Long before this became a half-hearted television show or a movie with flashy stars. I love this book about the real life struggle of a town and its citizens and how high school football is the central theme for an entire town. Beautiful, disturbing, and sad all at the same time. Booby is an object lesson in how a person is reduced to a single characteristic and the limitations set by that type of existence.

A scathing reflection of american educational priorities that is still just as relevant and accurate almost 30 years later.

An outstanding piece of journalism that captures the mood, history and insight of high school football in a small town in Texas. This isn't just a book about football. It is about community. It is about fanaticism. It's about the pressures of being a teenager and the dangers of improperly-weighted expectations and aspirations. Great book.

Even though this was written in 1988, it was creepily accurate about some of the social, political, and energy issues we face today. Well written and engrossing. Need to read the supplement to see where the kids are today.

Very difficult to read book, now that it is 26 years later, and the damaging effects of football are so much more known. But the book is very well written, and analyzes the community feeling of the town towards the high school football program. The author doesn't romanticize it, nor condemn it, but tries to really understand the factors that produces this kind of relationship between football and community.

Highly recommend.

Possibly the best non-fiction I've ever read.

3.5 stars

I really enjoyed this book because it is about more than football. This book chronicles the pursuit and the failures of the American Dream. The lessons learned from Friday Night Lights will stay with me and I appreciated that. It's the first book I have read in a long time which makes me reflect on our society today.

I love how Bissinger provides insight into the lives and dreams of people in Odessa. The stories of the people and the town were completely heartbreaking, but it is related to what is occurring with to society today. The town, once promising in its oil production and wealth, was destroyed when oil prices plummeted. Millionaires found themselves bankrupt and opportunity and jobs were all but gone. Images of the oil fields and equipment left to rot stuck with me as remnants of someone's dream.

This book was sad and troubling at the same time. It warns against reliance on sports over academics-an issue that is common in many schools today. It was interesting to see how in the 1980"s, people had the same concerns about education, though today, it is much improved. I was angered by the teachers who were providing their students with answer keys and dumbing down education. It is no surprise those students ended up in prison or in poverty when football ended and they had no skills to go onto college. I think these issues are still relevant, though not quite as extreme today. The real sadness also came from the fact that when high school ended, these kids had no real dreams or goals. Their dream is completely in the past which creates a community who desires the past.

This book brought about many social issues and I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the book.

Though the writing's occasionally over the top, the book offers a complex and contextualized portrait of a town and its football team, which left me vacillating between feeling inspired and heartbroken.