Portland, Oregon, he contacts his older brother who had also split from the family and lives in Tennessee. Discovering that the brother was seriously ill, Jamie, street name Punkzilla, sets off on a journey from Oregon to Tennessee.
    • 5/5
      Adam Rapp hits the nail on the head again with Punkzilla. I wondered if he'd permanently lost his touch with Year of Endless Sorrow, but he's got it back. Punkzilla revists many of the things Rapp has written about in previous books: the military academy, intellectually precocious children, pedophilia, drugs, aimless wandering. The only thing missing were his gorgeous similies and believe me, I felt the loss.The book consists of a series of letters concerning Jamie "Punkzilla," who went AWOL from a military boarding school about six months ago and has been on the run ever since. Most of them are journal-type letters he's writing to his older brother, but there are also several letters written to Punkzilla by others. The letters aren't in chronological order, but they are dated so it's pretty easy to make sense of them. Each letter-writer has a distinctive voice, and though many of them get only one or two letters each, those few pages were enough to very clearly show Punkzilla's relationship with that person. Punkzilla's letter/journals to his brother P seem like something a real fourteen-year-old boy would have written, and his reactions to the events of his cross-country journey and the people he encounters ring true as well.This book is very bleak and not for the faint of heart, but it's not as dark as many Rapp books and it ends on a hopeful note. I zipped right through it and really enjoyed it. Very much recommended.
    • 2/5
      I received this book from the early reviewers batch. Punkzilla is a book that opens readers' minds up into a world that is rarely heard about. Jamie runs away from a military school he is sent to and tries to find his way to Memphis, where his homosexual brother is dying of cancer. The well-written story is brutally honest and not meant to be read by an immature audience.
    • 2/5
      Punkzilla embodied all the usual YA plot elements: runaways, homosexuality, drug/alcohol use and abuse, "dumbed-down" narratives, severe mental problems, losing virginity, etc. The voice and lack of grammar kept me from really getting into the book. I kept going because I needed to know how it ended, but I was largely disappointed. It almost felt too neatly tied together, which is ironic since Rapp leaves us with so many loose ends. I enjoyed getting to know extraneous characters, but could not bother to care for the lead. Most of the time I felt the author would write something shocking and slightly offensive just for the sake of being shocking and slightly offensive. His objective is still a mystery to me. The book was easy to read, and I can't say it wasn't compelling, but its shortfalls exceed its bright spots.
    • 3/5
      Narrated by Matthew Stadelmann. Jamie is sent to military school after a rebellious period but he runs away to Portland, Oregon, where he runs with other outcast teenagers and engages in petty crimes. He receives a letter from older brother Pete that reveals he is dying and would like to see Jamie again soon. During his bus and hitchhiking journey to Memphis to see Pete, Jamie pens letters to his brother sharing his road experiences and inner thoughts. Narrator Stadelmann sounded vaguely like Ray Romano trying to sound cool which for me took the edge off what should be the edgy voice of a troubled teen.
    • 3/5
      This was a very gritty read. Punkzilla is a kid named Jamie trying to make his way to Memphis to see his brother before he dies of cancer. The book is written in epistolary. Mostly it's letters that Jamie is writing to Peter but there are also letters from his parents and other brother Edward and a few other select people. He's been living on the streets since he ran away from a military academy his parents sent him to. Neither of the boys get along with their father. When Jamie lives on the streets he steals, attacks people, does drugs and fools around with girls. A lot of this is painful to read about and it feels horrible to watch. However there are shining moments and they are mostly in the form of some of the people he meets. Some of the people that offer him rides and help him out are in fact the scum of the earth, pretty much the way you think they would be, but there are also some great people; like Sam, a kid he meets at the bus station after getting jumped in the bathroom. Sam treats the incident as kind of matter of fact but also helps Jamie as much as he can, but in a way that is so natural that you know Sam doesn't even think of it as helping Jamie. I also love getting the extra insight into Sam through his letter to author of the robot invasion book. There is also Lewis the transsexual that gives him a place to crash for a few days and even offers to drive Jamie to Memphis. These characters are what keep this book from being completely dark and terrible. It's these characters that led me to give it an extra star.
    • 4/5
      This is a completely conflicting book. Very readable. Great story. There's meaning here. But damn. What a freaking downer! Even the high points are depressing. You feel like things are pretty good, and then you examine it, and it's extra depressing that that's what good is like for this character. And I don't think there's improvement on the horizon.But if you like teen realistic fiction of the gritty, depressing variety, then by all means. This fits the bill and is worth the read.
    • 3/5
      I’ve put off writing a review for Punkzilla by Adam Rapp because I’m a little intimidated. Punkzilla was given a Printz Honor medal, which means this book is legit. That shouldn’t matter but it does because people who actually know what they’re talking about hold this book high in esteem. What more can I say about it?Books like Punkzilla send conservative parents in a book-banning tizzy. It touches on drug use, homosexuality, pedophilia, the struggles of transgendered individuals, sex, mental abuse, and death. It’s hard to believe that all of that exists within 200 pages of a young adult novel. None of it is gratuitous, but I’d be lying if I said parts of this book didn’t make me uncomfortable. Sometimes that’s the point though.The story of Punkzilla is told through a collection of letters. Most of the time, Punkzilla is writing to his dying brother, but letters from Punkzilla’s family are sprinkled throughout. These letters from Punkzilla’s family present a different side to the story or at least provide a richer reading experience. Throughout his letters, Punkzilla’s voice seems genuine. I mean, if you can get over the fact that few thirteen year olds could write that way stylistically, then it seems genuine. He writes like his mind if going a mile a minute from the meth he did the night before. He’s so honest in his letters about all the horrible things he’s done. But what’s even more interesting is, despite his hooligan tendencies, his innocence shines through when he meets various people on his travels. It’s in these instances the reader catches a glimpse at how vulnerable Punkzilla is, and really it’s kind of heartbreaking.The only letdown in Adam Rapp’s Punkzilla was the ending. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the ending. Punkzilla’s decisions left me satisfied. But, I thought it ended rather abruptly, like Rapp ran out of steam.
    • 5/5
      Jamie, known as Punkzilla, has been living in a low rent hotel in Portland since he went AWOL from military school. He went off his meds and survives on money he makes stealing iPods and doing cheap drugs. When he finds out his older brother Peter, a gay playwright, is dying of cancer, he begins a harrowing journey to Memphis. Told in a series of unsent letters to Peter and mixed with old correspondences from family and friends. A Junior Library Guild Selection and 2010 Michael L. Printz Honor Award, 2010 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, 2009 Booklist Editor’s Choice-Books for Youth-Older Reader’s Category.
    • 4/5
      Jamie's family sent him to a military academy to shape up. Failing at drill, he ran. After a stretch in Portland, Oregon, he contacts his older brother who had also split from the family and lives in Tennessee. Discovering that the brother was seriously ill, Jamie, street name Punkzilla, sets off on a journey from Oregon to Tennessee.
    • 4/5
      Punkzilla by Adam RappTold in a series of letters, Punkzilla follows the exploits of fourteen-year-old Jamie, who is taking busses and hitchhiking from Portland, Oregon to Memphis, Tennessee to visit his terminally ill brother. Along the way he meets a series of bizarre characters, some of whom want to help him and some who would rather take advantage of Jamie’s youth and vulnerability out on the road. Jamie also recounts the unpleasant experiences he was subjected to at a military academy and how he went AWOL from there. This edgy novel is not for the faint of heart but is sure to keep adventurous readers turning pages. I saw one review that recommended it for grades ten to twelve and I feel that is accurate. The book would definitely receive an R rating if it was turned into a movie. Still, a sex scene between Jamie (nicknamed Punkzilla) and a girl with lupus is done realistically and without sensationalism. Jamie’s interactions and brief friendship with a transsexual part of the way through his gender-changing surgery are also tastefully done. The book does at some times read like a laundry list of the bizarre and seedy, but Jamie and even the most minor characters are portrayed with care and empathy. Highly recommended.