Kindness for Weakness
By Shawn Goodman
Release Date: May 14, 2013
Source: Publisher
Summary: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest meets Catcher in the Rye.A fifteen-year-old boy from an abusive home desperately seeking his older brother's love and approval starts pushing drugs for him and suffers the consequences.
Review: This is not normally the kind of book I read. At all. But there was just something so intriguing about "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest meets Catcher in the Rye," that I couldn't resist picking it up.
James is used to taking care of himself. Since his mom got together with her abusive boyfriend and his brother left, James can only find solace in his books and conversations over a cold glass of root beer with his English teacher. But when James gets into trouble helping out his brother, he finds himself in juvie, a world where a 15-year-old boy like him does not belong. James has to learn to toughen up in a place where it's every man for himself.
Hm, I'm not really sure what to think right now. James goes through some serious stuff throughout this book. He comes from an awful home, and then winds up in juvie where you can't even count on the guards keeping you safe. And James is such a good kid! I feel so bad for him as he arrives at juvie scared out of his mind and he has to change who he is in order to survive such a rough place.
My favorite part of this book, big surprise, is James' relationship with his English teacher. His teacher is constantly giving him books to read and those books really make James think about life. Not only that, but he connects those books to what he's going through as he's locked up. It's pretty cool how he can tie everything together.
The ending kind of confused me, though. Okay, it really confused me. I'm not sure if I really liked/understood how things were left, but that's just me. Overall, this was a really striking read with some pretty real and deep emotions. If you're up for a more serious book that gets into the head of a troubled teenage boy, then I'd definitely say that this is the book for you.
I haven't read books with a more serious storyline in a while, this looks like something I might like. Thank you for sharing, Jessica. And that part about confusing ending sound promising.
ReplyDeleteBTW, girls and I are doing new feature on our blog, it's about taboo topics, so if you're interested in that type of books, you can visit our blog and check it out.
Glass @ Way Too Hot Books
I really enjoyed reading this book, and I'm glad to see that you read it and enjoyed it, even though it has such a bittersweet ending. Great review.
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