Reviews tagging 'Death'

Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. by Luis J. Rodríguez

3 reviews

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.

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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

lainey_sherman3's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Gun violence, Alcoholism, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Drug use, Gore, Addiction, Blood, Classism, Deportation, Police brutality, Rape, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Murder, and Suicide

hawk_just_hawk's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

4.0

An excellent first-person account of how oppressive systems and structures create poverty and crime. Sociologically: Chef’s kiss!

Toxic masculinity and ableism are deeply entrenched in this lifestyle, so approach with caution. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Addiction, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Colonisation, Sexual violence, Suicide, Vomit, Drug abuse, Drug use, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Bullying, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Murder, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Toxic friendship, Violence, Classism, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, and Death