"Wander the halls of any typical American high school, and chances are the students you meet will be very much like these: Christine "YY" Younskevicius: a popular overachiever whose success comes at the price of recurrent attacks of panic and exhaustion... John Boyd: a talented football star hoping for a scholarship that will rescue him from his home in a housing project plagued by drug dealers... Jaimee Sheehy: a haunting figure aimlessly roaming the halls who avoids her classes, her future, and reality... Andrea Taylor: who breaks through racial barriers when she finds herself in the running to become the first black girl in her school's history chosen as Homecoming Queen... Mike Broom: the bright but embittered product of a broken home who is failing all his classes and sports a tattoo proclaiming anarchy." "Welcome to high school at the end of the 20th century." "YY, John, Jaimee, Andrea, and Mike are just five of the students that award-winning journalist Thomas French got to know during the unforgettable year he spent inside the walls of Largo High School in western Florida. In an attempt to discover firsthand what's really going on today in teenage America, French attended classes and faculty meetings. While hanging out in the cafeteria and going to football games and dances, he gained the trust of the students and obtained almost unlimited access into a world few adults can imagine." "As he discovered, high school in the 1990s is more than the pep rallies, proms, driving lessons, and algebra tests you may remember. It is also a place where the pressure to succeed can drive students to commit suicide, where others hide guns inside their lockers, and where the usual tortures of adolescence are compounded by drugs, divorce, AIDS, and a widespread emptiness felt by so many teenagers." "Newspaper headlines and the evening news only skim the surface of life in teenage America, and "Beverly Hills 90210" is far from how things really are. But South of Heaven tells the whole story: by focusing on five students who could be your neighbours, your friends, or your own children, this important and compelling narrative documents the inner thoughts and almost secret world of teenagers today." "An affecting and alarming read for both parents and teenagers - who may very well see themselves within its pages - South of Heaven is a provocative portrait of what it's like to be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen in America right now."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved