As a mother of two streetwise teenage daughters and as a committed tobacco control campaigner, I was excited at the prospect of reading this book. In the cover notes it beckons: “What factors influence adolescents to take up smoking? Why do more girls smoke than boys? In contrast to medical orthodoxy, Smoking in Adolescence looks at smoking from adolescents’ own point of view.” It adds that it will be of practical interest to teachers, youth workers, health professionals, and parents, as well as students of psychology. In fact a lot of the book is written in the sort of “lingo” used only by the last of these and is not exactly light reading for the parents and youth workers, let alone health professionals. There are some absolutely thrilling bits in it and I am really glad I read it. It has given me lots of food for thought, although it was hard going some of the time; rather like watching a very intense foreign film that has hard to read subtitles—you know you would enjoy it more if you could understand better what was going on. The first part of the book is the most impenetrable and …