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A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison by Dwayne Betts
mmsipes495's review
4.0
The book didn’t flow super well for me and was kinda difficult to get into. But, the story of forgiveness and carrying on memories of the people who don’t have the same outcome was beautiful. I love that the author is taking his past that “follows him like a shadow” and is facing it head on to raise awareness and humanize the people in prisons still.
in2reading's review against another edition
4.0
I recently heard an interview with this author on NPR and was inspired to read this 2009 memoir of his years in prison. He is a beautiful and perceptive writer and I was alternately horrified, inspired, and saddened at his story. He has now published several books of poetry and is a student at Yale Law School. He was able to take a bad mistake and somehow learn and grow from it in very harsh circumstances. I hope to read more by him in the future.
eiseneisen's review against another edition
3.0
A Question of Freedom is a herky-jerky read. Author R Dwayne Betts often has difficulty staying on target for the duration of a paragraph, let alone a chapter, thus the book flits about from non-sequitur to non-sequitur.
But the book has value as a read. Here are the main takeaways:
1. Prison sucks.
2. You can be a genuinely good person with a track record of good behavior, on a path to success. You can see yourself as a good person and a good student, the last person in the world who would end up in jail. But if you commit a crime in 5 minutes of teenaged insanity, it can cost you 9 years of your life.
2a. This is more true for a black man than a white man
2b. Prison is filled with black men. Yes, there are whites and hispanics and Asians, but it is filled with black men.
4. You cannot conceive of how awful prison is until you are there. Prison sucks.
4a. Yet there are positive moments. Not many, but they are there. To wit:
"One day I was standing in the property room. A dude stood in line in front of me reading a book in Spanish. I didn't ask him his name, just if he was Hispanic. He told me no. Told me that he'd taught himself. It was like walking into a little miracle. Even though every day I was seeing things that I wouldn't write home about, things that weren't inspiring me in any way, there were moments that made me pause. This young black dude had taught himself Spanish because he wanted to learn. I found those moments when I walked to the rec yard or to the cafeteria. They were few and far between but I found them."
5. Prison sucks.
It's not the best book. You don't have to read it. But it is important that Mr. Betts got out of jail and wrote it, and thus I'm happy to have read it.
But the book has value as a read. Here are the main takeaways:
1. Prison sucks.
2. You can be a genuinely good person with a track record of good behavior, on a path to success. You can see yourself as a good person and a good student, the last person in the world who would end up in jail. But if you commit a crime in 5 minutes of teenaged insanity, it can cost you 9 years of your life.
2a. This is more true for a black man than a white man
2b. Prison is filled with black men. Yes, there are whites and hispanics and Asians, but it is filled with black men.
4. You cannot conceive of how awful prison is until you are there. Prison sucks.
4a. Yet there are positive moments. Not many, but they are there. To wit:
"One day I was standing in the property room. A dude stood in line in front of me reading a book in Spanish. I didn't ask him his name, just if he was Hispanic. He told me no. Told me that he'd taught himself. It was like walking into a little miracle. Even though every day I was seeing things that I wouldn't write home about, things that weren't inspiring me in any way, there were moments that made me pause. This young black dude had taught himself Spanish because he wanted to learn. I found those moments when I walked to the rec yard or to the cafeteria. They were few and far between but I found them."
5. Prison sucks.
It's not the best book. You don't have to read it. But it is important that Mr. Betts got out of jail and wrote it, and thus I'm happy to have read it.
jillieb's review against another edition
3.0
While Betts story was interesting, I didn't find his writing style engaging.
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