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isaiah43books's review
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
1.0
Always Running is a memoir of a young man who ended up in LA gangs in the 1960s. While I appreciated the straightforward approach to talking about his trauma, the graphic sexual content was a big turn off. This book was pornographic to say the least and the stories of sexual encounters could have been told without the details. The story also jumped all around from Luis’s age of 9 to 18 without any dates or general timeline. The story also jumped between past and present tense which was confusing.
As for the story, it was an interesting story of overcoming the trauma in his life. I do feel that Luis had a very external locus of control seeing everything as someone else’s fault with no responsibility for himself. The final chapters did resolve that as he started to take control of his life but he never seemed to take responsibility for the wrong things that he did without anyone telling him to. Finally, he went into great detail about his drug use but didn’t portray it as a negative thing but rather as a wonderful seductive experience that he lived for.
As for the story, it was an interesting story of overcoming the trauma in his life. I do feel that Luis had a very external locus of control seeing everything as someone else’s fault with no responsibility for himself. The final chapters did resolve that as he started to take control of his life but he never seemed to take responsibility for the wrong things that he did without anyone telling him to. Finally, he went into great detail about his drug use but didn’t portray it as a negative thing but rather as a wonderful seductive experience that he lived for.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Mass/school shootings, Sexual content, Murder, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Addiction, Violence, Child abuse, Excrement, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, Gore, Rape, and Police brutality
cozyreadswithb's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
sophiesallade's review
3.0
I really wanted to love this one, and I think it took me soooo long to listen to because I kept finding myself having a hard time listening because of the narration cadence. I ended up fast forwarding to 1.5X the speed it was supposed to be which is a lot!! So that might have been the reason. I also felt like this book walked a weird line of being prose/poetry/short stories. It was all a bit jumbled together and hard to keep track of the story line. Lots of feeling and lots to learn from this book, though. I think this would have been better read than listened to. Would like another go at it on paper!
adventureinreading's review against another edition
emotional
informative
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Police brutality, Drug abuse, Suicide, Violence, and Sexual content