Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. | 
 enlarge | Author: Luis J. Rodriguez
Publisher: Touchstone
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  178 reviews
Sales Rank: 9425
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0743276914
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1092
EAN: 9780743276917
ASIN: 0743276914
Publication Date: September 6, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: ***BRAND NEW***100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEED / BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, CONFIRMATION E-MAIL WITH ALL ORDERS, SHIPS DAILYL..
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Product Description
By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as drugs, murder, suicide, and senseless acts of street crime claimed friends and family members.Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation. Achieving success as an award-winning Chicano poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more -- until his son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running, a vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants. At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-learned lesson for the next generation.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 173 more reviews...
 Empowering and Emotional March 24, 2008
I had no choice when it came to reading this book. It was after all, required in my college english class in order to survive the masses of quizzes and essays. But I will say that although I did not want to read this book at first, once I read the first couple pages I was hooked. I no longer wanted to read it just because it was required, now I was reading it for pleasure. Although the book is strongly graphic especially on the sex parts, it is done in a most tasteful manner. As a young latina born and raised in America, I was very touched by what my people had gone through in the past, and it is knowledge I had ignored taking the liberty I have now for granted. I really recommend this book if you're up to take a good dose of eye opener.
Almost too realistic, yet a must read. March 20, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I heard this book was good, but didn't know how good it actually was until I read it. There isn't a dull page.
What's most alarming about the book is not necessarily the events that take place, as many movies about this lifestyle have been made since the book's first publishing, sort of numbing the harsh realities of gang life to even outsiders who grew up in secluded suburbs, but the age that Luis Rodriguez actually is when the events are taking place. Some of the day to day drama described in the book is so adult like that you can only picture the subjects of these tales being 18 to 25 years old, yet the reader is often reminded that the author was as young as 14 when some of them took place.
What may also separate the stories told in this book from the stories told in typical 1990s west coast gang folklore, from hip hop to film to books like 'Monster', is the sexual situations Mr. Rodriguez describes that he took part in and witnesses, again, in some cases as young as 14. Some are romantic, and almost remind the reader of a time when romance was first discovered in their lives, yet there are some that are so disturbing that the reader is quickly brought down to earth, reminded that love and romance in a violent, drug infested environment is far different from the kind most Americans have grown to know, that is dictated by Hollywood fairy tales.
Luis Rodriguez finding his outlet from the gang life through art and writing could give hope to any current gang member who happens upon this book. It's one thing for a suburban high school teacher to tell a 'homeboy' that he can express his views through art, it's another for an older 'homeboy' himself to tell him.
A must read for everyone, from suburbanites with little knowledge of the gang life who would like another version than that given by media outlets and law enforcement agencies, where the knowledge tends to be limited to crime reporting and identification of territories and monikers, to kids and adults wrapped up in the gang life, and just looking for any story that can inspire them or give them some kind of direction to a better life.
The Definitive Account of Barrio Life. February 19, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
What more is needed to say about this memoir? This is singlehandedly one of the most powerful memoirs I have ever read and that goes without saying. I was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley, the same one that Rodriguez builds and describes and I can honestly say he is completely spot on. About? Everything. The racial, identity, and sexual struggle that Rodriguez weaves in this story is compelling and really grabbed me and immersed me into his life. This memoir says what there is to be said, and it says a lot.
best book ever February 9, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
this os the best book i have ever read next to tommyland very different but bolth very good books
 Poorly written December 13, 2006
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I suppose one of the editorial reviews summed it up nicely.
"...Mexican funerals, rapes and arrests, but his writing style renders much of that rich material forgettable."
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
I was very much interested in the topic, yet the rambling, writing style of Luis Rodriguez
made for a disappointing experience.
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