Cupertino eBook Matt Szymanowski
Download As PDF : Cupertino eBook Matt Szymanowski 
Cupertino Story is a vivid tale of troubled adolescents and misfits - a perceptive fiction debut from a promising new literary voice. This raw portrait of a lost generation traces the lives of teenagers and their experiments with vices of all kinds, struggles with family and one another, as they succumb to passivity, self destructive and often heartless nihilism.
Stevo lives in a world of casual privilege, acute moral entropy and reckless abandon. The weight of his older brother’s mysterious disappearance begins to permeate through his everyday life. After writing a disturbing school essay he’s put into therapy and given anti depressants. He’s continuously entranced by a mysterious new girl at school named Holly who may or may not be a high class call girl. His best friend Drake’s repressed homosexual bent becomes more evident with their drug induced adventures. The dizzying whirlwind of desperation takes Stevo through relentless parties in dot com villas, seedy bars, Santa Cruz bonfires, and also into the lesser known world of Silicon Valley after dark.
Cupertino eBook Matt Szymanowski
I like how it conversationally reads and depicts the raw realities of youth growing up in the suburbs. I like how Stevo is the main focus and even though his struggles of loneliness and emptiness are very much the same struggles of his male comrades, girls, Roman and his parents to some degree, the focus on Stevo creates this greater feeling of the separation he feels from everyone. I think the simple yet profound sentence, "YOU ARE HERE", articulates Stevo's subconscious centering him to the reality that he really IS present and is aware of what's going on around him and in his interactions, despite his outward behavior and despite what others, such as the therapist, tell him. Cupertino is a good read and definitely portrays the harsh realities of youth struggles - universal, yet specific in terms of the economic class, culture and city. A stark contrast to the Apple HQ life happening next door.Product details
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Tags : Amazon.com: Cupertino eBook: Matt Szymanowski: Kindle Store,ebook,Matt Szymanowski,Cupertino,JUVENILE FICTION Social Issues Drugs, Alcohol, Substance Abuse,FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS Life Stages Adolescence
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Cupertino eBook Matt Szymanowski Reviews
Reviewed on behalf of The Review Board by Harmony Kent.
I received a free PDF copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
I have to start by saying that this isn’t a book I would choose to read. Chances are, I wouldn’t pick it up off the shelf, and if I did, I wouldn’t have read past the first page or two. However, I was asked to read and review this book, and so I committed to it. When I review, I don’t base my rating on genre, but rather on how well written a book is—regardless of whether I enjoy it or not.
Cupertino Story is told in the first person, and follows a young adolescent guy in trouble. He is into drugs, sex, and all the classic self-destructive behaviours. After submitting an essay at school, he ends up in counselling and on medication. I don’t want to say too much, as I don’t want to give the story away. Suffice it to say, as the narrative places the reader behind the main character’s eyes for the entirety of the book, it makes for uncomfortable reading (or it did for me).
As much as I didn’t connect with the main character at all—which is a big deal because the book is entirely character driven—I have to give the writer credit for the strength of my negative reaction. To garner any response from a reader, especially a strong one, whether this be positive or negative, takes skill. The character has to feel real in so many ways; otherwise that emotional response wouldn’t be there.
At times the reading felt disjointed and difficult to follow, but this is because it accurately portrayed the state of our young man’s mind. It showed his experience graphically. On the whole, the writing is solid and to the point. I picked up on a few spelling mistakes (suite instead of suit, and that kind of thing). And the writing is passive in style, which is partly masked by the use of present tense. Having said that, it is tight and doesn’t ramble. The plot keeps moving at a suspenseful pace, which doesn’t let up at all until the final page.
Did I enjoy this book? No, I didn’t. Do I admire the skill behind this kind of fictional writing? Yes, I do. So, not an enjoyable or easy book for me, and not one I would ordinarily be drawn to, but a realistic one for all that. The writer has used the style to show the disturbed mind and how it experiences the world around it, which I can only applaud. The scene setting and character drawing all feel realistic, and are anything but cardboard cut outs they definitely have three dimensions. I offer 8 out of 10 TRB stars for this book, which equates to 4 out of 5 stars on other rating scales.
From jbgarner58.wordpress.com
There are a myriad of flavors out there in the literary kitchen and just as many textures, mixes, and creative twists. From time to time, you can come across something that is a strong, expertly crafted flavor that you know has been precisely blended and masterfully cooked but twists in your tongue all the same. You sit there, knowing that while the dish on your plate is not in synch with your own tastes, that it is a great literary recipe all the same. That level of transcendence beyond the reader’s palate is the mark of something special. So have I given away the entire review in the first paragraph?
Read on, literary foodie, and find out! But before you do, let me recount the Starving Review creed
I attempt to rate every book from the perspective of a fan of the genre.
I attempt to make every review as spoiler-free as possible.
Yes, maybe I did. However, I could start no discussion of the culinary qualities of Cupertino Story without doing so. The basic fact is that Mr. Szymanowski’s stark look at a disassociated generation playing chicken with decadence is a piece of excellent literary cooking yet all the same disturbed me as a reader on a deep level. That, I believe, was the point.
I wasn’t disturbed in some sort of moral outrage. Instead, I was drawn in by the intense realistic depiction of the main character and his world, one that wasn’t unfamiliar to me, and, as that world began to unravel, that deep connection and characterization would often make me pause, having to set the book aside for some time to absorb and process that last twist. In other words, this book is powerful if shocking, certainly pushing the envelope of the average reader’s comfort zones.
That is a good thing. It is important for our notions, our ideas, and our self-image to be pushed out of the norm. We need to try new foods, experience new flavors, travel the literary world (and the real one) to truly understand who we are and where we are. Aiding in that is one of the greatest strengths of this short yet weighty tale.
To touch on the core mechanics of Mr. Szymanowski’s recipe, the author touches almost all of the right steps in his wordcraft. Characterization, as I mentioned, is intense for the main character and suitably dream-like for most of the minor characters, fitting the tone of the piece immensely. Speaking of tone, the mood, the setting, and the wordplay itself all create this bleak and at times twisted scene. Foreshadowing is done neatly and subtly, while still leaving seeds of doubt in the reader’s mind as to just what is going on. If I were to have any qualms at all with the recipe, it is that the pacing is a little slow after the initial hook. Not impossibly slow but slow enough that I did notice the change of pace. In the end though, this is, at most, a minor quibble that detracts almost nothing from the book as a whole.
There really is little else I can say without intense spoilers so let me wrap this up as best I can. Cupertino Story is a bleak but startling realistic tale of disaffected youth, the onset of decadence, and the unraveling of one young man’s life in the middle of it. It’s powerful, disturbing and shocking at turns, but well worth the read. However, anyone that is put off by depictions of graphic violence, the effects of drug abuse, or sexual content should turn this dish down. Everyone else, give this a go. It may not be an easy read but its worth the work to swallow it down.
FINAL VERDICT ***** (A bitter meal to swallow but the expert blends and stark realism make it worth the effort!)
I like how it conversationally reads and depicts the raw realities of youth growing up in the suburbs. I like how Stevo is the main focus and even though his struggles of loneliness and emptiness are very much the same struggles of his male comrades, girls, Roman and his parents to some degree, the focus on Stevo creates this greater feeling of the separation he feels from everyone. I think the simple yet profound sentence, "YOU ARE HERE", articulates Stevo's subconscious centering him to the reality that he really IS present and is aware of what's going on around him and in his interactions, despite his outward behavior and despite what others, such as the therapist, tell him. Cupertino is a good read and definitely portrays the harsh realities of youth struggles - universal, yet specific in terms of the economic class, culture and city. A stark contrast to the Apple HQ life happening next door.
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