Reviews with content warning for Racism - The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater

37 reviews

bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

I’m so confused, there’s sooo many people being mentioned that I had no clue what was happening in the beginning.

The story allows you to view the story from multiple perspectives and gives an unbiased account of what happened. I had sympathy for both Sasha and Richard as the book tells the story of the tragedy of what happened to Sasha, how poorly the case was handled, and the injustice in the criminal justice system.

I don’t get why the author felt the need to deadname some of the people though, really unnecessary to the story. Because it’s written in 2017 (and apparently even when read even then, my point would still stand) some of the terms and discussions on gender and gender identity are outdated.

Disjointed storytelling as the story jumps all over the place; it’s apparently written in a nonlinear timeline. This left me feeling confused and pulled me out of the story. Also the writing style is very detached and almost feels like a textbook especially when it’s interwoven with definitions and statistics. The audio narrator sounds robotic so I would recommend a physical/ebook copy if you’re interested in reading it!

It’s difficult to rate non fiction especially when it’s about someone’s life so my rating is purely based on the author’s writing style choices and the audio narration. Overall it’s an important story that’s easily accessible for both adults and teens to learn from.

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mccbooks's review

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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morebedsidebooks's review

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medium-paced

4.0

As time has passed The 57 Bus has won multiple awards and made many best books list. As well as the dubious attention of appearing frequently in book challenges.

See my blog for an in-depth review.

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queergoth_reads's review against another edition

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informative fast-paced

2.5

I ready liked some aspects of this book. I've not read a lot of young adult non-fiction and I found it very engaging. I think it tells a very important story about both sides of the crime and how it affected everyone involved and how unfair the US justice system is.

However, I do think this could really use an update. There are various points where I found the language used outdated and uncomfortable. Also while focusing on an agender teen, it felt like this book fell into its own binary of man and woman, and other. There was very little space in this book for the gender spectrum.

There were also a few descriptions of people that seemed unnecessary and made me feel kind of uncomfortable.

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saragrochowski's review

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challenging informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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serena_hien's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative fast-paced

4.25

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sunnybugz's review

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informative inspiring sad medium-paced

4.0

Read this book for class- a very interesting memoir. As a genderqueer autistic person, I related to Sasha a lot. But as someone who grew up poor and in a rough neighbourhood, I emphasized deeply with Richard. I appreciate the in-depth discussion about the failures of the justice system- especially the juvenile justice system. I appreciate how Richard wasn't made out to be an extreme villain, but rather a teenager who did something terrible but is growing from it. The pacing wasn't my favourite, and the writing felt somewhat flat at times, but the story itself is very important.

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