Heavy Metal and You by Christopher Krovatin

Sam Markus is a hard core Metal Head, his life has a soundtrack at all times ("one hundred percent grade-A METAL"). Sam lives a heavy metal life- dresses in all black, loves going to concerts and moshing, and spends lots of time hanging out with his friends, drinking, smoking, doing drugs, and exchanging vulgar insults. Sam's life changes when he meets Melissa, a girl whose life is nothing like Sam's and while she is interested in his love of metal music, the lifestyle does not appeal to her. Sam soon finds himself going "straight-edged" for her and spending less and less time with his friends. Sam soon realizes that he is beginning to lose himself in his attempt to maintain his relationship with Melissa.

Heavy metal music plays a crucial role in the story and the author does a wonderful job of enfusing that music into the story- using lyrics, album names, and recognizable band names as well as a great heavy metal cd cover style book jacket to CD player icons to direct the story (play, pause, skip ahead, back, and stop). Anyone who enjoys heavy metal will find this book appealing, however, one does not have to enjoy heavy metal to appreciate the story. This great mix of humor, angst, and anger will resonate at some level with just about everyonw who is trying to figure out who they are, and how they can maintain themselves and a relationship with someone completely different at the same time.