Rating: 
Summary: a "sneaky quiet sprint" through a teen love story
Review: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love." (1 John 4:18)Life is not sanitized and easy. Kerouac knew this from hard-bitten experience. The amazing thing about Jack was that when it was over, he could always sing about it in his books. he does so here in "Maggie Cassidy." I have felt the kind of stuff Jack talks about in this book. The illusion of teen "love" is one of the most wretched feelings in all the world...its elation is too high...too painful. Its ending is wrenching of the soul...usually quickly followed by the joy of illusory freedom. Still, it sticks your head for years after like an annoying song that won't go away--Keroauc gets all this down in one hundred and ninety-four pages...amazing. Get this book. I recommend it highly to all who've been stung by what they thought was love when they were young.
Rating: 
Summary: Jack Pre-Booze-ouac
Review: A must-read for Kerouac afficionados. The depiction of his teenage years in Lowell, though sentimental at times, are some of his most beautiful prose; full of sunsets, football and first kisses.
Kerouac-Virgins should check out his 'On the Road' or 'The Subterraneans' first.
Rating: 
Summary: This isnt just about teen love!
Review: I read this book about 3 years ago. For whatever reason, this is the only Kerouac book i've read so far (people tend to read On the Road first, or maybe Dharma Bums). I liked it a lot, it is a very sweet story about the relationship of two teenagers. But being a female teenager when i read it (i'm 22 now), it was a little hard for me to relate. I think a teenage boy would enjoy this a lot more than I did. There was a lot of good dialog... and parts of the plot (sports, friends, family)other than the relationship that were enjoyable too. Overall, I would consider this a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Story of SWEET young love....
Review: I read this book about 3 years ago. For whatever reason, this is the only Kerouac book i've read so far (people tend to read On the Road first, or maybe Dharma Bums). I liked it a lot, it is a very sweet story about the relationship of two teenagers. But being a female teenager when i read it (i'm 22 now), it was a little hard for me to relate. I think a teenage boy would enjoy this a lot more than I did. There was a lot of good dialog... and parts of the plot (sports, friends, family)other than the relationship that were enjoyable too. Overall, I would consider this a good read.
Rating:
Summary: 30's Love at It's Best
Review: Jack Kerouac, writer of many a romantic tale; stories set out wst on roads hitchhiking, listening to jazz till 4 a.m., and just living by the moment, but not this one. Although it is written in his similar romantic run-on sentenced style that captivates any lover od literature, it's a story about his teen years back home. Most of it revolving around his love with his girl Maggie Cassidy. Being a teenager you see connections and dumb teenage stereotypes, that are sad but true. Stories of drunken New Years with the boys, tales of the track and football team, and mostly that story of love, the "world revolves around us" love.
"The wild windows of other houses and Saturday night parties shining the spilling molen hot gold of real life." This quote was from Jack's 18th birthday party, where his whole world (family and friends) were all dancing, mingling, and basically having a great time. This quote describes some of the amazing weekends we have as high school kids, where the fun seems to keep coming at ya.
Stories of high school parties, buddies, girls, drama, and love are all packed into 194 pages; every page telling a new adventure. Whether it be Jack's short life as a prep school student on a football scholarship, or his first generation French-American parents, or even just his nights with the boys. Anyone who is or has been enrolled in high school and been involved in the complicated life of a teenager would love this book, so basically everyone. There's a chapter for everone and Kerouac's characters all have original and meaningful personalities. When you read it old friends from your town will be remembered, the dialogue and actions of the city kids of the 30's will take you back to the guys and gals you hung out with on weekends.
Rating:
Summary: 30's Love at It's Best
Review: Jack Kerouac, writer of many a romantic tale; stories set out wst on roads hitchhiking, listening to jazz till 4 a.m., and just living by the moment, but not this one. Although it is written in his similar romantic run-on sentenced style that captivates any lover od literature, it's a story about his teen years back home. Most of it revolving around his love with his girl Maggie Cassidy. Being a teenager you see connections and dumb teenage stereotypes, that are sad but true. Stories of drunken New Years with the boys, tales of the track and football team, and mostly that story of love, the "world revolves around us" love.
"The wild windows of other houses and Saturday night parties shining the spilling molen hot gold of real life." This quote was from Jack's 18th birthday party, where his whole world (family and friends) were all dancing, mingling, and basically having a great time. This quote describes some of the amazing weekends we have as high school kids, where the fun seems to keep coming at ya.
Stories of high school parties, buddies, girls, drama, and love are all packed into 194 pages; every page telling a new adventure. Whether it be Jack's short life as a prep school student on a football scholarship, or his first generation French-American parents, or even just his nights with the boys. Anyone who is or has been enrolled in high school and been involved in the complicated life of a teenager would love this book, so basically everyone. There's a chapter for everone and Kerouac's characters all have original and meaningful personalities. When you read it old friends from your town will be remembered, the dialogue and actions of the city kids of the 30's will take you back to the guys and gals you hung out with on weekends.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and sentimental
Review: Jack's memories of young love in small town America in the 1930s. Nobody has written it better.
Rating:
Summary: First Love
Review: Kerouac's autobigraphical novel Maggie Cassidy is set in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts in 1939. It is the story of a high school romance. There are wonderful descriptive passages of winter in New England, of shabby urban tenements, of grizzled and failed adults, and of hope, love, and loss. The book captures the yearnings of first love in its confusion and undirected passion. It talks about both how people change and how there are limits to the scope of their change. The perspective of the book is interesting and revealing. Kerouac, the grown writer, is recapturing something of the spirit of the first love of his youth. The story is mostly told in the first person in the voice of the adolescent. Then, abruptly at the end the voice shifts to the third person signalling, I think, the change from the perspective of youth to that of adulthood. There is something poignant about the book in the description of a memory of pure love which doesn't fade, (think of the Buddy Holly song "Not fade away") and about the shift from innocence to overt sexuality. There is a deep conservatism in Kerouac for the familiar, the commonplace, and the local, something which is often overlooked by his critics and admirers alike. It comes through well in this book. Many writers tend to become prisoners of their most famous books. In Kerouac's case, people frequently don't get past On the Road. Maggie Cassidy is a book on a smaller, perhaps more conventional scale. In its own way, it is precious.
Rating:
Summary: Kerouac at His Most Legible
Review: This is my favorite Kerouac novel. This is a beautiful book of life recounted through a teenager's way of looking at things.Through exciting highs and devastating lows, the writing is easy to follow and a moving read. If you're planning to begin reading Kerouac, this is an excellent novel to start with. It has the same emotion without unstructered chapters.
Rating:
Summary: Jack's Best Kept Secret
Review: When Kerouac was good he was superb. This is young love in a glorious, mind-bending nutshell. Beautifully written and deeply felt. When I was much younger and had experienced my first brutal betrayal in life, this novel was my greatest comfort. Kerouac had uncanny vision into the human heart, and was capable of expressing the awful paradox of young love, the joy and pain of it, it terms that were never sentimental, and often quietly heroic. A poetic, lovely book.
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