Rating: 
Summary: Sensational
Review: In Australia, we are yet to the stage where our cities have turned into concrete jungles, swallowing each generation of youth into violence and drugs. I will honestly say that I cannot relate to the upbringing depicated in this book as I have been lucky enough to live in a city where 13 year olds ride their bikes and play football in the park, with the only threat to their health would be falling of their bike. I don't say this to be offensive, I say it because I have been lucky. Luis has shown these kids living in the barrio's do not have time to be children and enjoy the simple things in life that growing up has to offer. Instead they are frustrated, and pushed into a world of drink, drugs, murder, violence, rape, sex and parenthood well before they have turned into adults physically. I hope peace can be brought to these barrios as killing themselves is not the answer. I will not preach to have the answer. The deeds done and written in the book by Luis and his friends, depicted images of grown men, however they are mere teens who need more assistance from the governments, police and each other to forge friendship and peace instead of hatred and death. Maybe politicians, parents and the police should read books like this and other gang books to try to understand the plight of those living in these barrios and then educate themselves to enable the vatos locos to make their barrios places of pride without fear of death and allow them to grow into whatever they want to be just like Luis.
Rating:
Summary: HELLA OF A BOOK TO READ
Review: IF U LIKE THIS BOOK YOU'LL ALSO LIKE (EAST SIDE DREAMS)BY
ART RODRIGUEZ GO CHECK OUT FOR YOURSELF ENOUGH SAID LATE
Rating: 
Summary: A true depiction..
Review: ... You have people from Iowa and Connecticut writing reviews saying that this is an accurate account?.. How can you even say that when you live in the mid-west and what not where Mexican gang warfare is not exactly.. Plentiful, you probably never had to run home before fearing gangs, I live in a more middle class part of Southren California now, but I grew up in Watts which is RIGHT on the border of South Central L.A., this book is almost true to every last word.. The irony here is that I actually live in Alhambra which is bordering Monterey Park and El Monte the actual places described in the book, if you want to read an inspiring, detailed, truthful book on the street life of L.A., I advise you get this book from someone who has been through the experiences and seen them.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book objectively
Review: How can I say this in as few words. This is the perfect training manual for students who aspire to be professional journalists, sociologists, or news anchors; anything that requires training to be OBJECTIVE. How often do I see a television anchor jump up and say, "why that no good..."? I don't have to understand it or even like it, but the author had the courage to step forward and write about his life experience. I got the incredible experience to interview and work with inmates just like Luis for the past six months. This book really should be accompanied with training and supervision as I gratefully received, because it takes a lot of self discipline to learn to stay objective and merely observe. It was difficult for me many times in reading this book to not interject my own biased feelings and opinions, but I decided to keep my cheap shot two bits out of this review. Excellent book, together with 'Do or Die.'
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional Account
Review: This book was an exceptional account of one man's struggles in life and his effort to keep his son from making the same mistake. Under his life's circumstances, I give Luis Rodriguez a round of applause and a blessing. For if I had the same type of situations delt to me I am not quite sure I would be able to survive them. Neither emotionally nor physically. Granted I have never had such a horrible experience as this come across, and not many gangs live in my area, I just don't think I would have the courage. I read this book as a Literature project in a college reading class, and I got an A on the project. Had it not been so beautifully written I may not have been so into the project. I give credit to Luis for helping me ace that project and that class.
Rating:
Summary: "Always Running" keeps you on your toes
Review: This unforgettable true story, Always Running, by Luis Rodriguez does a wonderful job of expressing how rough gang life is, and how often racist events occur. Rodriguez has an amazing gift of pulling you into the story and making it so intense you cant possibly put it down. As Luis so eloquently puts it, "I was 13 years old already. Already tattooed. Already sexually involved. Already into drugs" (pg. 48). It was a reality check for me, realizing that not everything in life is perfect. This story revolves around the need to feel like you're part of something, a group, a gang, a club, etc. In order to do this, the young men and women feel they had to impress their peers, no matter how much harm it bought to them, their body, family or friends. The fighting between the gangs may symbolize their strength and courage. Although I feel like there is never a climax, this book never has a boring part in it. Most people think eventually things in your life have to get better, but when reading Always Running you constantly ask yourself if it could have gotten any worse For Luis... and it did. "I was frustrated because I thought the violence was eating us alive" (pg. ). This thought was deeply imbedded in the thoughts of these youths. A mixture of events in Luis' life just seems to turn on a ticking time bomb. The constant fights, the everyday prejudices, the frequent sexual encounters and the lack of self-esteem and motivation don't make for a happy, healthy life. When over 20 of Luis' friends were murdered, he begins to realize that he has had enough. The fact that Luis doesn't have anything to hide about his past, or the events that occurred makes this true story so interesting to read and easier to relate to. Always Running really gets you thinking about gangs, poverty, racism and drugs. This powerful book has what it takes to make you thankful for what you have, or to motivate you to reach your goal and turn your life around.
Rating: 
Summary: Always Running
Review: The memoir Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez, is a chilling account of what gang life was like in East LA in the 1960's and 1970's. Not only does Luis, AKA Chin, use bone chilling detail to recall the many murders, rapes and accounts of his hard family life, he also uses simple English to convey his many accounts. Not over doing the story with non-sense and detail, he pulls you in with story after story of the life that he lived. Luis had a hard family life with his parents always moving around, he joined his first gang at age eleven, and from then on his life began going downhill. By age eighteen, he had dropped out of school and was a veteran of gang warfare, killings, police, drug overdoses rapes. As he watches this horror, his conscience was always telling him the right thing to do. Alas, he never listens to himself. Luis's life takes a turn for the worst when he killed an innocent man as his initiation to a new gang. He was sentenced to jail where he began to think hard about what he wanted to do with his life. Getting out of jail and a few more lessons later he decides that gang life is not for him. He marries and has a child, despite becoming a writer, he later experiences the misfortune when his son Ramiro falls into the wrong crowd and joins a gang. This memoir has it's good points and it bad points though, because of Luis's heritage, he used much Spanish throughout the book, making it hard to understand what he is talking about sometimes, even though there is a dictionary provided for you at the back of the book. Flipping back and forth when you are at the climax can make you lose the momentum. Also, Luis tells about so many characters that only a select few that are mentioned numerous times are the ones that stick in your head. This is made up for with the inspirational lingo that Luis and the many other people in the book use. Because the book is a real life recount, the dialogue that people use is something that you yourself can take to heart and think about. One passage that I really enjoyed was when Luis's quasi girlfriend Payasa is about to the leave the ghetto, Luis is trying to be tough about her leaving, by not showing much emotion. Right before she leaves she tells Luis that they have seen things most people never see. That they have seen death, and that today they are still here together to say goodbye. It is later found out that Payasa is pregnant and in prison. The book as a whole is a quick and easy read and I would recommend it to anyone even though you may not be able to relate to what is going on, the stories are so invigorating and exciting that you don't want to stop reading once you have started.
Rating:
Summary: Stop Running
Review: I really enjoyed this factual account of gang days in Los Angeles, California. Luis Rodriguez did an excellent job describing all the hate and violence that took place while he was growing up in the 1960's & 70's. There were many gangs in south L.A., and he was apart of Las Lomas. It is amazing how just for living in a different part of the 'hood, you can be violently harassed, attacked or even shot and killed. Rodriguez tells the story of his childhood, how his extremely poor family struggled to survive while he struggled to stay alive from day to day. Among all the hate and violence, Rodriguez managed to find love, : " Love is a word which so easily skims across our lips. Girls cut their wrists for it. Dudes try to kill for it. Notes professing devotion are passed in the hallways, dropped on desktops or placed discreetly inside school folders. " Rodriguez doesn't leave out a single detail in his writing, which I think helps bring to mind the events that took place, some of which were horrific. He describes how he watched his friends die, one by one, and victims of gang violence. For being Mexican, he was labeled as a troublemaker and a "gangbanger " before he even opened his mouth. Cops beat on him, "friends" shot at him and as a result he often abused illegal drugs. Even though he was labeled a gangbanger, he didn't participate in some of their acts, such as gang rape. He still had morals, feelings, and emotions. Teachers, friends and parents saw this quality in him. He wasn't like everyone else; he had the potential to be someone. This book really opened up the fact that different parts of a single city can be two totally different worlds. I lived on the north side of Chicago for a few years, and never encountered any gangs or gang related violence. I always heard about gang shootings on the news, but that was from the South side. The South side is where most of the violence and drug using took place. To think that you can live so close to something as horrible as a gang infested town, but at the same time only live a few miles away is astonishing. Breaking free from gang life was no easy task. He had many promising opportunities and many setbacks as well. The only thing I would change in this book is the amount of characters that are introduced. Only a few of them become important characters and the rest are only mentioned once, which can get confusing. I believe Rodriguez has inspired many gang-involved adolescents to break free from the deadly cycle. This book had an eye-opening impact on my life, so I know that someone in his former situation would be deeply moved by his accounts in this book. Rodriguez has done something that many people have tried to do for years; he has given kids the hope and the knowledge that they too can stop running.
Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing
Review: This was a fantastic book. Now when i say fantastic here, I really mean fantastic!THIS BOOK WILL BLOW YOUR SOCKS OFF , IT REALLY COOKS LIKE kfc hot wings! I WAS OVERWHELMED BY THE INTRICATE DETAILS OF THE METAPHORS, THE PERCISION OF VOCABULARY, (MIND BLOWING STUFF HERE, PEOPLE)! YOU AINT READ NOTHING YET, HOLMES. HAHAHA, I GOT THAT SLANG FROM THE BOOK. SCARED YA HUH! WELL READ ON MY GOOD LADS, THIS BOOK WILL TAKE YOU INTO THE DEPTHS OF EVIL PLACES SUCH AS LOS ANGELES, AND OTHER PLACES I NEVER KNEW EXISTED! Vatos Locos oh yeah!
Rating:
Summary: Stop running!
Review: No wonder many schools today are in such trouble. Of course, I knew that urban life for many of today's youth is very difficult. This book, however, makes you really realize just how horrible it can be. I suppose I wouldn't care about the correct way to conjugate a verb, either, if I was fearing for my life and the life of my friends and family on a daily basis. The most frustrating part about reading this eye-opening memoir is waiting for Luis ("Chin") to finally get out. Before I had begun to read, I had seen on the back cover of the book that it was an "uplifting" story- it just seemed to take forever to get to the uplifting part. Every time I thought that Luis was finally getting things together, heading in the right direction . . . bam! he'd make another bad decision, or suffer through another episode of bad luck or social injustice, and he was right back where he started. It seemed like every time he took a step forward, he took another step back. Even the near killing of his brother Joe and his sister Shorty- which was a direct result of his gang involvement- wasn't enough motivation for him to get out. It wasn't until the betrayal of his "friends" that he "would have died for" that he finally did. I hope that this book accomplishes it's purpose and is successful in keeping young people from getting involved in the "la vida loca"- or that it inspires those already involved to stop "running" and get out. The author makes it clear in the epilogue that he believes that lack of opportunity is the main contributor to gang life. Clearly, something must be done to intervene- whether it be that more opportunities are provided, or something else. Reading this book will make you frightened for the future of America's youth, and justifiably so.
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