Always Running

by Luis J. Rodríguez

The award-winning and bestselling classic memoir about a young Chicano gang member surviving the dangerous streets of East Los Angeles, now featuring a new introduction by the author.

Winner of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, hailed as a New York Times notable book, and read by hundreds of thousands, Always Running is the searing true story of one man’s life in a Chicano gang—and his heroic struggle to free himself from its grip.

By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East Los Angeles gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests and then watched with increasing fear as gang life claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation.

Achieving success as an award-winning poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more—until his young son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running, a vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants.

At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-earned lesson for the next generation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Banned Books, Crime, True Crime, Latinx

262 pages, Paperback

First published February 9, 1993

About the author

Luis J. Rodríguez (b. 1954) is a poet, journalist, memoirist, and author of children’s books, short stories, and novels. His documentation of urban and Mexican immigrant life has made him one of the most prominent Chicano literary voices in the United States. Born in El Paso, Texas, to Mexican immigrant parents, Rodríguez grew up in Los Angeles, where in his teen years he joined a gang, lived on the streets, and became addicted to heroin. In his twenties, after turning his back on gang violence and drugs, Rodríguez began his career as a journalist and then award-winning poet, writing such books as the memoir Always Running (1993), and the poetry collections The Concrete River (1991), Poems Across the Pavement (1989), and Trochemoche (1998). He has also written the short story collection The Republic of East L.A. (2002). Rodríguez maintains an arts center, bookstore, and poetry press in L.A., where he continues writing and working to mediate gang violence.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found out about this book during my time working at Garfield. There were a lot of books in the classroom libraries about gang life, books of poetry by Tupac Shakur, stuff the students prefered as it had to do with, "you know, real life." Which was, in a way, bullshit. I mean, a few of them, maybe could relate to that, and the ones that could were sorry of the fact and didn't flaunt it. One kid I remember, his older brother had been killed in a gang-related shooting. He wasn't a particularly good student, this kid, but he was always there and he was always respectful; he knew it would kill his mother if he didn't at least get through high school.

Anyway, I read a lot of these books, and out of all of them, this one was far and away the best. It was the students' favorite as well. And for good reason: it's a compelling story, the writing is beautiful, the characters are complex -- that is, "real" -- and the preaching is kept to a minimum. Rodriguez speaks from his own experience, acknowleding his own mistakes without exactly apologizing for them. In general, there's not a whole lot of editorializing, the author simply describes the events as he remembers them. While you could look at Always Running as street-journalism, I think that's really selling it short; the book is filled with characters you actually care about, and that, for any writer, is no easy trick.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Luis Rodriguez speaks out of a virtually unheard experience: a young Chicano man who survived "la vida loca" gang culture in South San Gabriel. Rodriguez' writing is raw and brutally honest, but with a lyricism that will stop readers in their tracks. He gives voice to an unheard cry, and illuminates the heartbreaking cycle of poverty and violence that perpetuates gang wars. He neither simplifies the problem, nor admits defeat. His passion for reconciliation and true empowerment of minority communities, such as the Mexican American community, is staggering. I found this truly challenging and convicting -- particularly as I have reevaluated my approach to library outreach for teens. Read this.

[Booktalk this!: 8th-12th graders]

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a powerful and painful read. It's not easy reading about the gang experience. It's harder still when you know it could have been your story if circumstances had been different. I knew it was bad in LA, but I had no idea how hard it was just to survive.

I'm Mexican-American and 4 years older than the author. There was a time in my life that I wouldn't admit to being Mexican-American because of the attitudes towards us. Some of those attitudes are reported in this book and that made it painful to read and relive.

Was it worth reading--absolutely!

[Brie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Growing up in California, and attending schools that were often 50% or more hispanic, I was really interested in this book. I was hoping that it would expose to me the culture, and reasons, behind gangs. To some extent, the book achieved this.

However, I was so put off by the book, that I stopped halfway through. The author offers lots of short narratives of events that happened in his life, but they are not strung together into a cohesive story. I felt it jarring to try to place the event in the timeline of his life, and it seemed to bounce around a bit. It was very distracting to try and follow, and it ruined the flow of the story.

Also, I wanted more. I wanted "I had to do this because...", rather than what seemed a voluntary choosing of the lifestyle. At points, he does say the gun violence or rape was not his thing, but he passively (and sometimes actively) participates and/or does nothing to stop it. He doesn't tell the reader why he's compelled to do it, other than "that's what you do". What are the consequences of not doing, or stopping a gang rape?

Where is the enlightenment, the learnings? Perhaps I'll never know because I didn't finish it, but the lack of insight into the why of things made me quit this book.

2 stars for honesty and courage to tell this story. If this was fiction, it would be 1 star.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

The glaring contradictions in this memoir make it hard to side with the author. You can only take so many "I was given no opportunities" paragraphs next to ones about voluntary drug use, sex, and violence until it's impossible to believe anything the author says.

[Jonathan LaPoma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always Running is an engaging and intelligent look into the socio-political factors that have led to the proliferation of street gangs in the last century in areas where large percentages of citizens have few opportunities but plentiful obstacles, told through the firsthand experiences of former gang member and now activist, Luis Rodriguez, as he grows up as an oppressed minority in the over-policed, but under-protected, gang-haven of East LA. Though his story is fairly common—his parents moved from Mexico to LA to improve their lives and in spite of their best efforts weren’t able to protect their son from getting absorbed into the world of gangs surrounding him—it’s how he tells the story that makes this book unique and valuable. Rodriguez doesn’t romanticize the gang lifestyle of drugs, women, and crime the way that other writers might do. Rather, Rodriguez uses real human emotion and insight to explain the sheer horrors of this lifestyle in an attempt to deter any kids from wanting to live it.

Though Always Running is a personal account of Rodriguez’s gang activity and later activism, it’s as much a historical account of the factors that led to the rise of gangs in LA in the 20th Century—and he blends the two perfectly. We see how those factors are similar to those that led Rodriguez to join a gang himself. He didn’t join because he wanted to do drugs, have power, and kill people, he joined because, if he didn’t, he’d be more vulnerable to being beaten, robbed, and/or killed growing up as an oppressed minority in a dangerous and chaotic world. A gang affiliation meant protection—but it also meant identity. Mexicans have long faced discrimination in this country, and many joined gangs as a way to celebrate their heritage of struggle. The book is filled with great quotes that explain this identity: “I’d walk into the counselor’s office for whatever reason and looks of distain greeted me—one meant for a criminal…It was harder to defy this expectation than just accept it…It was a jacket I could try to take off, but they kept putting it back on…So why not be proud? Why not be an outlaw? Why not make it our own?”

Though the book exposes a lot of ugliness, one of the major themes Rodriguez explores is his pride in Chicano heritage, and how this pride eventually inspired him to give up the gang lifestyle. When he’s able to explore his identity in more positive ways, such as through joining Chicano pride groups, painting murals, and writing about his experiences, Rodriguez slowly starts to leave the gang lifestyle behind, and in doing so, he begins to see through its shallowness and pointlessness. Though it may give kids protection and a feeling of pride, he shows how those doing the “protecting” may be the very people who you need protection from when you question their lifestyle and how silly their pride is when it comes at the expense of selling your own soul. Luckily for Rodriguez, he was able to escape this lifestyle, which is not something many of his friends could say. Death is always around every corner, and every turn of the page, and so few kids like Rodriguez are able to live long enough to see through this lifestyle and develop into productive members of society.

One of the most valuable parts of this book is its socio-political message about the horrible affects the oppression of minorities has on a society, and this message is as current and poignant today as it was when the book was written. Rodriguez explains how systemic racism was used throughout the history of LA to keep certain minority groups poor, disenfranchised, and controlled by their oppressors, and how this not only hurts the minority groups, but also hurts the oppressors. Society creates gangs then lives in fear of being attacked by them and police brutality results. It’s impossible today to turn on the news and avoid stories of policemen and women harassing, intimidating, assaulting, and sometimes, killing, specific demographics of US citizens for no other reason than their skin color, religious affiliation, national origins… This books is filled with so many examples of horrific crimes committed by police officers that it's hard not to be outraged. Granted, most of these crimes were committed against gang members, but these gang members were mostly misguided kids, and the cops, who are adults who’ve sworn to protect and defend US citizens, oftentimes cause more violence and crime than the gang members. Again, Rodriguez has a lot of great quotes to explain this: “In the barrio, the police are just another gang…Shootings, assaults and skirmishes between the barrios are direct results of police activity. Even drug dealing. I know this. Everybody knows this.” Quotes like this show why the Black Lives Matter movement is so important, and how it didn’t just emerge out of some bubble—the problem has always been here, and the more that people read books like Always Running, the better chances we have as a society to address it.

Part poetic personal story, part engaging historical lesson, part inspiration tale of redemption, part exultation of Chicano heritage, part poignant work of socio-political activism, Always Running is a multifaceted book dripping with live-in human experience and emotion, and I highly recommend it to everyone who cares about improving the world they live in.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I appreciated ("enjoyed" doesn't seem like an appropriate word) the realism of the story. Rodriguez pulls no punches in the accounting of the details of his life, presenting some of the darker scenes with the same honesty and straightforward writing that he gives to any scene in the book. He is generous toward the positive influences in his life, such as his mentors in the latter half of the book.

I had two issues with it, however. The writing is extremely uneven. At times, he waxes overly poetic and at times he writes with such boring simplicity that it feels like it was written by multiple authors. The book was based partially on writing he did when he was in his teens, then he continued working on it through his 20s and finished it while in his 30s, so this likely explains some--and perhaps all--of the unevenness.

Second, Rodriguez fails to take responsibility for his actions in the book. He shows that he accepts the responsibilities placed upon him by his mentors, especially Chente, to rise above gang life and to put aside relatively small grievances in order to fight for greater Chicano rights. However, he seems to show no remorse, no regret for the crimes he committed. There was no making amends, no feeling that his genuinely extensive volunteer work should be done, at least in part, to help repair the communities that his gang involvement helped tear apart.

This is what makes me concerned about recommending this book to teens. Although he tells an important story and one that I'm sure resonates with teens today as well as it did when first published, he left me with the impression that he felt that once he got out, he left all his bad deeds behind him. Teenagers already have difficulty seeing how their actions affect others. There's a fine line between earning a clean slate and thinking that you deserve one, and, although Rodriguez talks in the preface and new introduction about how hard-earned his clean slate was, that line is not clear in the main text of the book.

[Isabelle✨]

5-11-22
During swim period we went to the auditorium and got a pleasant surprise- Mr. Rodriguez came to our school to give a talk. He used to go to our school. Had a suspicion that he wrote this book (which I had previously placed on my tbr from last years English teachers recommendation). Really cool that I could experience this and hear him speak in person.

[Luz]

ALWAYS RUNNING IS AN AMAZING BOOK
This book is about a young boy named Luis Rodrigues known as the author. It talks about Gang days back in the old days of Los Angeles. This book is based on his real life, some people dont realize how life is because they havent gone through or havent seen anything. Life in Colorado isnt the same as in the south or in other places. its very difficult to live in a time the way Luis did and other people as well. People dont understand that some people stay homeless for not fighting for their lives. This book talked about several things, though i like the way Luis was, he always said what he had on mind and he wasnt afraid to admit things and things he did wrong.. He tried to act like a bad boy, but i know he still had good inside of him. Luis was not a very smart boy, he could of been but he just didnt do what was right. i understand that what Luis was going through was rough times! This book was a bit confusing! i understood what the author was trying to tell us, but there was some parts in the book where it was difficult to understand.
I think that Luis did good on writing this book for several reasons. I would recommend this book to anybody that is going through hard times, or that have had gang experiences. Some people think that being in a gang is cool and this and that, they just try to fit in. The ones that are in gangs supposably are just fakes and rookies. The ones that actually dont want to be homeless and fight for their beliefs are in real gangs. some people have to be in gangs to survive and in order to protect themselves. The ones that are in real gangs are not proud of what theyre into, but they have no other choice. Its either u die or you fight for your life. i could make several connections to the book! i have some friends/cousins that are involved in gangs. There life isnt in a good position right now. this book is just great and i would recommend this book to anybody!!1!

[Theresa Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What’s crazy about this book is that so much of this was eerily similar to events that happened much more recently: What happened in Baltimore and Ferguson, to name just two. Unfortunately, stories of police brutality disproportionately being inflicted on people with brown and black skin hasn’t changed much since what Luis Rodriguez experienced in his youth.

One thing I didn’t like about this book was that he jumped around time-wise for reasons that weren’t clear to me. He’d talk about stuff that happened in 1970 and then suddenly we’re back in 1968, back and forth. Sometimes he’d be talking about being 15 and suddenly we’re talking about events that happened when he was 9. There were lots of characters, too. These two things meant it wasn’t always easy to follow the narrative.

My favorite part of the book was when he and a Chicano girl tried out to become the school mascots Joe and Josephine Aztec because their community was tired of Anglo students filling the role and making the characters look like bumbling morons. Luis and Esme do an authentic Aztec dance in authentic Aztec dress. It was a part of building community pride and the scene made me tear up.

His story of the violence and prejudice and poverty he was subjected to meant joining what they called “clubs” and the media called “gangs” for protection seem like a logical thing to do. That he got out alive and became a published writer is the surprising part of the story.

[Bella Nole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somehow he took mexican gangs and made it boring. Honestly I thought the whole idea of the book was really good and had good potential, but his execution just wasn’t it. I feel like the whole topic and some of the things in the book are things that totally need to be talked about, but the way that he went about addressing topics felt off. Also I felt like he thought really highly of himself and he acted like he thought he was a super great guy - he wasn’t. The books chapters were way too long, and they made it so much harder to get through. I also didn’t really like Luis that much, so not liking the narrator made the book even harder to read. Overall I like the idea of the topic, but his writing style and his narration were enough to ruin the whole book for me.

[kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being in education, I'm always curious about banned books and books with lots of buzz. Here in California, Always Running is kept behind the checkout desk at my local library because it is one of the most stolen books, so I wanted to check it out. Interesting enough but not "steal-worthy". I can see how his story would appeal to teens, although I don't think they should read it (thus the ban and theft issue I guess). Everyone needs a place to fit in and belong.

[Shazi L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immersive storytelling, insightful read.

This is not an easy topic to read about, and certainly not to live through, but Always Running presents such a unique perspective and was truly worth the read. I really felt present in the words and the sense of community. It felt like such an honest look at the failings of society and personal failings. This feels like important cultural content.

[Etienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nope! I try so hard, but I didn't like this book. The way the author tell is story isn't captivating for the reader at all, the way he tells it makes some parts or elements in it really hard to believe. And overall it was just a hard young life drug/thug story we've already seen. I'm not discrediting what the author has gone through at all, but for a reader, there isn't much to learn from here.

[Jonathan Lothspeich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure exactly what I expected going into this book, but it wasn't this! The memoir is very thoughtful and compelling, on top of being a crazy story. Definitely going straight into my classroom library, this is an excellent resource for students struggling with the allure of the streets

[Nik Melo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it was a really good book. It never got out of the story it was very concentrated on Luis( The main Character).

[Megan Unger · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so hard to get into partly because of the slow start and the insanely long chapters. I feel like if this book was split up into short chapters in a better timeline it would make reading this so much more enjoyable. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 felt like the same thing over and over again for over 50 pages. I feel like this book had to much potential, but just due to the layout and it’s repetitiveness this book was so hard to read. Plus, all of the topics that would not fly now in the slightest was really hard to read through.

[Trina Brandano · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a first hand record of the Chicano, teenage, gang affiliated experience in 1960-1970s LA. Luis somehow writes a such a poignant account of the systemic racism, abuse, misuse of power, and gang violence that it’s hard to remember that the person in the midst of it all is a mere teenager at the time. This inspirational book that highlights how far we have come as a society but also just how long we have been fighting the same fight. This is one of those reads that you will think about for a while after you finish it.

[Allie]

if memoir why sex scenes

rodriguez needed to put down the thesaurus when describing human bodies. desperately.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is on the ALA's list of 100 most frequently banned books of 1990 through 2000.

This is a memoir of gang life & of growing up poor and Chicano in East LA in the '60's & 70's. It's also about learning who you are and finding ways out - through writing, through painting, & through social activism.

Rodriguez is primarily a poet and writer of short stories & it shows in this collection of snap shots of moments from his past. For those wanting a standard tale with a classical throughline and neat conclusions, this book will disappoint.

I enjoyed the author's imagery and the ways he plays with the genre of memoir. What is memory? What do we remember? How do we remember it? For me so much of my memory is just what he provides - little snapshots of moments in time.
From a political/social perspective, this book does a good job of elucidating the reasons kids join gangs and the possible paths out. He talks about gangs as a kind of mass suicide & that's an idea that stuck with me - all these kids looking for family & hating themselves.

In one of those funny moments where influences collide that can happen while reading, I kept thinking of another gang memoir that I read when I was younger. I remembered that it was written by a Puerto Rican guy that grew up in Spanish Harlem & was also about all of the ways that books saved him, but I couldn't remember the name of the book. It was right there on the tip of my tongue. I could remember that the author was named Piri, but that was all. Then I turned a page & there it was - Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas - turns out Luis Rodriguez read that one, too.

This book is also full of shades of Sandra Cisneros - a Chicana writer & poet whose work I've read off & on since her first book - The House on Mango Street. Like Cisneros, Rodriguez' work is full of rhythm & bright color.

I liked this book a great deal, although I don't think it offers any long-term solutions to these problems. Like The Corner, David Simon's killer tome on life on a Baltimore drug corner, this book illustrates the condition. Perhaps education really is the only way out, but to get there we're going to have to spend some money & stop using our educational system to ghettoize people based on class, race, income level, & the phase of the moon on Fridays when the cat's too tired to sing.

The world is a complex & beautiful place & in the end maybe only words can save us.

[LG · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was young, I believed a book was good, bad or mediocre. That this sort of standing was at least semi-permanent. I didn’t realize how much the reader brought to the experience. In fact, I would have probably argued against it. Coming to this awareness makes me more of a traditionalist than I suspected. By traditionalist, I mean, there is a canon. There is a recognized body of books that we can argue as significant to understanding the arch of human history and important periods of intellectual thought.

For some reason, this book challenges that thought and begins to unravel what belongs in the canon. I tried to read this book twice before. The first time, I was unable to get past the first chapter. The second time I read it in a fog. I read it, but I didn’t really listen. The book’s events passed by me. This third reading, I am listening. It’s dark. It doesn’t hold the reader’s hand. It offers few signs for hope. It waits until the end of the book to begin to give signs of hope. I am absolutely sure that’s why it took me three tries to truly read the book. If books were really static things, I wouldn’t have such drastic feelings each time I picked it up. I could be bored by the book, but I would have still recognized it’s place in the canon. Or at least, that’s how I viewed things in my previous mode of thinking.

My heart aches for Rodriguez and his son. My heart aches for the girls who are causally described as gang raped. My heart aches for the kid who dies when the police chase him across an abandoned building. My heart aches for the casualness Rodriguez describes huffing paint with neighborhood kids. I don’t know where this belongs in the canon. Does it belong in a special place for urban grittiness? Does it receive special accommodation for its unapologetic stoicism? Does it receive criticism for a stoicism that seeps past machismo into a photo journal realism that dissects East Los Angeles? I don’t know. But it is critical to understanding human progress or more importantly the lack of progress when it comes to showing compassion towards others.

I participated in a library book club where a participant asked: how would things change if people without means told their story? At the time, it made sense. We need more diverse stories. For me this book embodies that question.

[Etzael · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I hear the final tempo of the crazy life leave my body” (Rodriguez 246)
What I like about this quote is that it helps me understand how he came a long way from gang violence. It shows how much he has grown from being a immature boy to a mature adult and leaving all gang violence in his past.
I give this memoir a five star rating because of how detailed Rodriguez is with his story. He explains in full detail how gang violence impacted his life and how he was able to grow from his mistakes. Second, what I liked about this book was that it included everyday challenges that kids could connect to. As a teen myself, I can relate to most of what he did as a youngster, as well as how one minor mistake might ruin his entire life. What I also enjoyed best about this book was how thoroughly he described gangster life; by explaining it, he gave me a deeper understanding of how harsh it was. Third, he would utilize gangster slang; as I read, I felt more connected to him as he shared his narrative and I felt as if I were in his shoes. Fourth, he accurately depicted life at the time, including how schools were divided by race and how people used to pick on one another. Finally, the level of passion that was poured into his account was both compelling and difficult to read about how life was back then, and how we still have those problems today. To summarize, here are the five reasons why I rate this memoir a five-star rating.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I was incredibly turned-off by this book. Luis, Louis, Louie, Chin, whatever your name is, had a very interesting and moving life, but could have recalled it in a much better way that would have fascinated readers more. I preferred the narratives, the small stories of his life and wished they were strung together more cohesively. I guess a really account of someone’s life is so much more tumultuous than how historical fiction can read. It took me way to long to finish this and I only did, to learn. I appreciate the usage of Spanish and the inclusion of a glossary. The historical content was interesting enough, but the writing style weighed down the few and far between positives.

To be fair, a Latina waitress did stop me to verify that I was reading this book and lauded that this book be required reading for schools in heavily Latinx populated areas. Perhaps the Latinx community would appreciate it more? Personally, I think I would better enjoy a book about Asian culture in this style, but how much better, might be the real determinant.

[Jack Beevers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this account of life as a Mexican immigrant below the poverty line in LA and the almost unavoidable pathway to becoming involved in the wide spread gang culture of the 60s and 70s. Rodriguez paints a vivid picture of some pretty brutal scenes, making the book hard to read at times, in a way. This is balanced nicely with poetic descriptions and an ever-present glimmer of hope that he would find a better, safer life.

A theme throughout is the systematic and overt racism faced by Latinos. I was shocked by some of the acts of violence against young Rodriguez; he and his bother are below the age of 10 when subjected to one particularly horrific act. It is also saddening to think that many of these themes still exist in society in 2024. Although I’m not sure of the reality in Los Angeles today, I would assume over time the racism has subsided to a degree, particularly when it comes to the violent acts based purely on race, but there is a long way to go.

[Patrick O'Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gangs, LA, vato locos - Luis Rodriguez got heart, and he wrote this in what? 1993. So yeah. It rolls a bit dated but what he's ultimately saying is a message that never gets old. Yet it's Rodriguez's use of language that really makes this book sign. Rodriguez is a poet. His prose is so beautiful you forget you're reading the gritty imagery of ganbanging in the barrio. When he flows, every little detail is examined and presented and the syntax of his expression is something to behold.

[Aileen Morales · Rating 3 out of 5]

its alright, personally I don't love this book, but I like how the artist made sure to add important events with great details so we could have imagery of what happened.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really tried to get into this book but the way it kept skipping here and there didn't let me feel like I was relating to anything written in it and I just found it frustrating.

[David McGill-Soriano · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a good book that portrayed the different chicano movements and gang days in LA. It’s a literary masterpiece, at times feeling like you are reading poetry

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is interesting

[Keegan Keelan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for class. It's pretty good, though awful to read about so much violence. Gangs are such a foreign concept to me. I can't fathom turning to gangs as a necessity for survival. My only gripe with the book was the gratuitous sex scenes. I can understand him wanting to provide context and show the reader what life was really like, but the graphic explanations of his sexual encounters didn't serve the greater purpose of where the book was going. That's my opinion at least.

While the contents of the books were hard to read (dv, rape, violence, gang violence, racism, police brutality, etc) the book's overall message is inspiring. I'm glad I read it.