Texas is one of the most populous states in the United States. There are hundreds of thousands of kids that play football in Texas but the small town of Odessa has some of the best players in the country on the Permian football squad. The Permian Panthers are just 52 men looking to be number one in the football world of Texas. H.G. Bissinger gives the reader a look into the life of a coach and his kids in a school rich with a winning history and the want to be great. Bissinger illustrates what it takes to be a student athlete and the struggles that go with it. Friday Night Lights is an insightful and thrilling book because of its emotionally moving story, with a flowing plot line, and stimulating characters.
tThe story line of Friday Night Lights is very emotionally gripping. Winchell, one of the main characters in the book, is putting everything he has into his final season of football. The fact that it’s his last season is what makes this emotional. All the seniors mentioned are pushing everyone on the team to great lengths to make sure that they get to the State Championship for their last season in the program. Also the back stories of the players make the reader feel connected to them, especially Mike Winchell, Bissinger brings out his emotions more than a lot of other peoples in the book. In the State Championship he especially makes all that emotion come to life. The feeling of defeat and turmoil really sets in after reading that final chapter. There are also the happy feelings, like when they dominate an opponent and that’s what makes this book very good, it grabs the mind and helps it feel connected. This novel is also fantastic in the way it flows and doesn’t lose its place and get off topic.
tBissinger has a talent of not getting lost and going on random rants during the book. This makes the book easy to read and follow. During the course of the book it changes characters a lot, but it never moves its place in the season. No matter what player’s point of view it is in, it’s during the same game, or even the same preparation day during the week. A good example is when the team is nearing the state championship, Bissinger keeps all the thoughts that he mentions in one specific spot of the journey. This keeps the book thought provoking and the need to read more. This keeps the book moving, it makes it flow really well. This is what makes Friday Night Lights a must read, it doesn’t get lost, and very few novels do that. The characters help the story move and flow very easily, but they are also very interesting and relatable.
tIn many books characters can make or break a book and in Friday Night Lights they make it. All the characters are relatable and make them life-like in a sense. On a personal level Winchell was the one Bissinger tried to really bring out and make him seem like a real person, not a super hero that most books have. Bissinger makes him human and puts Mike through the trials and stipulations of a real Division 1 high school quarterback. Failure and success is what makes all of them relatable in some way, because after a loss or a win they either are devastated or overjoyed which is what you can expect from any kid in a sport. Bissinger did a wonderful job explaining the characters lives so there is nothing left to tell, which as a reader helped immensely to relate to them, and truly understand who they are. A lot of the time Bissinger would take whole chapters of the book to describe the character he was about to introduce and give an integral role to in the book. For example the chapter he wrote about Ivory Christian, he took a chunk of the book to describe him as a person and understand him more so there were no questions asked as to who he is. This book as whole is very good but the characters are what mold it and make it great.
tThe flow to the plot line, with the emotional story and characters really make Friday Night Lights a must read. There are very few books that connect the reader to the story and make it come alive and feel real. If everyone followed the lessons that Bissinger preached about in his book, everyone would have a better understanding of how to deal with adversity and all the different challenges in life. This book gives a great sense to how much of a family everyone really becomes when they play a sport like football and this could help kids all around the world feel connected and be a part of something beyond their imagination.

This 'non-fiction novel' began a little slowly and it was slightly confusing to differentiate the teammates in the first twenty or so pages. However, it quickly becomes gripping and entertaining to follow the ups and downs of this high school football team's '88 season. The sociology of the impact on the small town Texas setting (the state's unofficial motto: "Play Football or Die") is also fascinating. Highly recommended.

This book bangs. Texas has some wild high school football. Glad I got outta football quick before injuries piled up, it was good for getting chicks tho

Well. Who would have thought I would have loved a book about Texas high school football? Not me. I read this book for work, but it’s been on my to-read list for years. I’ve never seen the show nor the movie.

Football is not my sport of choice, and

Introduction, the Perimian Panthers Football team have special players that play with heart and athleticism. Boobie Miles is an All-American/ All-State Runningback that is a freak of nature. Coach Gary and Quarterback Mike have a great relationship and are the leaders of this team. Don Billingsley has yet to prove anything and keeps fumbling the ball consistently. These characters are a true definition of a team they give all they have and never give up on each other.
Next, In Odessa, Texas a High School named the Perimian Panthers play like a group with a dream. This Football team has inspired the small community of Odessa. The Perimian Panthers feel like they have a shot of winning state and making history. These young teenagers have been succeeding in school due to the love of the game of Football. They are classified as the most All-Time wins in Texas Football history.
Then, I like this book so far because it shows all the character traits and shows how to prepare for a game of Football. My favorite part is when they communicate together and work as team in order to win. How injuries were taken care of back in the earlier days now we have progressed. I love these characters because they show you not to be a sore looser and act as a class player. I would recommend this book to people that love sports and have a passion for winning/traits.
Finally, the type of language it uses is profanity that motivates these teenagers. It shows how they worked together as a team. The type of language is more used to inspired them and have confidence to win that game. The level of the language makes it easier because it's an everyday thing for more simple communication. So far I think this book is excellent and shows how things are specifically done.

The Novel Friday Night Lights was an absolutely spectacular book. From start to finish, it was near impossible to put down. It is the story of a high school football team in Odessa, Texas, that seems to be winning championships every single year no matter what. But in Odessa, football is much more than a game: it is the heart and soul of the whole town. Each one of their games has at least 19,000 fans yelling, screaming, and cheering them on. So with all these emotions, the real literature is the emotions that are explained by Jeff Bissinger (the author) as he notes on all the feelings and events that revolve around the team as well as its players.
An example of the detail and effort that Bissinger puts into each sentence of Friday Night Lights can be seen everywhere you look in the novel: “A series of chills shooting down his back straight to his spine like a lightning bolt hitting a tree. And then at that moment, that very moment, he knew there was no way that Permian could lose to Midland Lee tonight, no ******* way, not as long as I’m still alive” (Bissinger 6). As you can see, there is a special talent that Bissinger has that enables him to make you felt like you are actually there right next to him, being able to see exactly what he is seeing, and having the same experience as he did the day he had wrote it. But besides being a spectacular writer, is a play-by-play specialist, as seen in the following quote” he wasn’t prepared for the mass of black jerseys coming at him in a crazy blur, like hungry rats jumping over each others backs to get a speck of food”(274) . Bissinger dissects the moment second by second for us as he also incorporates fantastic imagery to go along with it. So in conclusion, the novel Friday Night Lights is a must read for any football fan that wants to find something in the off-season that takes them back to high school, and back to those Friday night lights.
Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

This true story is an incredibly powerful telling of the role football played for this group of young men growing up in rural West Texas in the 1980's. I felt completely immersed in the world the author captured and was I captivated by how he managed to show both the positives and the negatives of such a world, often at the very same time. It felt honest and raw, and I didn't want it to end.

"the solemn ritual that was attached to almost everything, made them seem like boys going off to fight a war for the benefit of someone else, unwitting sacrifices to a strange and powerful god."

The town "absolutely worshiped Ronald Reagan, not because of the type of America that Reagan actually created for them but because of the type of America he so vividly imagined".

[In regards to the oil booms of Texas in the 1980's] "Instead of understanding that they were the beneficiaries of history, they began to believe they were the creators of it."

High school football, it seems so pure in some ways, at least compared to pro and college football where it's all about money, power, big names, and big team brands. Oh wait, maybe high school football isn't that different after all. Arguably in the west Texas town of Odessa, football is a VERY BIG DEAL. The Permian Panthers are the winningest high school football team in Texas, and life in Odessa revolves around the team.

This is at times a hard book to read. The author pulls back all the layers to get an in-depth look at what is really happening in the locker room, in the lives of the players, and the educational system in a town that is divided along racial and socioeconomic differences. He follows the team for a season, revealing the physical and emotional price these kids pay in pursuit of a dream. It's rough.

It's not all grim. The author also brings out the spirit of Friday nights at a high school football game - the cheer squad, the anxious parents, the rabid fans which in Odessa is easily half the town and then some. He brings out the humanity in a raw and real way. All in, an enlightening read

I think if the book was reorganized, it would flow better. I enjoyed some of the history and a better understanding the era.

What I really liked about this book is that the main focus of this book was the football players' lives. Bissinger talked about how they would feel and what they would do before a game day. It shows that people relied on them and how the players felt with all that weight on their shoulders. They would have to win so that the Permian fans could be happy, since football was the only entertainment in Odessa.

Obviously this is a great piece of sports journalism, but yikes, it's a bit hard to read 30 years later — especially some of the stuff related to race (especially the casual use of racist language). I have no interest in football, but this was an interesting read.

This is a fantastic book. I felt sick to my stomach reading it.

I played football in high school in a place where there was much more than high school football for most people to do on a Friday night. I can relate to some aspects of the story: football games were the only sporting events in my school where admission was charged, they drew probably five times the attendees of any other sport, and we wore our jerseys proudly to school on pep rally days and were probably afforded more attention as a result of being on the team. I can recall all the feelings the author describes as a player, from fear/dread of an unknown opponent to the drive to smash someone on the opposing team, not just to tackle them but to make them feel pain and fear and not want to line up against you the next play. (High school boys are basically emotional basket-cases, what with all the hormones and the expectations they heap on themselves.)

But it just makes me feel sick inside to read about these kids who come from a nothing little town in the middle of nowhere, kids who have, with a few exceptions, little going for them whether or not their season ends in championship or ignominy. These kids (and at seventeen or eighteen, they are absolutely children) are lifted up as the focal point for an entire town, are worshipped and glorified and girded for battle as if their conquests mean something. And the really terrible thing is that they fundamentally don't.

That's not to say that I think sports are meaningless when growing up--nothing of the sort. I played in lots of sports as a kid and I think they teach you incredibly valuable lessons about working with others, dealing with stress, anticipation, frustration, victory (yes, that's challenging too) and defeat, and they develop camaraderie, mental resilience and lots of other important character traits. But, crucially, they do those things whether you end up as the state champion or at the bottom of the standings, provided that coaches, parents and kids keep their focus in the right place.

The story of Permian high is so clearly one where everyone, from the school administrators and teachers to the parents to the local businesspeople and boosters to the college recruiters to the former players to the kids themselves have completely lost sight of what the goal of student athletics should be--building the student (as a person), not the trophy case. The least of the blame falls here falls on the players themselves...I just don't know how anyone could expect them to behave otherwise when every aspect of their upbringing has been preparing them for this moment, and everyone, in ways large and small, has been telling them all their lives that winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. It's a wonder that several of them made it out to conduct relatively normal lives.

What is absolutely terrifying to me reading this book is how many people, the author included, seem caught up in the spell of what is at its heart a completely meaningless event. I say this as someone who loves sports--loves watching them, loves playing them, loves arguing about them--: sports are meaningless. It's one of the reasons we can love them so much in the first place, because they are the one place in life we feel totally free to be irrational. (As in, I hate the guy on the other side of the field because his jersey has a different logo on it than the logo that I like best.)

Sports appeal to our basest instincts, to identify with a group and pit ourselves against "not-us", whoever that might be. I can't tell you how many times I've been on a team, be it baseball, football, track, soccer or anything else and we've found ways not just to oppose the other team, but to revile them--to question their motives, to accuse them of poor sportsmanship, to look for any character trait or action which will let our team feel like it has the moral high ground. That's not just a feature of organized sports either--it happens in pickup games of basketball and in random pool games at the bar. We love to demonize the people we play against.

And we love to invest meaningless competitions with an almost sacred significance. What difference does it make to the US economy or world peace or anything else of lasting significance if my kids beat the neighbor kids in tag football at the local park? Nothing. But there is fundamentally no difference between that and the Super Bowl, except that we've all agreed that it has significance, so much so that it generates billions of dollars in economic activity around the world every year.

The same public religion is on display in the book, except that in Odessa, TX where the book's events take place, football is a preoccupation that consumes the whole town every year during football season and beyond. It's heartbreaking to read the several direct quotations from Odessa residents who say, effectively, "Without Permian football I wouldn't have a reason to live." It crowds everything else out to where education is an afterthought, and no matter how the last season ends, everyone is left reminiscing and wishing for just one more hit of the adrenaline drug, the taste of glory. The fact that it's set against the backdrop of objectively one of the least desirable places to live in the United States just makes that sense of futile longing even more pathetic. (Pathetic in the sense of pathos--I feel terrible for just about everyone in this story.)

I don't really know what else to say about this book. The writing is excellent. The author touches on issues of race, class, divisions within the city, impacts of the mid-80's slump in oil prices on the town's economy. Putting aside football, the race issue is disturbing in itself, and he unflinchingly reveals the prejudice and outright bigotry that existed in that community at the time. (It must be said that this is clearly not just a feature of Odessa, TX in 1988.) The economic story is interesting as well, but ultimately I found it less compelling--there are lots of places in the US that have experienced economic downturns, and they didn't turn to cult worship of the local high school football team. What a petty, pathetic god before which to kneel.

Anyway, I feel like I got rather preachy with this review, but this book disturbed me so deeply. So, kudos to the author. I understand why the town (and probably most of West Texas) hated the book, but sometimes a mirror can be an ugly thing to look at.