Literary Devices in Punkzilla
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Punkzilla's a blur of highways and seedy hotels, but the general setting is the road between Portland and Memphis, with flashbacks to Cincinnati (Jamie's hometown) and Missouri (home of Buckner, th...
Narrator Point of View
Any time a narrator tells a story as I, you're dealing with first person narration. Jamie's not just narrating, though; he's writing letters in which he blurts it all out to his brother P. This is...
Genre
Punkzilla has a big silver P on the cover, and it doesn't stand for Peter (unlike the rest of the Ps in the book). It means you're reading a Printz Honor book, which means you're reading YA. The Pr...
Tone
Adam Rapp isn't exactly known for writing about happy baby unicorns dancing in fields of candy, although we would totally Shmoop a book about that. Instead, his narrators are often miserable folks...
Writing Style
Jamie refers to himself as a "grammar bandit," and boy, is he ever. Here, have a sample sentence:We stopped at a Motel 6 way on the west side of Missouri like near the border in this town called Jo...
What's Up With the Title?
Punkzilla isn't just the book's title, it's also Jamie's nickname. He tells us: Somehow Fat Larkin knew about my musical taste probably because I was always talking about punk rock. He even started...
What's Up With the Ending?
The last chapter of Punkzilla is Jamie's first letter to P, the one that set his journey in motion; it's dated December 2, 2007. Jamie writes to tell P that he's gone AWOL from Buckner and is now l...
Tough-o-Meter
When you first start reading Punkzilla, you might find yourself wondering why you shouldn't just read the Twitter feed of some wannabe gangsta who objectifies women and uses mad as an adjective a l...
Plot Analysis
Ridin' the DogJamie—that's Punkzilla to you—has just boarded a Greyhound bus in Portland, Oregon, and he's on his way to Memphis. The bus is, well, the bus, complete with the usual cast of down...
Trivia
One of the big pulls of punk is the fact that, despite its aggressive façade, in a lot of ways it's all about community. (Source)The Ramones took their names from Paul McCartney, who called himsel...
Steaminess Rating
As you can probably imagine, a book about a runaway teenager who supports himself by attacking and robbing people is going to be gritty. Punkzilla is controversial for its stark portrayal of teen v...
Allusions
John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (5.28)Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (16.1)William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (18.3)Fifty Cent (1.7)Quentin Tarantino (1.14)Robert De Niro (1.14)Tax...