Rating: 
Summary: Really good, but not as exceptionnal as «BDs».
Review: (Sorry if I make some mistakes, my first langage is French. I hope you will at least understand my review. Thanks!)Forced Entries is a real good book of Jim, but it's really different of «Basketball Diaries». In this first book, you read the real personnal thoughts of a young man living is life at 150%. What he write in his diary is exactly what he's living in New York City, and what are his deep feelings about it. It makes this book so intense and «real» that it reflects an incredible energy. In «Forced Entries», you don't have this intensity, because Jim, in opposition of «The Basketball Diaries», didn't write it at the same time as he was living it. You don't feel the same energy as in «BDs». So if you are looking for a sequel that would be written the same way as the «BDs» were, you will be a little disappointed. But the book in himself is really good! You can see, as you're reading the lines, that Jim's writting talent has grown since «BDs». The texts are longer and written with more attention. You can feel the work of Jim behind each line. In fact, the real difference with «BDs» is that when Jim makes an entry in «Forced Entries», it's not to just relate something that happened during the past few days. He look at it as a philosopher, a poet, and he gives his personnal reflexions on it. This book is a more mature one. So, in conclusion, I would say that «Forced Entries» is a real great work of Jim Carroll. It's full of deep reflexions and toughts of Jim. But it doesn't has the intensity and the innocence of «The Basketball Diaries». In fact, nobody, not even Jim Carroll himself, can reach the level of energy and reality of «The Basketball Diaries», because it's the mind of a young boy of 14 years old put on paper. It had to be written one time, and Jim Carroll wrote it. So now, I think we have to look at his other works as books written in a different state of mind. You can never find back your child mind. So, if you read «Forced Entries» as an independent book and not as a sequel of «The Basketball Diaries», you will discover an exceptionnal writter and poet: Jim Carroll.
Rating:
Summary: Really good, but not as exceptionnal as «BDs».
Review: (Sorry if I make some mistakes, my first langage is French. I hope you will at least understand my review. Thanks!) Forced Entries is a real good book of Jim, but it's really different of «Basketball Diaries». In this first book, you read the real personnal thoughts of a young man living is life at 150%. What he write in his diary is exactly what he's living in New York City, and what are his deep feelings about it. It makes this book so intense and «real» that it reflects an incredible energy. In «Forced Entries», you don't have this intensity, because Jim, in opposition of «The Basketball Diaries», didn't write it at the same time as he was living it. You don't feel the same energy as in «BDs». So if you are looking for a sequel that would be written the same way as the «BDs» were, you will be a little disappointed. But the book in himself is really good! You can see, as you're reading the lines, that Jim's writting talent has grown since «BDs». The texts are longer and written with more attention. You can feel the work of Jim behind each line. In fact, the real difference with «BDs» is that when Jim makes an entry in «Forced Entries», it's not to just relate something that happened during the past few days. He look at it as a philosopher, a poet, and he gives his personnal reflexions on it. This book is a more mature one. So, in conclusion, I would say that «Forced Entries» is a real great work of Jim Carroll. It's full of deep reflexions and toughts of Jim. But it doesn't has the intensity and the innocence of «The Basketball Diaries». In fact, nobody, not even Jim Carroll himself, can reach the level of energy and reality of «The Basketball Diaries», because it's the mind of a young boy of 14 years old put on paper. It had to be written one time, and Jim Carroll wrote it. So now, I think we have to look at his other works as books written in a different state of mind. You can never find back your child mind. So, if you read «Forced Entries» as an independent book and not as a sequel of «The Basketball Diaries», you will discover an exceptionnal writter and poet: Jim Carroll.
Rating:
Summary: Lasers in New York / Cysts in Manhattan
Review: (the review title makes reference to elements in the book) This book is old but no less compelling than it was upon publication. Be forewarned though as Carrol's preface admits that
this slice-of-post-60s junkie life is not entirely true to
actual experience or sequenced correctly (relative to time)
but I assure you that these are mere details in what is otherwise a fine and strangely reassuring book - at least for those with personal experience with drug addiction. There is a tone of optimism which keeps emerging throughout the work which reaches a climax as the author finally manages to rid his body of literal festering corruption afterwhich he basks in the afterglow of the early NYC sounds. One is left with the
impression that Carrol is more addicted to the Big Apple than any substance. For those looking for an expose of "look what I did
to support my junk habit" well look elsewhere. This is much less
about heroin than it is the general vibe surrounding the early 70s in NYC. If you were there you will experience a strong sense of deja vu - for those who weren't well use this book as your
starting point and move forward.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Poet and Writer
Review: After seeing the movie "The Basketball Diaries," I decided to pick up the book. It was excellent. Then I read "Forced Entries." I admire Jim for writing without barriers. He sees humor in things you wouldn't think of. I couldn't put this book down. Because of those two books, he is now my favorite author/poet. His poetry is worth reading also. Everything he writes is a personal, touching, and often a scary reality. When reading his stuff, you can picture yourself in his world for a day. You see through the drug-addict's and poet's eyes. To understand the lengths people with drug addiction go through, you have to read at least one of his books. However, you'll be craving to read more.
Rating:
Summary: Great Poet and Writer
Review: After seeing the movie "The Basketball Diaries," I decided to pick up the book. It was excellent. Then I read "Forced Entries." I admire Jim for writing without barriers. He sees humor in things you wouldn't think of. I couldn't put this book down. Because of those two books, he is now my favorite author/poet. His poetry is worth reading also. Everything he writes is a personal, touching, and often a scary reality. When reading his stuff, you can picture yourself in his world for a day. You see through the drug-addict's and poet's eyes. To understand the lengths people with drug addiction go through, you have to read at least one of his books. However, you'll be craving to read more.
Rating:
Summary: tears and laughs
Review: an immensely humorous, frolicking, and impressively well-written look inside the corridors of New York city during a special time period. I tremble at the thought that The Basketball Diaries might not have been popularized, for then we might not have been so exposed to the sheer "Zen" talent of this writer. Very few writers combine humor so well with literary splendor. very enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Being Pure
Review: As the book says, it's a sensational sequel to Jim Carroll's first book of diaries, "The Basketball Diaries." I personally loved this book for irrelevant reasons. First, the last reviewer as stated that he/she didn't like this book because it jut told about his sex life and all that. What she wanted was for him doing drugs and stealing and stuff because he/she might have thought that that type of stuff was cool. This isn't how you should look at Forced Entries and especially The Basketball Diaries. In Forced Entires, Jim Carroll seaches his way to be pure (get off of drugs) through facing unknown challenges and taking the hard way down the road. He meets celebrities like Andy Warhol, he flees to Californai to cure the heroin addiction. You have to see Forced Entries in the litural sense and that Jim Carroll created himself out of literature. At the end he pours the sin of his bodily remains out of him and faces the more pure life, where he reaches the spot he was looking for in The Basketball Diaries and Forced Entries. "I can feel the window light hurting my eyes I just want to be pure..." - the last page of The Basketball Diaries
Rating:
Summary: Undeniably Powerful
Review: Carroll's coolness has always, to me, been his greatest asset as a writer. He brilliantly walks a razor-thin fine line between realism and cynicism without every actually crossing over into the cynical, or easy. At one point, he says "I am a cold m#$!@&$#er." Maybe, on a level, he is. On another level, he is just searching for what everyone is searching for: redemption. The way he articulates his specific redemption from drugs, with the absess, is brilliant. Unlike the Basketball Diaries, this book actually, even, contains a little warmth and joy. I thought it was a superior book to the Diaries, although the themes in this book aren't as popular in our culture as those in the Diaries. Youth, drugs, sex and loss are themes that are necessarily going to attract a certain audience. This book is a little riskier and more personal. (If it's possible to get more personal than Carroll usually does. Probably not, actually.) It's interesting to see what he was left with as a young adult after living in such a youth-dependent way. I do not read much in this genre anymore, but I have to say that Carroll's works were often the most gut-wrenching things I read as I was growing up. He is to be admired, in my opinion, for never asking the reader to feel sorry for him - unlike so many films and novels in this genre. The sadness is a level-headed sadness. I've never been hooked on drugs or come back from being addicted to them, but with Carroll I think he was always able to approach the subject matter in a non-sentimental way, which both gives the work a certain integrity and makes it interesting. The books, actually, don't have anything to do with him, in my opinion. I have no idea what Carroll is like as a person. But as a writer he is consistently engaging, if sometimes dark.
Rating:
Summary: touching and disturbing, very entertaining
Review: great wording and lots of realistic details . Jim Carrol is one of the greatest writers.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent. Couldn't be better!
Review: I finished "Forced Entries" a few days ago, and I have, no doubt, been affected by Jim (has anyone seen recent pictures of him? He looks sick. I'm worried.). My thoughts have been changed, my writing has definitely been affected-not as if I am imitating his work, I can't describe it. Visit catholicboy.com!
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