Kung Fu High School

by Ryan Gattis

Book Overview

"[An] ultraviolent, dystopian debut novel from Ryan Gattis, the spawn of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Cormier." --Publishers Weekly High school is brutal, but Jen B. has learned to pick her battles.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156030365
• ISBN13: 9780156030366
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Harvest Books
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 13 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 8 to 12

Customer Reviews

Good stuff

A "My Classmate The Barbarian"-esque (If your a connoisseur of HK movies, or a Nicholas Tse fan you'll get that reference) like tale featuring a hard core girl with a bit of an incest problem.

Legendary

This book is severely a good work of literature, read this classic story of a humble fighter who never fights and is forced into a battle he doesn't want. Please go and buy this you wont be sorry.

Kung Fu

This was an amazing book but it's not written for everyone. If your only experience with violence has been through the television- you may not get this book. But if you have a personal history with violence the details used to explain everything from the taste of blood, the sound of broken bone to the inability to comprehend/deal with death at a moment's notice, this book will make so much sense to you you'll want to weep. I don't cry at books but this one almost got me. I was amazed to find out the author was a white male since the narrative is done through a half Chicana girl's perspective- and he nails it. I really loved how the character was built- violence and pain she understands, loyalty but love and basic human emotions that don't relate to pain- are a mystery she really doesn't have time for. The showdown at the end, like any good story, has to happen- someone has to try to bring down the most corrupt and evil or how can we establish who is the hero? But what made me love this book was that it didn't make the evil stop at the drug king pin- it went all the way up from principal, to police to the media to the communtiy that pretended Kung Fu didn't exist. The fight sequences are amazing- it's unsettling how true to life they are sometimes. I recommend this book to anyone with a pulse- I don't guarantee you'll like or understand it. But I loved it.

Beautifully twisted

This book is hilariously funny -- punk violence taken to an insane and wonderful degree. It's a Japanese manga brought to life -- but we have a very dark Ranma Saotome here. And Akane, who narrates the story, is as cold blooded as they come. Imagine if Furikan High were real and the consequences of all that violence were real too. Or, as someone else noted, a live action John Woo film. I cringed throughout the book -- I even skipped a few of the more brutal paragraphs -- but I loved every page. And throughout there are wonderful little illustrations that merely drive home the senseless but beautiful cruelty. Excellent, excellent book. Highly recommended for anyone with a bit of a cruel streak.

Dark and semi-sweet, like blood, not chocolate

Most teenagers would tell you that high school is about survival. But at Kung Fu High School, that imperative becomes literal. Drug kingpin and evil genius Ridley has created a community of ultra-violence, where everyone from cops to teachers are corrupt. Survival for students means learning to fight and joining one of the six "families," like mob gangs, who can watch your back. Strange heroes Jen and Jimmy are cousins who have no choice but to fight, and fight superlatively. The battle is for revenge, for fun, for survival, for family, and for life. Gattis captures the wild spirit of kung fu fighting, which is at once painful, awful, beautiful, and exhilarating. Choreographed as cleanly and elegantly as John Woo or Quentin Tarantino ever produced, the violence is graphic and vivid. His characters have depth and are surprisingly unpredictable. Like the blood that is so abundant throughout the novel, it is a dark exploration of what it feels like to fight for survival, but with unexpected warmth and sweetness. Kung fu movies are a genre unto themselves; Gattis has created a new genre of kung fu novels. And it is a great beginning.