Sleepers

Rating:
Summary: WHOA!
Review: I don't know what to say, but OH, MY GOD! I found the movie of this shocking, but I heard the book was much more so. THAT'S AN UNDERSTATEMENT! Take "Stand By Me", "The Shawshank Redemption", & "A Time To Kill", & mix them all together, & you have Sleepers with one HUGE exception: EVERY WORD OF THIS IS TRUE! I used to think that the claims that some criminals were a product of their lives and enviroment was..., UNTIL I READ THIS! I can understand why John Riley & Tohmas Marcano turned to a life of crime. The details of what they endured in Wilkinson's gave me nightmares! Also, even though I knew the outcome from seeing the movie, I cried for them after concluding this. (The ONLY other book that ever moved me to tears was "Stephen King's Bag Of Bones".) I finished this book in 2 days, & the only reason I didn't do it in one was because I fell asleep with it in my hands! ... Even (AND ESPECIALLY!) if this is fiction, Mr. Carcatera is one of the most gifted writers & storytellers I have ever had the pleasure of reading! I hope he publishes more!

Rating:
Summary: I sense a marketing [...] if there ever was one
Review: I don't see how both this book and his other memoir could possibly both be true. I don't believe Sleepers is true because I heard that it isn't but his previous book only proves it. Carcaterra says in A Safe Place that he was fourteen when he learned the truth about his father. He was in Ischia, I think, and he claims it was his "first summer away from home". Well then, he couldn't have just gotten out of Juvenile Hall, as I see it. So maybe he changed the age he was when he was arrested. Maybe he was older. In which case, say he was fifteen. Well, Michael was three years older than him which would make Michael eighteen. Eighteen-year-olds are legally adults and therefore go to jail, not Juvenile Hall. I don't see why he would lie about his friends' age difference from him. That's kind of a moot point. And if he did, then just what is factual about the story, if he changed every single identifying detail in which case it's just yet another story of rape and revenge that could have been told by anyone. I know he supposedly wanted to keep people anonymous but this is just ridiculous. He also says in the acknowlegments "This book would not have been possible without the support of the silent citizens of Hell's Kitchen". What an odd statement. Is he thanking them for keeping their mouths shut? Does he find that noble of them? Or is he just saying thanks to them for letting him publish this. He's thanking the citizens so that sounds like he went all around his hometown talking to everyone who could possibly have anything to say. He'd have to have in order for none of the facts to leak out someway. This is just ridiculous. So basicially this is what I heard. None of it's true, not the revenge but not the rape either. He just called it true to persuade people to care about it. Otherwise, who's going to give a book like this a passing thought. It has absolutely no center focus, wandering all over the place, repeating information, starts with an introduction to the fact that he was raped and the effect this had on his friends then spends the next 150 pages describing his friends and neighborhood before he even gets back to the molestation plot. He constantly tells us what is happening rather than showing, he gives details of his friends rather than revealing that through action. I just don't know what to say about this book. I'm shocked that it has such a following but then again, I'm not so much surprised as this no doubt was what he was aiming for in calling it a true story. So Carcaterra has been extremely successful at what I'm pretty much positive he set out to do---sell his book. What more can I say? You know, I don't know for a fact if this is really a memoir or not but his claims look pretty lame to me. And that's enough to get one star as far as I'm concerned. I'm not being generous, I just can't go lower.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing...
Review: I read Sleepers in less than a day, and when I finished it I was perturbed and moved on the most basic of levels, unsure of who to sympathize with. And that's one of the main reasons I loved this book: it avoids sterotypical black and white thinking. Children aren't protrayed as angels, and all adults as demons. There are gray, patchy areas for both. It is a novel of truth.

In the legendary 1960s, young Lorenzo (nicknamed Shakes after Shakespeare) and his pals are on top of the world- roaming the gritty streets of New York's Hell's Kitchen, and, like all boys, getting into trouble. Until the day one of their pranks spirals out of control, and they are charged and sent to an upstate 'school' for juevenile delinquents.

What follows is a tribulation that makes these youngster's misfortune truly look like child's play. The boy's are subjetced to perverse emotional abuse, are raped daily by the guards, are beaten, secluded, and eventually robbed of their innocence. Like "I cried, you didn't listen", this book is an excellent example of how the penal system can turn delinquents into monsters.

In addition to the harrowing story-line, the book also has it's happy moments, and races along at break-neck speed, keeping the reader flipping pages till it's done! No wonder it was made into a movie!

Rating:
Summary: Like a smack upside the head
Review: I saw the movie and years later picked up the book and I can say that if the movie was too much for you then the book will alternately make you cry and cringe. I have no idea if this is a true story or not--if it is, I can imagine that there must have been some very angry people in and around New York when the book came out. Relatives or other inmates of Wilkerson should have come forward to confirm or deny the story. Relatives of the victim who was hit by the hotdog cart should've come forward.

Apparently none of these things happened so I don't feel comfortable calling the book a memoir but frankly, it almost (but not quite which is why I can't give it 5 stars) doesn't matter. This a towering book of probably part fact and part fiction (the trial scenes are imposible) that you will not forget. Carcaterra is a brilliant writer and the book is worth every penny. For me, that's the bottom line.

Rating:
Summary: Must Read
Review: It has to be one of the most amazing books I have ever read. An amazing story of love, true friendship and revenge. If you ever go around looking for the real meaning of what friendship is- this is it. Standing by your friends through everything..whether they are right or wrong. Amazing book- definitely read it!!!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Sleepers kept me awake!
Review: Lorenzo Carcaterra's Sleepers is definately well written. I even found the first third of the book, that talks about the group as teens, to be the best part of the book. This is one of those hard to put down books. I don't remember any point in this story that was too boring. Some of the events of the story are somewhat hard to believe as true events, but it has to happen to someone. I would recommend it to most people, but not everyone, seeing as though it is written for the young and the young at heart. Five stars.

Rating:
Summary: A Real Page-turner -- not rec. if you're easily shocked
Review: Paints such a vivid portrayal of growing up in Hell's Kitchen in the 1950's that you can easily visualize the neighborhood. In fact, you feel as if you are there. You care about the people in the book. They are characterized in-depth, so you get a good feel for what each is like (unlike some books in which 4 characters of the same age and gender would not be differentiated enough for you to keep them straight). If you strongly feel that revenge is never justified, this isn't the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: Read the Book First!
Review: Seriously, the movie WAS great with an all star cast, but you will never truly understand the richness of the characters unless you read the book first. Let the movie be a treat after you've read the book. The setting: Hell's Kitchen in the 1960's. Boys will be boys and when Lorenzo "Shakes" and his friends goof around, pranks are usually the entertainment of choice. On the last of these "occasions" Lorenzo and his three friends decide to steal a hot dog from a street vendor, thinking they can outrun him. Things didn't go as planned. The boys push the vending cart around and unintentionally let it fall down some stairs at a subway entrance. The cart falls and kills a man on it's way down. This is where the book begins a sort of "Part 2".... all summer frolicking ceases and the boys are tried and convicted. Instead of jail they have a much worse fate ahead of them. They find themselves within the hard, gloomy shell of the "Wilkinson Home for Boys". The boys' anxiety of the place soon turns to absolute terror. They are not really bothered by the other kids , but buy the prison guards. They beat, torture, and regularly rape Lorenzo and his friends. Lorenzo remains sane by continuously fantisizing of revenge, inspired by his favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo. He mentally prepares for the day they are released. Release does come...the story is not ALL so depressing, because the boys DO get revenge. They leave the school and eventually head their separate ways, never really discussing what happened to them. Not until in their late twenties do they meet again in Hell's Kitchen. Two of the boys have become "thugs", one of them became a lawyer, and Lorenzo a journalist. Together again, they decide to avenge themselves in court via strategic law techniques thought through buy their childhood friend who became a lawyer. I won't give away more details from here on because what happens next is the most powerful essence of this book. Lorenzo..AKA.."Lorenzo Carcaterra" IS the author of this book. Yep that's right it is a true story. The Count of Monte Cristo would be proud.

Rating:
Summary: Sleepers:A Must Read
Review: Sleepers, by Lorenzo Carcaterra is truly a powerful and compelling psychological and emotional thriller. It is the story of four friends growing up in one of the worst areas of New York, Hell's Kitchen (Manhattan), during the 1960's. This was a place where, "everyone knew everything about everybody and everbody could be counted on" (pg.17,Ch.2). Thus, the friendship of the four boys blossomed and was built on a trust that would never allow betrayal. The author ably describes how deep and lasting the bonds of friendship can go even when tested in the most horrid of circumstances. They have, "no money, no likes, no summer camps, no vacations. Nothing except one another"(pg.32,Ch.2). The central focus of their lives in Hell's Kitchen is the Catholic Church and they find a friend in Father Bobby. The boys do everything usually done by teenagers in the city during the 1960's, play stickball, read comics, listen to Yankee games on the radio, trade baseball cards and play pranks on unassuming people. It was one of these pranks gone awry that changes their lives forever. They are sent away to the Wilkinson Home for Boys for their crime. They learn that your actions have consequences even if not fair. While at the Wilkinson Home the boys experienced the horrors and abuse exacted by the four guards. They were robbed of their innocense, existed in fear, and were never the same. As fate would have it, they were able to carry out their revenge but couldnot overcome the damage to their individual lives. One becomes a reporter, another becomes a lawyer and the other two become killers. They all had one thing in common, they remained friends. Sleepers is masterfully written. It certainly reveals the horrors of a boys detention facility and makes you think whether retribution and revenge is all that it is cracked up to be. The characters in the story are believable and the storyline itself is very credible. This is a painful but enlightening story. This book is a easy read, very believable and well written.

Rating:
Summary: I didn't want to do anything but keep reading it!
Review: Some people might say that this book goes too deep for a mere teenager to understand, but I would say the opposite, I think that many teenagers around the world can possibly relate to this, and that's what is so mystifying about this book, that this same thing may have happened to THEM. It's sad to think of it that way. After I put the book down, I sat and thought, with my tear stained eyes, about what I had just read. It was a little hard to believe in the beginning, could people's lives really be this hard? Then you realize, it's very possible. The lives of Shakes, John, Michael, and Tommy touched me. I liked how the author described the troubled life of each person and how he didn't hold back, he told the story with out censoring what was true. The descriptions, especially when they are in the "Home for Boys" haunted me, and I kept remembering the part when John is in Shakes' room, his tortured soul ready to give up. He had no other way out, and it's a shame he had to turn out the way he did. I think the movie did well telling the stories of these four boys, and the actors did a great job, but the book took me deeper, it described more about the life of a teenager in Hell's Kitchen, and the misery of innocent souls in a correction center they shouldn't have been sent to. I'm glad there is at least one book that can touch me in the way this it did. I think people should read this book because it will inform people of what really happens outside of their sheltered lives. (some of them) Lorenzo Caraterra did a wonderful job writing this book and thank you for doing just that. -K.F.