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Summary: The Basketball Diaries
Review: I really loved this book. It is about the young Jim Carrol, who is now a famous poet and musician, but in his youth was a troublesome teen who expeirienced many tramatic things. Trying to make a name for himself, while maintaining his basketball reputation as well as his reputation on the tough streets of New York, he was exposed to drugs and much, much more. This diary is great for female AND MALE teens, and i highly recomend that you read it.
Rating: 
Summary: don't watch the movie read the book !
Review: let me first say that i thought the basketball diaries movie was cool but the book is much better. this book is very easy to read and will never bore you.although i don't like the fact that a picture of dicaprio is on the cover which would make people think the book is just like the movie even though it is entirely different.I guarantee that any teen will like this book and never put it down.
Rating: 
Summary: okay, but I wouldn't read it again
Review: The Basketball Diaries
By Jim Carroll The Basketball Diaries is about a boy who throws a promising life away for drugs. Its set in New York in what I believe is the 70's. Jim Carroll, who is also the author, is the star of this book. He and his few friends go out to seek drugs and get caught up in the stuff that he would regret later on and for the rest of his life. I thought that it was the same thing over and over again. The story had no high points in that it was very depressing. You got to know the characters very well and the author was great at setting the scenes and getting you to picture them in their own world, the drug world. I would not recommend it to anyone under the age of 13 because it's hard to understand and you learn a couple things about drugs during the course of the book. I recommend it for people who are interested in what could happen to you if you continuously use drugs. I also recommend it to the people that are big fans of biographies and non-fictions.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good!!!
Review: When i checked out this book i thought hey it's a movie i'll just watch the movie but for some odd reason i started to read the book and liked it! The book i read was THE BASKETBALL DIARIES by Jim Carroll. It was a good younge adult or maybe a mature teen book. The story is the diary of Jim Carroll about his struggle with addiction. His playing basketball and his desire to be pure. I have never really read a book like this before but compared to most books i've read it's a whole lot bolder. When i first started reading this book i thought hey he said the F word but then i found out theres so much more to it and the language doesnt make it the good piece of literature that it is. This book is a good book and it really made me think about my life and was i in control of it. Most people would say this book is mainly about a kid doing drugs but i believe the book is mostly about a kid and his struggles to be pure. On page 210 his quote "Then i stand up to puke, I just want to be pure....". Jim Carroll Has a great style of writting and i will be looking in to reading another one of his books. I liked this book but it is a very volgur book with alot of sex related situations alot of drug use and a whole lot of bad language. If this type of writting offends you i strongly suggest reading something different.
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Summary: Dig this, I just want to be pure...
Review: Just finished this book. Kind of quick, but never dull. There is no moment in this book where you yawn, is what I'm trying to say. Jim's hip writing style is so easy to read. It's almost as if he is just talking to you, and never in the book does he try to be clever, but the whole time he is years ahead of writers, twice his age. I think when the diary starts out Jim is like twelve, or something. Absolutely amazing! Worth your time!!
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Summary: Carroll most representative work is a masterpiece
Review: Carroll's a superb writer who can really capture the mood and voice of the sixties. Who would have thought Carroll actually played with playground legends like "The Goat" and Abdul-Jabbar?! It does read like "Catcher in the Rye" though it draws from true life experience. Carrol's most famous work is really an impressive book. It is an intriguing mix of humour, skepticism, sadness and excitement. It does not glorify or really condemn drug abuse, it presents it as it is to a junkie. This book is something and can be simply summarized as a book that presents things as it is, nothing more nothing less.
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Summary: Love It, Hate It, Love It
Review: All I can say is that I just saw the tediously boring "Requiem for a Dream" and at least Jim has a sense of humor. Another thing about Jim: at no point does he feel sorry for himself. I thought Aronofsky would never top the terrible film "Pie" but he did. His utterly humourless movie "Requiem for a Dream" prompted me to think about the diaries. The Basketball Diaries makes everything in its genre look sickeningly lame by comparison. Some stories are told. This is one of them. Any book about adolescent drug use must first go through this one, and, not surprisingly, most of them look embaressingly stupid when held up to this biting, if sordid and depressing, tale of woe.
Rating:
Summary: Rated one of the most excellent books
Review: I would rate the book The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll a five because of its excellence. The book is a well written autobiography. The kids in the book are flibbertigibbets, and for this reason it will leave an indelible mark on you. I like the book because it kind of relates to my life as a boy because in the book Jim wants to just hang out with his friend and just have fun. The book is also about drug use, and that is also the main conflict in the story. The book talks about how the characters in the book, unlike me, get hooked on drugs, and how they get off them. The book is for people who like to hear stories because mostly this book is about life and how Jim Carroll aspires to overcome his addictions. The book describes a person who knows when to do right and when he needs to get away from someone or something. I really cannot say anything bad or disparaging about the book; the book was very good. I would not recommend this book to an older crowd. I think teens would like it more than adults because of all of the drug use, and it is a book that tells the life of a teenager. I think that the book was written to show teens his mistakes so that other teen would not do it. This is one of the best books I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: The basketball diaries
Review: i have never read a book that could capture living in New York and showing how it is to surive on the streets. Jim is an amazing writer and he put his life on display in a raw uncut masterpeice. Durgs, sex and living it up...
Rating:
Summary: Raw, Rugged and Romantic
Review: I admire Jim Carroll for publishing this diary the best and most effective way possible- the whole and solid truth, not doctored with fairy tell endings or caviar dreams. This book depicted what I would honestly believe to be the days of living on the streets and becoming a Heroin junkie in New York City in the late 60's. The truth was told and told passionatley and completley. Pretty picturesque references were not painted, disturbing scenes not alluded to. If something needed to be said, it was - no matter how hard it may be for the reader to accept. The most frightening thing about the entire diary is it allows you to see how easily this lifestyle can become your own, without really ever realizing or intending it to happen. I think most of socitey considers heroin junkies moraless, disgusting, putrid and empty souls; but Jim allows you to see into thier world, live in thier minds and have empathy for thier lifestyle. It sort of reminded me of 'A Clockwork Orange'; I viddy parallells between both protragonists and thier drogs. However, Jim Carroll didn't sell out at the end.
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