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getting Up
Roket is sixteen – bored, lonely, horny and pissed off.
His mother is hopeless and his dad is gone. Roket loves graffiti, his mum and McDonalds and when the girl with the ultramarine eyes gives him a free Big Mac, it must be love.
He joins a graff crew and drops out of school. But rivalries in his new world, threaten to be fatal. By the end of the week Roket has been pushed to his limits.
One night it all goes horribly wrong and Roket suddenly finds his reputation and his freedom are on the line. Can he prove his innocence, as well as winning the graff battle and the girl?
Illustrated with original photographs taken on location.
His mother is hopeless and his dad is gone. Roket loves graffiti, his mum and McDonalds and when the girl with the ultramarine eyes gives him a free Big Mac, it must be love.
He joins a graff crew and drops out of school. But rivalries in his new world, threaten to be fatal. By the end of the week Roket has been pushed to his limits.
One night it all goes horribly wrong and Roket suddenly finds his reputation and his freedom are on the line. Can he prove his innocence, as well as winning the graff battle and the girl?
Illustrated with original photographs taken on location.
- GenresGraffiti
200 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2013
26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 9, 2013
This latest work by Australian writer SD Thorpe, Getting Up, is a coming of age story with real roots. It’s connected, beautifully written, nicely characterised, and aside from some music timing faux pas, is an excellent book.
It’s Melbourne in 1989; summer time. Hapless and lost graffiti-artist-wannabe Roket has hooked up with a crew that he wants to impress; a crew that’s in the middle of a tagging war with another crew. He’s horny (seriously, the parties in this dude’s pants! Wow!), virginal, from a broken home, and fatherless. Roket is a sixteen-year-old dole bludger – back when you could get on the dole at 16. His mum is a bit of a hopeless pot-smoker.
This story isn’t about Roket trying to fit in with the right people at school; it’s about being a young person who could or should know better, trying to find his feet in the world. Fitting in is still a ‘thing’ in this new coming-of-age work, but it’s less about becoming one of the many, and more about becoming who you are, and navigating the world’s expectations at the same time.
This book was pretty good, I have to say; high praise indeed. I read it in a few hours. I read the Kindle version, and I don’t understand the pointless scraps of pictures in it, but maybe that’s just me. I think including pictures for the sake of it – which is what this seems like – is a bit silly. They didn’t add anything; they just made me wonder who the hell decided to include them.
Unlike the other coming of age book I have recently read, this one felt real to me. It felt like it had roots: the place was so much a part of the characters; the characters were so much a part of each other. I felt like SD Thorpe had run with crews and punks for years, and if she hasn’t, then by fuck she’s got some fantastic observation skills.
The way that Getting Up is written makes the language invisible. It could’ve done with more swearing. But maybe that’s the publisher’s intervention? Perhaps the author can enlighten me. Roket was too clean, or something. He felt more like a 14-year-old than a 16-year-old.
The nature of punks was perfect; the time it was set in was marked by really silly obvious things, which annoyed me – but which got that whole ‘timing’ thing out of the way fairly quickly. Things like, the Berlin Wall coming down. I remember that, really well. I was nine. It was 1989. I watched it on the telly, lying on the loungeroom floor in shorts and t-shirt, and watching these ecstatic Germans breaking the wall apart, in the snow. All of the detail was perfect.
The timing pointers did, however, make me go back and fact-check the author, too, on the timing of some albums of which I was doubtful. For example: the book is 1989, and the author references Green Day’s debut album 39/Smooth… the chances of a shy, not particularly well connected 16-year-old in Melbourne having this in its release year are slim, at best.
But it’s ok, the timing was out. That debut album didn’t hit the world until April 1990.
Oops.
Roket’s story is all the better for how tightly it’s presented (music faux pas aside). It’s not just a friendship battle. It’s that, plus dealing with potentially being branded a killer by accident and fate, plus other elements of criminal activity. And then there are all of those bigger questions: is it worthwhile going back to school? If you are talented, why do you need training, and isn’t talent good enough? Why be a grown-up at all, when every grownup around you is a fuckup, a fuckwit, or just goddamned hopeless.
This is an excellent work, and I encourage you to get your hands on it, and spend a lazy Sunday indulging yourself, as I did. It’s well worth your time.
It’s Melbourne in 1989; summer time. Hapless and lost graffiti-artist-wannabe Roket has hooked up with a crew that he wants to impress; a crew that’s in the middle of a tagging war with another crew. He’s horny (seriously, the parties in this dude’s pants! Wow!), virginal, from a broken home, and fatherless. Roket is a sixteen-year-old dole bludger – back when you could get on the dole at 16. His mum is a bit of a hopeless pot-smoker.
This story isn’t about Roket trying to fit in with the right people at school; it’s about being a young person who could or should know better, trying to find his feet in the world. Fitting in is still a ‘thing’ in this new coming-of-age work, but it’s less about becoming one of the many, and more about becoming who you are, and navigating the world’s expectations at the same time.
This book was pretty good, I have to say; high praise indeed. I read it in a few hours. I read the Kindle version, and I don’t understand the pointless scraps of pictures in it, but maybe that’s just me. I think including pictures for the sake of it – which is what this seems like – is a bit silly. They didn’t add anything; they just made me wonder who the hell decided to include them.
Unlike the other coming of age book I have recently read, this one felt real to me. It felt like it had roots: the place was so much a part of the characters; the characters were so much a part of each other. I felt like SD Thorpe had run with crews and punks for years, and if she hasn’t, then by fuck she’s got some fantastic observation skills.
The way that Getting Up is written makes the language invisible. It could’ve done with more swearing. But maybe that’s the publisher’s intervention? Perhaps the author can enlighten me. Roket was too clean, or something. He felt more like a 14-year-old than a 16-year-old.
The nature of punks was perfect; the time it was set in was marked by really silly obvious things, which annoyed me – but which got that whole ‘timing’ thing out of the way fairly quickly. Things like, the Berlin Wall coming down. I remember that, really well. I was nine. It was 1989. I watched it on the telly, lying on the loungeroom floor in shorts and t-shirt, and watching these ecstatic Germans breaking the wall apart, in the snow. All of the detail was perfect.
The timing pointers did, however, make me go back and fact-check the author, too, on the timing of some albums of which I was doubtful. For example: the book is 1989, and the author references Green Day’s debut album 39/Smooth… the chances of a shy, not particularly well connected 16-year-old in Melbourne having this in its release year are slim, at best.
But it’s ok, the timing was out. That debut album didn’t hit the world until April 1990.
Oops.
Roket’s story is all the better for how tightly it’s presented (music faux pas aside). It’s not just a friendship battle. It’s that, plus dealing with potentially being branded a killer by accident and fate, plus other elements of criminal activity. And then there are all of those bigger questions: is it worthwhile going back to school? If you are talented, why do you need training, and isn’t talent good enough? Why be a grown-up at all, when every grownup around you is a fuckup, a fuckwit, or just goddamned hopeless.
This is an excellent work, and I encourage you to get your hands on it, and spend a lazy Sunday indulging yourself, as I did. It’s well worth your time.
April 10, 2013
getting Up by SD Thorpe covers a momentous week in the life of Paul aka Roket, a sixteen year old 'Toy' or burgeoning graffiti writer.
Bored, lonely, horny and pissed off, Roket has dropped out of school and is largely left to fend for himself by his messed up mother. He subsists on Maccas and whatever he can manage to scrape together at home. 'Getting up' -- creating graffiti -- with his crew is the only thing that gives structure to his days. And even the cops Roket encounters grudgingly admit he's got talent. But when a battle between two graf crews turns deadly, the fall out could make or break him.
The target audience might be young adults, but there is much for not-so-young adults to enjoy. As well as a good yarn, getting Up offers insight into Melbourne's social history in the late-1980, specifically its graffiti history.
Melbourne through Roket's eyes is a landscape of tags, burners, throwups and pieces (check the glossary for definitions). The action often takes place in the city's hidden parts: laneways, billboard sidings, train carriage roofs, abandoned abattoirs.
Keith Haring's visit to Collingwood Tech in 1984 gets a mention, as does the 'wicked' graf he created. 'Old school, but cool,' as Roket puts it.
There are references to the 'real old school' political graffiti of the 1960s and early 1970s, when 'graffiti used to say something', as one of the older characters laments.
And in the background of the story, the Berlin Wall is coming down, news reports noting that parts of the wall with good graffiti are in hot demand.
A couple of minor niggles notwithstanding (e.g. reference to Centrelink eight years before it was established), getting Up ticks all the boxes as a highly entertaining read that places credible, sympathetic characters in a fascinating context.
I'd hazard that even readers who view graffiti as visual pollution rather than art will come away from reading getting Up with new insight into what motivates this form of self-expression -- be it boredom, passion, bravado or the desire to belong.
Bored, lonely, horny and pissed off, Roket has dropped out of school and is largely left to fend for himself by his messed up mother. He subsists on Maccas and whatever he can manage to scrape together at home. 'Getting up' -- creating graffiti -- with his crew is the only thing that gives structure to his days. And even the cops Roket encounters grudgingly admit he's got talent. But when a battle between two graf crews turns deadly, the fall out could make or break him.
The target audience might be young adults, but there is much for not-so-young adults to enjoy. As well as a good yarn, getting Up offers insight into Melbourne's social history in the late-1980, specifically its graffiti history.
Melbourne through Roket's eyes is a landscape of tags, burners, throwups and pieces (check the glossary for definitions). The action often takes place in the city's hidden parts: laneways, billboard sidings, train carriage roofs, abandoned abattoirs.
Keith Haring's visit to Collingwood Tech in 1984 gets a mention, as does the 'wicked' graf he created. 'Old school, but cool,' as Roket puts it.
There are references to the 'real old school' political graffiti of the 1960s and early 1970s, when 'graffiti used to say something', as one of the older characters laments.
And in the background of the story, the Berlin Wall is coming down, news reports noting that parts of the wall with good graffiti are in hot demand.
A couple of minor niggles notwithstanding (e.g. reference to Centrelink eight years before it was established), getting Up ticks all the boxes as a highly entertaining read that places credible, sympathetic characters in a fascinating context.
I'd hazard that even readers who view graffiti as visual pollution rather than art will come away from reading getting Up with new insight into what motivates this form of self-expression -- be it boredom, passion, bravado or the desire to belong.
October 1, 2013
Come to think of it, I don't read about male protagonists all that often, unless the books are written from multiple points of view. getting up was different for me then simply because it revolved around Roket, a male main character. In a sense, this story kept up with my stereotypical view that teenage boys' minds are consumed with thoughts of girls. But (thankfully) there was way more to Roket than that.
For such a relatively short book, getting Up packed quite a bit of punch. Personally, I think it took quite a while for things to take off but I would attribute that more to the time taken to set things up. There aren't all that many novels based on graffiti out there, so I appreciated that Thorpe focussed on the setting and the characters first.
Roket's life is consumed by graffiti. He runs around with his crew doing graffiti though their activities got even more heated when the crew accepted the challenge to a battle with a rival crew. Roket is not so down with tagging though he does concern himself with getting up. He prefers pieces that allow him to be more expressive. If you have no idea what tagging, getting up or piecing mean, fret not. The writing is accessible even to those who have no idea what graffiti is about, and for that I commend Thorpe. Graffiti lingo has been woven in skilfully to realistically portray Roket's story.
Now, as much as I'm not from Melbourne, let alone even alive in 1989, I am not entirely sure about the accuracy of the historical facts. Although, news about the Cold War and the wall coming down in Berlin did help situate the story in that era. For review commentary on the time period, more on it was written at Biodagar by Leticia. Anyhow, I didn't think that there were any glaring errors that might hamper anyone's enjoyment of the book.
In the end, I did enjoy the grittiness of the story. Finding one's place in the world as a teenager is rarely easy and straightforward. As for Roket, he learnt that the hard way, especially after that one night that really put his life and relationships into perspective.
For such a relatively short book, getting Up packed quite a bit of punch. Personally, I think it took quite a while for things to take off but I would attribute that more to the time taken to set things up. There aren't all that many novels based on graffiti out there, so I appreciated that Thorpe focussed on the setting and the characters first.
Roket's life is consumed by graffiti. He runs around with his crew doing graffiti though their activities got even more heated when the crew accepted the challenge to a battle with a rival crew. Roket is not so down with tagging though he does concern himself with getting up. He prefers pieces that allow him to be more expressive. If you have no idea what tagging, getting up or piecing mean, fret not. The writing is accessible even to those who have no idea what graffiti is about, and for that I commend Thorpe. Graffiti lingo has been woven in skilfully to realistically portray Roket's story.
Now, as much as I'm not from Melbourne, let alone even alive in 1989, I am not entirely sure about the accuracy of the historical facts. Although, news about the Cold War and the wall coming down in Berlin did help situate the story in that era. For review commentary on the time period, more on it was written at Biodagar by Leticia. Anyhow, I didn't think that there were any glaring errors that might hamper anyone's enjoyment of the book.
In the end, I did enjoy the grittiness of the story. Finding one's place in the world as a teenager is rarely easy and straightforward. As for Roket, he learnt that the hard way, especially after that one night that really put his life and relationships into perspective.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews