Since my blog is about sports Friday Night Lights was a perfect fit for my blog. It created a perfect scene of big time high school sports. This book did not make me meet any goals, but that is just because I had no goals going into the reading of this book. But if I did have a goal, I am sure it would have meet and exceeded all my goals. The best part of the book was the story about all the kids’ lives. There was really nothing I did not enjoy about the book. Except for maybe the first couple chapters of the book providing details about the towns history. All in all it was a good sports book.
H.G. Bissinger wrote the widely successful book Friday Night Lights. The book eventually became such a hit that it became a box office hit, and a TV series on NBC. Bissinger is a very credible author. He is well respected as a person and an author. Bissinger is most famous for his book Friday Nigh Lights, but he has wrote 2 more books. One was Three Nights in August, and Shooting Stars. Not only has Bissinger wrote books but he has also been a journalist for the New York Times and Sports Illustrated, which are both highly respected. In the book Friday Night Lights Bissinger was fairly unbiased and told it as it was. The only thing that could be considered biased is the way he paints the Permian school system. He seems to describe them as people that put football before the school. “I just wish our perspective was turned a little bit. I just wish we could emphasize other things. The thing is, I don’t think we should have to go to our booster club to get books. I don’t think we should have to beg everyone in town for new material” (Bissinger 147). This is a quote from an English teacher at the school explaining the focus they put into the school. Though this could be viewed as biased it is merely someone's opinion. Bissinger simply just put it in his book. Bissinger has no reason to be biased.
Bissinger does a great job in structuring the story. He starts off at the beginning of the season for this Permian football team and then takes us to the end of it. Periodically stopping to tell stories about certain characters within the book. This is an effective way to tell the story because it doesn’t allow for boredom. The reader is always captivated with the book. Through out the book, you will run into all and any text features you would in any other novel. Chapters, paragraphs, and dialogue, just to name a few. The structure of the book did not necessarily aid in the comprehension of the book, but it also did not render the comprehension of the book. It added a little extra flare, and again allowed the reader to read, boredom free.
Friday Night Lights is a great true story about High School Football in Odessa Texas. In Texas football is king, nothing overrules football. This shows us how this small town in Texas loves its football, and takes us through a season with the Permian High School football players. Friday Night Lights is a great story that any sports fan should read, young or old. The purpose of the book, and the information that the author gives us all makes this a stellar read.
The Purpose of Friday Night Lights is two fold. One is to entertain, but the other is to show what kind of passion these people have for Permian Football. For those who don’t live in Texas, they would have no idea how big high school football really is. Friday Night Lights does a great job at explaining the towns love for their football team. Not only did Friday Night Lights do a good job at explaining the obsession of high school football in this West Texas town, but it also did a great job at entertaining the reader. Though the book is non-fiction, the book reads as though it is just a novel. Most non-fiction books can bore a reader. But with this book it feels as if H. G. Bissinger is retelling the legend of Permian Football as we are sitting around a camp fire. Bissinger did a great job in meeting his purpose and created a work of art.
Another reason why Friday Night Lights is a stellar read is because of the main points Bissinger makes within the book. One of those main points Bissinger makes is how big football really is in Texas. For those of us who have never experience this, Friday Night Lights, dives right into the subject and paints a vivd picture of it. He explains how the entire town is effected by this sport, even more so then the success of the students in the classroom. “This community doesn't want academic excellence. It wants a gladiatorial spectacle on a Friday night” (Bissinger 147). He also explains the enormous amount of people that attend these events. “Tickets for the showdown at Midland didn’t go on sale until Tuesday afternoon, which explained why the first handful of Permian fans started camping outside the gate of Ratliff Stadium Sunday night” (Bissinger 173). Other than for Texas high school football, would this ever happen. In other states people don’t even show this kind of support for the professional teams. Bissinger does a good job of showing people what the devotion is for Texas football.
Bissinger also points out within his book, like previously mentioned, the flaws of the Permian school system. This probably did not make people within Permian very happy with Bissinger, he does not make them look like very good educator. “the class spent the first ten minutes going over the homework assignment for Monday and the next 45 minutes doing the assignment” (Bissinger 130). This would never be allowed at most school around the nation. This is inexcusable for this to be the kids preparation for life after school. Bissinger also points out that the schools performance has dropped as well. It used to be normal for seven Permian students to qualify National Merit semi-finalists, but “in 1988-1989 school year the number dropped to one, which the superintendent of schools, Hugh Hayes acknowledged was inexcusable for a school the size of Permian” (Bissinger 131). Friday Night Lights was a stellar read partly because of the two points Bissinger makes. The devotion to football, and the interesting lack in focus on academics.
A third reason Friday Night Lights is a stellar read is because of the style Bissinger used. Thought the novel is non-fiction he made it into an interesting story. He used dialogue, expository text to create Friday Night Lights. Bissinger did a good job mixing up the sentence structure and not becoming monotonous. He uses appropriate words to capture the readers attention. Without all these the book would just be an average book and not be a New York Times best seller.
