8 Ball Chicks | 
 enlarge | Author: Gini Sikes
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $7.00
You Save: $8.95 (56%)
New (34) Used (29) from $5.04
Avg. Customer Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 24427
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.4
ISBN: 0385474326
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.36082
EAN: 9780385474320
ASIN: 0385474326
Publication Date: January 20, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Bought for class but never used! Book is NEW!!! One edge is a tiny tiny bit dull.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
"TJ had never killed anyone before, but then who knew for sure? Sticking a pump shotgun out of a moving car and blasting into a crowd--you could never really tell which bodies fell because of you, whose life you were accountable for..." The cover may be gaudy, but this account of girl gangbangers is down-to-earth and refreshingly free of melodrama. In order to write 8 Ball Chicks journalist Gini Sikes spent a year hanging out with girl gangs in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and San Antonio. As Salon writes, "Sikes's analysis is sparse and not particularly illuminating ('Without an effective national policy for youth, kids fell through the cracks in droves'), but she's got a good ear and the sense to step back and let her subjects seize the microphone most of the time."
Product Description
Dismissed by the police as mere adjuncts to or gofers for male gangs, girl gang members are in fact often as emotionally closed off and dangerous as their male counterparts. Carrying razor blades in their mouths and guns in their jackets for defense, they initiate drive-by shootings, carry out car jackings, stomp outsiders who stumble onto or dare to enter the neighborhood, viciously retaliate against other gangs and ferociously guard their home turf.
But Sikes also captures the differences that distinguish girl gangs-abortion, teen pregnancy and teen motherhood, endless beatings and the humiliation of being forced to have sex with a lineup of male gangbangers during initiation, haphazardly raising kids in a household of drugs and guns with a part-time boyfriend off gangbanging himself. Veteran journalist Gini Sikes spends a year in the ghettos following the lives of several key gang members in South Central Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Milwaukee. In 8 Ball Chicks, we discover the fear and desperate desire for respect and status that drive girls into gangs in the first place--and the dreams and ambitions that occasionally help them to escape the catch-22 of their existence.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 LIFE BEYOND THE WHITE PICKET FENCE!! September 7, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
eight ball chicks, was a great book. it tells you how it really is out there. in the places where there is no other choice, where you don't have time to be a kid, and where there's nothing but bad around you. gini sikes does what she set out to do. to study, learn, and let the world know about these girls and what they're all about in these gangs. although there was much more that could have been said, and many more gangs to see it was nicely written no doubt. these were just a few of the girls, but there are many more, with different stories, all leading them down the same path. it's showing you, where these women come from, why they do what they do. in most cases there's no other way. if they could all have that nice house, with both parents, and a nice safe community, i'm sure they would take it, but when all you have is a barrio full of drugs, and guns, with nobody who gives a damn, there really isn't much hope. you got to be strong, emotionally to survive these places. no doubt there's some who do it for the thrill and what not, but they all end up the same. another banger behind bars or shot down somewhere. all my respect to this book and to those people who really have no choice. there's a whole lot more trouble out there that some turn a blind eye to and wish not to see, but this book is an "in your face" kind of book and i love it for that.
 Save your money March 13, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
There is nothing insightful in this book.Gini Sikes basically tells the stories of a few women who made bad choices and then blamed everyone but themselves for the outcomes of those choices.The book bogs down only a quarter of the way through it and never recovers.It is monotonous and tough to get to the end.I would probably rather listen to a scratched Wham CD or eat a huge bowl of brussel sprouts than have to read this again.Save your money.
I hate to say it's a FUN read, but it really is. January 12, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I agree with Amazon's review of 8 Ball Chicks. I don't think Gini Sikes had anything particularly insightful to say, but I give it the max rating because these women's stories are CRAZY (i.e. really entertaining to read, especially for people who love to read about how messed up the world is). Whoever you are, this book is worth reading.
 Girl gangbangers August 1, 2005
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
When I first heard of the book I heard it on TV and said to myself that the title meant the name of a girl gang and the whole book would be about that gang. I was wrong and do wonder why it has this title if it has nothing to do with "8ball Chicks".
Gini is very insightful on the research she made on these different race gang ladies and their gang life. I like the book but think she needed to include more on the gang culture of women out here and there.
All these writers write about gangs in California, Texas, Illinois. Yet, there are few compared to these states but there are more of us gangbangers out here in the other states. Such as the east coast; Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland. Some writers are careful in not stereotyping their novels but I personally dont judge them because most of them time it is about stereotypical stories.
I wish I can write my own books and let people know what more there is out there. The behind the scenes of behind the scenes of what people already know. The ganglife of us women, culture, pride, heritage, family, and mi vida loka.
Good book anyways.
Through the eyes of female gangs! November 7, 2003
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Originally I was reading the book because in a play at my University, (the play was on female gangs), and needed to do a little research, but when I picked up the book and began to read, I found many more reasons not to put it down. What captured me the most about the book was the way Gini Sikes was able to give the most vivid image of gang life through that book, I have ever read. I felt like I was on those L.A. streets and in those San Antonio neighborhoods.
I believe Gini Sikes not only captured the violent side of gang life but the human side. I was able to see these people, she wrote about, as more than "gang bangers", these people had lives and were living like any other person. Overall, this book is like a documentary written down. "Cocoa" and "Alicia" were having some normal troubles in their life and in some way or another, I could relate to that. It was things like man trouble, parent trouble, and school trouble, any usual young adult will go through those things (maybe not to the extreme. In my imagination, I visualized every part of the book as if it were a film.
Last, I believe Gini Sikes was very brave for going into each neighborhood personally and seeing for herself "the life". I think this made the book a lot better and it put more feeling into the book. I don't think she would have been able to write a very affective book if she had not actually stepped into the world of gangs for a minute. In conclusion, Gini Sikes did her job in dissecting the life of female gangs through a book!
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