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A review by lindsayallison
Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by Buzz Bissinger
3.0
I had somewhat mixed feelings about this book.
First off, let me say I came to this book a HUGE FNL TV series fan. #tamitaylorismyspiritanimal So mostly I was interested in the source material for one of my favorite TV shows. Let's start off by saying the book and the TV are very different. The "plot," per se, of the TV show is not the same as the book, but the spirit of the book is definitely there. Little moments or overarching concepts from the book appear in the show, i.e. moving signs in Coach's yard, the town's obsession with the team, what it's like to be in a small town, to some extent - race relations. So I would definitely say the TV is loosely inspired by the book. Additionally, I honestly think the TV show does a better job of fleshing out the "characters," and narrative of the whole thing. I will get to more of that in a moment.
Now that we've cleared the TV stuff up, let's take about the book. The book is about a 50% mix of a "background and characterization of people and the '88 Permian football season" with descriptions of key players, coaches, former player, and play-by-plays of gems from that season, and the other 50% was more of a historical and societal background, fleshing out the oil boom/bust economics of Midland-Odessa, the history of the town, the outrageous racisms of the town, misplaced priorities on football over academics on the HS level, etc.
I found the sections about the players, people, and the actual games a bit of a yawn. To some extent I enjoyed remembering my time as a TX high-schooler who actually went to Arlington Lamar (plays a small role as an opponent team) and attended games against Arlington High, Irving Nimitz, Dallas Carter, etc. And I remember traveling to playoff games across the state when Lamar went all the way to the state semi-finals in 2003, so I could identify with the fervor. But overall, I didn't care about the people in this book. In the TV show, you're constantly rooting for Matt, Tyra, Landry, Coach, Tami... in the book, I could take the guys or leave 'em.
This may have been in part because of the exposé of the "dark side" of Odessa and their football obsession in the other half of the book. The racism was shocking and the treatment of football players as gods who didn't need to go to class to pass was really sad. The tales of washed up former players who could never really move on in their lives was also really sad. But all of it was informative and interesting. It made me actually feel things (anger, confusion, horror, intrigue...) So those parts of the book actually made me enjoy the read more.
So, TLDR: I didn't care about the characters, but as a Texan, I could identify with the overall spirit of the bigness of HS football. The "setting the scene" parts of the book over the Odessa history, community, race issues, educational issues, etc. were the best parts for me.
First off, let me say I came to this book a HUGE FNL TV series fan. #tamitaylorismyspiritanimal So mostly I was interested in the source material for one of my favorite TV shows. Let's start off by saying the book and the TV are very different. The "plot," per se, of the TV show is not the same as the book, but the spirit of the book is definitely there. Little moments or overarching concepts from the book appear in the show, i.e. moving signs in Coach's yard, the town's obsession with the team, what it's like to be in a small town, to some extent - race relations. So I would definitely say the TV is loosely inspired by the book. Additionally, I honestly think the TV show does a better job of fleshing out the "characters," and narrative of the whole thing. I will get to more of that in a moment.
Now that we've cleared the TV stuff up, let's take about the book. The book is about a 50% mix of a "background and characterization of people and the '88 Permian football season" with descriptions of key players, coaches, former player, and play-by-plays of gems from that season, and the other 50% was more of a historical and societal background, fleshing out the oil boom/bust economics of Midland-Odessa, the history of the town, the outrageous racisms of the town, misplaced priorities on football over academics on the HS level, etc.
I found the sections about the players, people, and the actual games a bit of a yawn. To some extent I enjoyed remembering my time as a TX high-schooler who actually went to Arlington Lamar (plays a small role as an opponent team) and attended games against Arlington High, Irving Nimitz, Dallas Carter, etc. And I remember traveling to playoff games across the state when Lamar went all the way to the state semi-finals in 2003, so I could identify with the fervor. But overall, I didn't care about the people in this book. In the TV show, you're constantly rooting for Matt, Tyra, Landry, Coach, Tami... in the book, I could take the guys or leave 'em.
This may have been in part because of the exposé of the "dark side" of Odessa and their football obsession in the other half of the book. The racism was shocking and the treatment of football players as gods who didn't need to go to class to pass was really sad. The tales of washed up former players who could never really move on in their lives was also really sad. But all of it was informative and interesting. It made me actually feel things (anger, confusion, horror, intrigue...) So those parts of the book actually made me enjoy the read more.
So, TLDR: I didn't care about the characters, but as a Texan, I could identify with the overall spirit of the bigness of HS football. The "setting the scene" parts of the book over the Odessa history, community, race issues, educational issues, etc. were the best parts for me.