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hrmason's review against another edition
4.0
Teacher notes:
Great book, but deals honestly with drug use and trafficking and shows little remorse. Great book for hard-to-reach boys, but make sure parents are on board.
Great book, but deals honestly with drug use and trafficking and shows little remorse. Great book for hard-to-reach boys, but make sure parents are on board.
mclarenmallory's review against another edition
4.0
I read the premise of this one on my library's ebook and audiobook site, and it caught my eye so I grabbed it on audio for a long car trip. I had no idea that Gantos was the author of the Joey Piggza series until I finished reading it and looked it up, and I was quite surprised. This is Gantos' memoir of his time in prison, and the crime leading up to it, as a young man. Gantos is a great story-teller and I was enthralled with his story and his narrative voice.
mmz's review against another edition
4.0
If the purpose of a YA memoir is to be a cautionary tale, I suppose this is a good one. Certainly it will make any teen think twice about accepting a job on a sailboat that's running drugs from St. Croix to New York. But perhaps Gantos's story of life in prison will not prove to be such a disincentive, since he gets a job in the prison hospital and never has to live with the general population. His biggest problem seems to be boredom. So yes, be cautioned, but Gantos's experiences overall are too atypical to really have much chance of changing the course of someone's life.
jborkowski9's review against another edition
3.0
Found it to be really repetitive. Although the ending was more interesting, getting there was painful.
brittanyplusbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting memoir, well written, entertaining
angelasunshine's review against another edition
2.0
I really couldn't sympathize with Jack. He never sounded remorseful for his actions, only that he was caught.
manda_panda95's review against another edition
4.0
REQUIRED
This is another of those books that I only picked up because it was required for a class, but walked away being glad I did. I won't give this a rating, and I won't say I loved it, because it isn't the kind of book you love, but it is the kind of book that is very important. It's a nonfiction memoir-type book by and about the author Jack Gantos as a teen. It deals with hard topics--made all the more hard because they are real--but also has a lot of hope.
This is another of those books that I only picked up because it was required for a class, but walked away being glad I did. I won't give this a rating, and I won't say I loved it, because it isn't the kind of book you love, but it is the kind of book that is very important. It's a nonfiction memoir-type book by and about the author Jack Gantos as a teen. It deals with hard topics--made all the more hard because they are real--but also has a lot of hope.
katyjean81's review against another edition
3.0
It was pretty good. I would recommend it to fans of Jack Gantos, as well as American high school students interested in writing or the realities of jail (although Gantos appears to have had a pretty easy ride through jail, comparatively speaking). I'm not sure it's going to read as well with international school students, as we just don't have as much of a imprisonment culture in the rest of the world as we do in the united States. I prefer Stephen King's "On Writing" or Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" as writing texts
caseyjoreads's review against another edition
4.0
Real. Open. Hearty. More about how he landed in prison than the time he spent there. Such insight into his time and place.
elllie's review against another edition
Autobiography of Jack Gantos. Excellent, but I didn't have time to finish it before it was due back at the library (with other holds on it).