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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Fair warning: this book is not for the faint of heart. The story is about 4 boys who make a terrible mistake who end up in a juvenile detention facility for their crime. While there, they are abused, tortured and sexually assaulted by the guards. The adult versions of these tortured souls end up with the opportunity to punish and out the guards who assaulted them.
If you can stomach the graphic scenes that Carcaterra describes (even in vagueness they are cringe-worthy and nearly unbelievable), then you will find a page-turning and exciting book that left me, personally, wanting to constantly see what was going to happen next. I had always known that this was a movie, but had no idea that the book and the movie were based on a true story. Although, I suppose the only thing that really did was make the content even more shocking that it already was.
This was a quick read that read like a novel, and even contributed to a seemingly happy ending that is worth the short time it took to read. The only reason this lost a star was because of the graphic violence that were written about to those portrayed in the book. I suppose the truth can be ugly, and it truly was in this case.
If you can stomach the graphic scenes that Carcaterra describes (even in vagueness they are cringe-worthy and nearly unbelievable), then you will find a page-turning and exciting book that left me, personally, wanting to constantly see what was going to happen next. I had always known that this was a movie, but had no idea that the book and the movie were based on a true story. Although, I suppose the only thing that really did was make the content even more shocking that it already was.
This was a quick read that read like a novel, and even contributed to a seemingly happy ending that is worth the short time it took to read. The only reason this lost a star was because of the graphic violence that were written about to those portrayed in the book. I suppose the truth can be ugly, and it truly was in this case.
A powerful book about how one moment, one decision, can alter your life forever. My only complaint was the epilogue. I found it unnecessary and it kind of took away the emotions that I had been left with at the end of the last chapter.
Sleepers. I've seen the movie a bunch. It's top 5. I love it. If you have seen the movie, I would say that you don't need to read the book. Everything down to the dialog is exactly the same. Also they put everything that was in the book in the movie, the only thing that was a tiny bit dialed back was the sexual assault, the book was just so much more graphic than the movie. I personally enjoyed that, because I could actually skim through most of the book.
Here's the thing, Lorenzo Carcaterra had this published as a non fiction. The movie says it's based on a true story. He said at the beginning of the book that names, places, dates and all were changed to make sure that everyone stays safe or whatever. A lot of people find the story controversial and they don't believe it's true, think what you want, but when I talk about it I will be referring to it as a non fiction. So there's that.
This story is about 4 boys (Lorenzo, Michael, Tommy and John) who are from a neighborhood full of crime. They play a prank one summer, and they accidentally almost kill someone, and they get sentenced to do a year in a home for boys. In the home they are beat up, tortured, and sexually assaulted, all by 4 guards. After Lorenzo got out of the home (he was the first), the story fast forwards, and they are men now and two of them are killers (John and Tommy). The 2 criminals run into one of the guards over ten years later and shoot him while he is eating dinner at a bar. Michael is now an ADA, he recruits the help of Lorenzo to get the guys out of jail because Michael is prosecuting the case, and his plan is to lose. The guys also recruit the help of the crime boss they used to work for and dudes from the neighborhood including some local cops to get revenge on the other 3 guards. The last person they ask for help is Father Bobby, who is a priest, but also the boys grew up with him and he was just one of their friends. He faces the hardest decision of his life because the boys now need him to provide them with an alibi (i.e. lie on the stand).
Here's the thing, Lorenzo Carcaterra had this published as a non fiction. The movie says it's based on a true story. He said at the beginning of the book that names, places, dates and all were changed to make sure that everyone stays safe or whatever. A lot of people find the story controversial and they don't believe it's true, think what you want, but when I talk about it I will be referring to it as a non fiction. So there's that.
This story is about 4 boys (Lorenzo, Michael, Tommy and John) who are from a neighborhood full of crime. They play a prank one summer, and they accidentally almost kill someone, and they get sentenced to do a year in a home for boys. In the home they are beat up, tortured, and sexually assaulted, all by 4 guards. After Lorenzo got out of the home (he was the first), the story fast forwards, and they are men now and two of them are killers (John and Tommy). The 2 criminals run into one of the guards over ten years later and shoot him while he is eating dinner at a bar. Michael is now an ADA, he recruits the help of Lorenzo to get the guys out of jail because Michael is prosecuting the case, and his plan is to lose. The guys also recruit the help of the crime boss they used to work for and dudes from the neighborhood including some local cops to get revenge on the other 3 guards. The last person they ask for help is Father Bobby, who is a priest, but also the boys grew up with him and he was just one of their friends. He faces the hardest decision of his life because the boys now need him to provide them with an alibi (i.e. lie on the stand).
Incredibly sad, and at the same time a loving tribute to childhood and all the wonderful things that come with it such as growing up in the city and being raised by a village.
One of the best books I have ever read. I had tears rolling down my cheeks. Heart and gut-wrenching but a real must-read. Fantastically written.
Wow. That was moving. It was most certainly difficult to read at certain parts, namely through the abuse that these 4 young boys endured, especially if you consider that this is supposed to be based of real events that happened to the author and his friends. I guess there was some controversy with that, some people claiming that this was not based on true events, but I'm not here to speak of that one way or another. Either way I think this was a powerful, emotional journey, and I am glad to have read it.
I loved how this book was split up into three separate parts, the beginning which gave you a look at who these boys were, their individual home lives, and the neighborhood they came from, which was almost a living breathing character in itself. Then the middle was the time they spent inside Wilkinson Home for Boys, where the horrific events that changed their lives forever took place. After that came years later with all the boys having turned into men, and you got to see the how changed these people truly are after the events that took place in that year they spent in the Hell that was Wilkinson. And you also got to see a glorious plan of vigilante justice unravel.
There were so many elements that made this story as incredible to me as it was. I really enjoyed how their hometown, Hell's Kitchen, was portrayed in this story. You were completely immersed in this place with the characters, which truly felt like it was a world of it's own, separate from the rest of us, with it's own way of living and rules to live by. It was comparable to reading a good fantasy novel, with amazing world building, and I was very impressed by it. I also loved these characters, I feel in love with these goofy, mischievous boys after just a few chapters. And reading about their suffering broke me. It was so crushing hearing the atrocities they lived through, and it brought out my own desperate want for vengeance. It's a pretty solid accomplishment for an author to blur the lines of right and wrong for the readers, and those lines were obliterated in certain aspects in this novel. I rooted for their thirst of blood from the men that had taken so much from them. I ended this book honestly thinking that those monstrous guards at the Wilkinson Home for Boys deserved so much worse than they actually got, and that's something because I'm a pretty peaceful person.
It was such an emotional journey, alternating between filling my heart up with love for some of these characters, and hate for others. This story definitely made you question a lot of things though, can vengeance make a difference? Does it even partially fill the hole that was carved in you in the first place? When is the time to take things into your own hands, is it your right to dole out your own form of justice? Can one event change the entire course of your life? What about one poor decision?
The relationships in this book were beautifully portrayed. They were enduring of so much. Too much. I also loved Father Bobby, and even King Benny. And then there were the more quite characters, like the English teacher in Wilkinson who gave Shakes the copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, or Marlboro man, the guard who saved them at least one indignity, that made such an impact, even though their actions and appearance in the book in general were so small. You couldn't help but hold onto those small good things. They were a ray of sunshine on the bleakest of days. They gave you a sliver of hope that some people are good, they care.
The ending was rather bittersweet to me. I wanted so much more for these people than they ultimately got. I would definitely recommend this novel, to EVERYONE! Seriously, you should read this, it's an incredible story. Now I'm kind of dying to see the movie, Robert DeNiro, Brad Pitt, Kevin Bacon and Dustin Hoffman, that's an all-star cast for sure! And now I'll leave you with a few of my favorite quotes...
"I'm beggin' you," he said, his voice breaking, "Try to forgive me. Please. Try."
"Learn to live with it," I told him, getting up from the table.
"I can't," he said. "Not anymore."
"Then die with it," I said. looking at him hard. "Just like the rest of us."
"It doesn't take very long to know how tough a person you are or how strong you can be. I knew from my first day at Wilkinson that I was neither tough nor strong. It takes only a moment for the fear to find its way, to seep through the carefully constructed armor. Once it does, it finds a permanent place. It is true for a hardened criminal as it is for a young boy."
"Do me a favor, would ya, Ness?" Davenport said, putting the gun in his pocket.
"What?"
"I ever make it onto your shit list, give me a call," he said. "Give me a chance to apologize."
It was the summer of '97 and I got grounded for sneaking out of my bedroom window (again) to meet up with friends to drink warm, pilfered beers and smoke mexican ditch rat-weed (probably).
So while I'm grounded I read this book and I can't put it own. Because I read it so quickly, I still have a week to kill with nothing to do. So i read it again. I had friends come over to try and get me to sneak out again but i blow em off and say 'nah, im good actually, got this book im reading'. That's about all i can remember of this.
So while I'm grounded I read this book and I can't put it own. Because I read it so quickly, I still have a week to kill with nothing to do. So i read it again. I had friends come over to try and get me to sneak out again but i blow em off and say 'nah, im good actually, got this book im reading'. That's about all i can remember of this.
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug use
Holy shit. I literally can not talk about this book. Each word I write doesn't manage to quite convey everything I think and feel. I'll just say this; this book is absolutely incredible. This book is going to stay with me for a long time. I feel like this review might be slightly spoilerly. Not anything major, I mean, everyone knows how this ends but still, read at your own risk.
The first part isn't too interesting but it's incredibly important. It sets the stage, in a way. The author has a way with words. The writing manages to describe, I can't quite place it. It's simple and reads like an article but it really makes you feel. With just enough details, you can visualize everything, from how Michael speaks, to the way the neighborhood looks, just by his words.
And then the second part. I finished my Holocaust paper so I thought the days of me crying in libraries were done. Man, I was wrong. I sobbed. Literally, sat in my favorite corner in the library and sobbed because this book was so painful. After reading [b:Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison|58173|Fish A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison|T.J. Parsell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388931713s/58173.jpg|273723], I thought I couldn't read anything that was more gruesome. I thought I had hit rock bottom, that the scenes in that book were the worst scenes I'd ever have to visualize. I was wrong. From his thirteenth birthday, to the last night, I was shaking and crying and slowly losing more and more faith in humanity. The writing's power makes it all seem so vivid, so real.
But then the third part comes up. And it's fueling. It fills you up with hope. This story has a heroic build. It's amazing, the way you see them be kids and pretend these things and then they face real life villains and win against them. As a reader, this pleases me. I like seeing the villain lose. I love seeing heroes triumph against evil in clever and witty ways.
But more than that, it fills me up with thoughts. It challenges me to think about my own moral compass, about where I draw the line and where I don't. It shows the complexity of human spirit, the strength yet the ugliness of human nature.
This book strengthens my resolve that prisons aren't okay, that there are other ways. I just keep wondering about systems. Lorenzo (I really love that name) and his friends grew up in an environment that's okay with minor rule breakings, like stealing hot dogs. When they're in a place that condones violence,like Wilkinson it breeds violence. And in the end, the violence in Wilkinson was what pushed John and Tommy to become violent. But didn't the childhood in Hell's Kitchen make Lorenzo and Michael feel that it's okay to lie in court?
And was it okay? This book raises so many important questions. Clearly Wilkinson are absolutely in the wrong and need to be stopped. But in the same time, is it okay to kill someone that committed a very horrible, very wrong wrong against you? When do we draw the line? When is it okay morally to kill someone that did something wrong against you and when isn't it? I mean, this book portrays their actions in court as heroic. Laws exist so everyone gets trialled equally, so there's a system that answers the call for justice objectively. But is that really so? Could a murder be moral?
And don't get me wrong, I was rooting for them. I, too, have a love for the underdogs. I love seeing a person who was pushed down get up, fight, and win. In fact, I still think they qualify as heroes. I'm just not sure heroes are moral.
At the same time, I'm just thinking about what could this book mean about our justice system. Do John and Tommy (if they were alive) need to pay for their crimes? How can we, as a society, help? Is this a book about heroes defeating an evil or a bunch of people without respect for rules, breaking the law for their own rules about revenge?
The author paints Hell's Kitchen as an amazing place. He portrays it honestly, showing bad sides too but the general vibe is that it was a good place growing up, that the people are good, and so on. I just keep thinking about if that's true. Are laws really necessary to keep people in line? It seems the answer is obviously yes but no law stopped the guards for doing their heinous deeds.
Ok, I could go on all day and I think in my mind, I probably will. There's just so much to think about, so many questions that it raises about our society, our systems, our morality. This book has some difficult parts but I definitely recommend it. The rough parts are horrible but the third part is so incredible, it makes you feel better.
Oh, I listened to Moving Mountains "Abby Normal" and "Let's Shake on it" by Favorite Weapon and both of them really work with this book.
I guess it's time to give The Count of Monte Cristo another chance, I stopped in the middle last time.
The first part isn't too interesting but it's incredibly important. It sets the stage, in a way. The author has a way with words. The writing manages to describe, I can't quite place it. It's simple and reads like an article but it really makes you feel. With just enough details, you can visualize everything, from how Michael speaks, to the way the neighborhood looks, just by his words.
And then the second part. I finished my Holocaust paper so I thought the days of me crying in libraries were done. Man, I was wrong. I sobbed. Literally, sat in my favorite corner in the library and sobbed because this book was so painful. After reading [b:Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison|58173|Fish A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison|T.J. Parsell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388931713s/58173.jpg|273723], I thought I couldn't read anything that was more gruesome. I thought I had hit rock bottom, that the scenes in that book were the worst scenes I'd ever have to visualize. I was wrong. From his thirteenth birthday, to the last night, I was shaking and crying and slowly losing more and more faith in humanity. The writing's power makes it all seem so vivid, so real.
But then the third part comes up. And it's fueling. It fills you up with hope. This story has a heroic build. It's amazing, the way you see them be kids and pretend these things and then they face real life villains and win against them. As a reader, this pleases me. I like seeing the villain lose. I love seeing heroes triumph against evil in clever and witty ways.
But more than that, it fills me up with thoughts. It challenges me to think about my own moral compass, about where I draw the line and where I don't. It shows the complexity of human spirit, the strength yet the ugliness of human nature.
This book strengthens my resolve that prisons aren't okay, that there are other ways. I just keep wondering about systems. Lorenzo (I really love that name) and his friends grew up in an environment that's okay with minor rule breakings, like stealing hot dogs. When they're in a place that condones violence,like Wilkinson it breeds violence. And in the end, the violence in Wilkinson was what pushed John and Tommy to become violent. But didn't the childhood in Hell's Kitchen make Lorenzo and Michael feel that it's okay to lie in court?
And was it okay? This book raises so many important questions. Clearly Wilkinson are absolutely in the wrong and need to be stopped. But in the same time, is it okay to kill someone that committed a very horrible, very wrong wrong against you? When do we draw the line? When is it okay morally to kill someone that did something wrong against you and when isn't it? I mean, this book portrays their actions in court as heroic. Laws exist so everyone gets trialled equally, so there's a system that answers the call for justice objectively. But is that really so? Could a murder be moral?
And don't get me wrong, I was rooting for them. I, too, have a love for the underdogs. I love seeing a person who was pushed down get up, fight, and win. In fact, I still think they qualify as heroes. I'm just not sure heroes are moral.
At the same time, I'm just thinking about what could this book mean about our justice system. Do John and Tommy (if they were alive) need to pay for their crimes? How can we, as a society, help? Is this a book about heroes defeating an evil or a bunch of people without respect for rules, breaking the law for their own rules about revenge?
The author paints Hell's Kitchen as an amazing place. He portrays it honestly, showing bad sides too but the general vibe is that it was a good place growing up, that the people are good, and so on. I just keep thinking about if that's true. Are laws really necessary to keep people in line? It seems the answer is obviously yes but no law stopped the guards for doing their heinous deeds.
Ok, I could go on all day and I think in my mind, I probably will. There's just so much to think about, so many questions that it raises about our society, our systems, our morality. This book has some difficult parts but I definitely recommend it. The rough parts are horrible but the third part is so incredible, it makes you feel better.
Oh, I listened to Moving Mountains "Abby Normal" and "Let's Shake on it" by Favorite Weapon and both of them really work with this book.
I guess it's time to give The Count of Monte Cristo another chance, I stopped in the middle last time.