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Title: Monster : Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member, The by Sanyika Shakur, Monster Kody Scott ISBN: 0-14-023225-7 Publisher: Pearson Addison Wesley Pub. Date: 01 January, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.68 (126 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: "a reality check on the diversity of life"
Comment: Sanyika Shakur (A.K.A. Monster) brings the mind inside your cranium as close as possible to the mind sets and actions of a gang member. Reading this, you can almost, I say almost, feel the adrenaline of why people do this to themselves and others. Harsh and brutal but at the same time showing the tender emotions of a youth growing up in racist america, this book is as powerful to read as a rival gang gun blast to the head.
Rating: 5
Summary: ¿Children gone wild in a concrete jungle of poverty and rage
Comment: .....they are armed and dangerous". These words, written by an LA gang member who found his loyalty and respect on the streets as a Crip at the age of 11 years old. From the moment I started to read this book I felt like I was stepping into a parallel universe. A world where children riding ten speeds carry automatic weapons, and shoot down anyone who has dared to cross the line into their territory. They are Gang-Bangers and they live and die for their "Set" or gang. They come up in the ranks of the prison system like other children are oriented to boarding school and college.
Monster Kody has arrived and he is true to his Set and a leader among men. He has known nothing but his militaristic way of life for as long as he can remember. He knows never to be caught on the streets of South Central without his weapon; to do so could be deadly. He stands point when he enters the supermarket with his mom, and shoots when a rival gang member is spotted in produce. This sounds like insanity, and it is, but that doesn't make it any less real.
By the age of 19 Kody feels like he has aged beyond his years, and rightfully so. He has been at war for almost a decade. He realizes that he has to be a father to his children. He wants more for them, and he wants to break the cycle of New Afrikans killing New Afrikans. It is at this point that he decides to change his name and take on a new direction in life. Shakur is an intelligent individual that has much to offer. I was amazed by his insights and the words flowed along the page with ease. I usually don't care for books written with a lot of dialect, in this case street talk, but he did it in such a way that it enhanced the book. I hope you find your peace Sanyika and spread it among the people. You are surely capable of anything you set your mind out to do. Kelsana 6/25/01
Rating: 2
Summary: Mr. Innocent or Society Made Me Pull the Trigger
Comment: This autobiography does not lend itself well to being rated, since it basically consists of two different parts. The first one is a fascinating and insightful description of a childhood and a youth spent in one of the country's most gang-ridden and dangerous neighborhoods, South Central L.A. This part deserves four stars. The second one is an endless tirade of how society has done the author wrong. This part deserves none. As a result, I could not give the book more than two stars.
Kody Scott tells with verve how he grew up to become one of L.A.'s most notorious teenage gangsters. A shocking and frightening account of boys gone mad, killing other kids for the mere fact of wearing the wrong color, or living on the wrong street corner. What sets Kody's story apart is the fact that he is a first-person narrator (albeit, it seems, with the help of a professional writer), whereas other authors have based their books about gang-life on observations and interviews. As a result, readers will learn more from Kody about gang members' motivations and feelings than they ever could from an author who has not been affiliated with gang-life him- or herself.
However, the second part of the book, Kody's description of his life in prison and his conversion to a black nationalist, is downright pathetic. He constantly blames others for the choices he made in life: His parents he calls "promiscuous" and "irresponsible", society ("the system") he accuses of "oppressing every person of color". The horrible acts of violence he has committed he plays down as "wrongdoings ... things that were morally wrong based on the human code of ethics". He tries to make his readers believe that there is an automatism: Every kid from a poor neighborhood will invariably end up as a gang member. However, why then, I would like to know, are kids mentioned throughout the book who choose not (!) to join a gang. And finally, he constantly complains about life in prison ("nothing ... could explain this level of action to me"), as if he had just run a red light or stolen a candy bar. He demands respect, but he doesn't give any (cops and prison guards he calls "pigs" and "Nazi-types").
The saddest thing of it all is this: Kody obviously revels in the attention and applause he has received from journalists and book critics. However, he overlooks that this praise is only lavished on him because he "only" ran amok in South Central. Had he gone to the suburbs and shot kids there, the same people would have called for his head. Considering the fact that Kody is a self-proclaimed Afrikan, I find his disregard for the lives and the well-being of his fellow African-Americans quite astonishing.
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Title: Do or Die by Leon Bing ISBN: 0060922915 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 20 May, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Life in Prison by Stanley "Tookie" Williams, Barbara Cottman Becnel ISBN: 1587170949 Publisher: SeaStar Books Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King by Reymundo Sanchez, Rey Sanchez ISBN: 1556524277 Publisher: Chicago Review Press Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: 8 Ball Chicks by Gini Sikes ISBN: 0385474326 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 20 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: East Side Stories: Gang Life in East LA by Joseph Rodriguez, Ruben Martinez, Luis J. Rodriguez ISBN: 1576870723 Publisher: powerHouse Books Pub. Date: 31 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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