Tar: "I know it sounds stupid, but it was like the flowers had come out for Gemma . . ".

Lily: "They did everything they could to pin me down . . . my mum, my dad, school..".

Rob: "We stood for a while breathing big long breaths of air. It was cord and pure... You could feet it inside you, doing you good".

How do these teens come to run away from home? To be users? Addicts? As their stories intertwine and build, "Smack" never lets up the pace. It is a book about people, families -- real and those constructed by young people with no one to turn to but each other. "Smack" is a book about a drug and the hold it can have. Written directly for its audience of young people and unflinching in its honesty, "Smack" is the teen book of the year.