Don’t just read Slammed…Experience it! 

I picked up Slammed by Colleen Hoover after reading November 9, because I wanted to read more of Hoover’s work. If you’ve done any romance reading in the past eight-ish years, you’ve likely heard of her already, especially since her book It Ends with Us is being made into a movie starring Blake Lively. While a lot of her recent work falls in the adult category, her debut novel Slammed seems to fit in young adult given the age of the characters and the nature of their relationship. 

Here goes: When Layken begrudgingly moves from her childhood home after a death in the family, she quickly finds something, or rather someone, to make the relocation bearable: her neighbor Will. But on her first day of school, she discovers he’s actually her poetry teacher, which makes their attraction forbidden. However, realizing that they shouldn’t be together and still seeing each other everyday is hard, especially when they both have things going on that would be a lot easier if they were able to confide in each other. How will Layken manage to have a normal senior year when her situation is so complicated? 

I’m not going to lie, media that glorifies teacher student relationships, especially ones aimed at teens, always leaves me feeling a bit queasy (Pretty Little Liars and Life Unexpected, yes, I’m talking about you) but Slammed didn’t hit me that way. Instead I felt a lot of sympathy for both Layken and Will. I don’t want to give too much away, but I felt like they both handled the hurdles thrown at them pretty well considering they are both fairly young, figuring out a lot about themselves, and both facing some rather heavy personal obstacles. 

Lucky for me, Hoover made finding a way to experience her book pretty easy. A big focus of the story is on poetry since class is the way Layken and Will are able to see one another. Both characters do a lot of writing about their feelings in a somewhat veiled way, sometimes to communicate with one another but also sometimes just to process their emotions. Will, in an effort to pass on his love of poetry to his students, uses music to engage his class. He specifically uses the music of The Avett Brothers to prove his point. It turns out Layken is a fan, also. Their music turns up a number of times throughout the book, especially in a few emotional scenes. Prior to each chapter there’s even lyrics from various songs of theirs chosen based on what is happening in the story at the time.  

…So obviously I went to Spotify and listened to the songs in the specified order, which were as follows: 

I immediately liked their folk/rock sound, which gave me Judah the Lion vibes. Yes, I can admit that it’s odd to compare The Avett Brothers to this band when The Avett Brothers have been around longer. However, I’m just hearing about them now, which is yet another example of how reading continues to make my world bigger, connecting me to so many experiences I would otherwise miss.  

I thought it was pretty impressive that some of The Avett Brother’s currently top listened to tracks were live songs where they were singing with big names like Willie Nelson. I also discovered they toured in 2021 with Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, which is another group I already thoroughly enjoy listening to. Then again, it makes sense that they would get to collaborate with successful artists given the fact they can rock an up beat song, like “Gimmie a Kiss”, sell a melancholy number, like “Salina”, make heavy ideas seem light, like in “Die Die Die”, and portray the beauty in small moments in songs such as “If It’s the Beaches.” 

Want information about purchasing this book from Neighborhood Reads, a local Washington, MO book store? Click the book cover above!