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My Life Behind Bars: What You Think You Know and What Really Happened
This is a true story about my life where I was incarcerated at George W. Hill Correctional Facility. I explain how I found myself to become arrested and how my life changed while incarcerated.
85 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 15, 2018
2 people want to read
About the author
Darrel Burt
3 books21 followersI am Darrel and I am a small business owner that 3d prints custom parts for remote control cars. I enjoy reading and going out and exploring new things. I am not new into writing but I am new to the world of publishing.
I was in the Army for seven years then ETS out where I went to college full time. I decided right before completing college that I wanted to work for myself so I started a 3d printing company. Within my spare time I read and write to where I recently published my first book. I am currently in the process of writing even more books.
I believe life is about having fun and enjoying it. So I am living each day as if it may be my last. So I am doing all I can now for me so I can leave something for the future generations.
I was in the Army for seven years then ETS out where I went to college full time. I decided right before completing college that I wanted to work for myself so I started a 3d printing company. Within my spare time I read and write to where I recently published my first book. I am currently in the process of writing even more books.
I believe life is about having fun and enjoying it. So I am living each day as if it may be my last. So I am doing all I can now for me so I can leave something for the future generations.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 11, 2018
This is a good book about one man's journey through the incarceration system.
It is told in a first-person narrative style, linear, with a brief description of the narrator, his life situation, and the events that led to his months-long pre-trial incarceration up through his exoneration on most charges. To me it is mainly a survival guide for those who may end up consumed by the maws of the criminal justice "system," both as a warning of what to avoid so as to not be the square peg as well as what to do to survive.
It brings to light the awful loneliness of the incarcerated--you may be surround 24x7 by people everywhere, but those who love you are outside--and they cannot come inside, in any real way, to understand the great swirl of uncertainty and chaos and random punishments and attacks. Even the very best of us cannot help but drift away from those we love who are imprisoned, because we have so many things to keep up busy and stimulated. Those who are locked up have no such luxury, and are left to think and wonder with no real information from the outside to serve as a deterrent against despair.
The writing flows freely, chapter to chapter, and appears to be written by the author over the time of his imprisonment, from the events leading up to his arrest and jailing up through his trial and eventual release. It is an "in-the-moment" narrative, and the telling of the tale is as it is experienced by the writer at the time of the writing. I found this to be one of the most fascinating elements of the book, to be honest--that it is not a "story" but an honest account of what someone is thinking and feeling, moment by moment, while locked up and restrained by faceless guards and arbitrary officers.
I look forward to Mr. Burt continuing in his writing, and I would hope there are more stories of his restored life.
If I could suggest changes to the book, I think a foreword could explain the structure of the book to the new reader--I had to struggle the first few chapters to figure out how the style of writing was part of the construction of the story. An advisory that it was a journal would have helped right away to figure this out.
I purchased the Kindle version, and I also struggled with the formatting of the main text. It just might be my device settings, but only the start and end of the book was in roman type--all the chapters were set in italic, which, for me, made it difficult to read.
It is told in a first-person narrative style, linear, with a brief description of the narrator, his life situation, and the events that led to his months-long pre-trial incarceration up through his exoneration on most charges. To me it is mainly a survival guide for those who may end up consumed by the maws of the criminal justice "system," both as a warning of what to avoid so as to not be the square peg as well as what to do to survive.
It brings to light the awful loneliness of the incarcerated--you may be surround 24x7 by people everywhere, but those who love you are outside--and they cannot come inside, in any real way, to understand the great swirl of uncertainty and chaos and random punishments and attacks. Even the very best of us cannot help but drift away from those we love who are imprisoned, because we have so many things to keep up busy and stimulated. Those who are locked up have no such luxury, and are left to think and wonder with no real information from the outside to serve as a deterrent against despair.
The writing flows freely, chapter to chapter, and appears to be written by the author over the time of his imprisonment, from the events leading up to his arrest and jailing up through his trial and eventual release. It is an "in-the-moment" narrative, and the telling of the tale is as it is experienced by the writer at the time of the writing. I found this to be one of the most fascinating elements of the book, to be honest--that it is not a "story" but an honest account of what someone is thinking and feeling, moment by moment, while locked up and restrained by faceless guards and arbitrary officers.
I look forward to Mr. Burt continuing in his writing, and I would hope there are more stories of his restored life.
If I could suggest changes to the book, I think a foreword could explain the structure of the book to the new reader--I had to struggle the first few chapters to figure out how the style of writing was part of the construction of the story. An advisory that it was a journal would have helped right away to figure this out.
I purchased the Kindle version, and I also struggled with the formatting of the main text. It just might be my device settings, but only the start and end of the book was in roman type--all the chapters were set in italic, which, for me, made it difficult to read.
May 30, 2018
Where to begin, yeesh.
I have no idea exactly what this 'author' was trying to accomplish with this bunch of erratically placed words and phrases. This is repetitive, difficult to understand to the extent I was re-reading constantly simply to try and understand what I had indeed just read. Many times this just did not make any sense. It's self-aggrandizing and self-defeating at the same time.
Here's a 'for instance,'
"I am not upset or even mad that people want to share their opinions. But you truly show your ignorance when you talk on matters that you have no clue what took place and what you have no idea what the situation is or was."
I'm sorry, what?
Here's another,
"See all of these people that wanted and needed to put their 2 cents in about the kind of person I am, what I have done and what I do and do not have made themselves look like complete fools and truly showed their ignorance."
The whole book is like this.
I kept reading simply because I did not think it could possibly continue on in this fashion.
It did.
The grammar is horrendous.
Yet it never really went anywhere except into an abysmal hole of a bastardization of the English language.
Brutal.
By no means do I consider myself a literary genius, not at all.
But this, this is just wrong...
I have no idea exactly what this 'author' was trying to accomplish with this bunch of erratically placed words and phrases. This is repetitive, difficult to understand to the extent I was re-reading constantly simply to try and understand what I had indeed just read. Many times this just did not make any sense. It's self-aggrandizing and self-defeating at the same time.
Here's a 'for instance,'
"I am not upset or even mad that people want to share their opinions. But you truly show your ignorance when you talk on matters that you have no clue what took place and what you have no idea what the situation is or was."
I'm sorry, what?
Here's another,
"See all of these people that wanted and needed to put their 2 cents in about the kind of person I am, what I have done and what I do and do not have made themselves look like complete fools and truly showed their ignorance."
The whole book is like this.
I kept reading simply because I did not think it could possibly continue on in this fashion.
It did.
The grammar is horrendous.
Yet it never really went anywhere except into an abysmal hole of a bastardization of the English language.
Brutal.
By no means do I consider myself a literary genius, not at all.
But this, this is just wrong...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews