vegprincess 's review for:

True Notebooks by Mark Salzman

5.0

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I liked this book more than I initially thought I would, and I ended up caring for the kids that it's about. Mark Salzman spent some time teaching a writing class in a jail for juveniles accused of committing violent crimes. The vast majority of the teens were incarcerated for murder and were serving time until they were tried and then moved to adult facilities to serve their sentences. The quality of the writing these "students" were capable of was often surprising. It's so easy to think of violent youth as worthless garbage but this book did a good job of showing another side of these kids. I actually felt sorry for many of them and had to remind myself to also feel sad for their victims and the victims' families.