David Sheff shares the heart-breaking story of his son Nic’s tenuous life on drugs. Interwoven in the story are the results of research and studies about kids from shared custody homes, the affects of drugs (especially Methamphetamine) on the human body and psyche, and advice from a variety of sources for friends and families of addicts. Beautiful Boy especially resonates with me, as Sheff searches for answers as to how this could have happened to his son and in what ways he might be responsible.
On a whim, after passing through Wyoming on her way home to New York, Shreve Stockton decides to pack it all in and move to this absolutely foreign place. There, she discovers a life far different from what she had previously known. She finds herself in the role of caregiver of a coyote pup, whom she names Charlie, and begins sending out daily pictures to friends and family. Those e-mails grew into www.dailycoyote.net and later into this book, The Daily Coyote.
Taylor was abandoned on the Jellicoe Road when she was 11 years old. She was taken in my Hannah, a caretaker at the Jellicoe School, a place for wards of the state to go to school until they are 18. Behind the seeming quiet of Jelliceo School is a feud that goes back before Taylors time there, a secret war going on between the students of Jellicoe School, the townies and the cadets. Taylor has just been named the leader of the students and it is hear job to regain precious territory from the cadets and townies.
As a researcher at Cal Tech in 1985, Stacey O’Brien made an easy target when a four day old barn owl with an injured wing needed a permanent home. After Wesley had consumed Stacey’s life I have to wonder if, had she known, she would have taken on the responsibility.
When Casey Fielder, manager of the local O’Ruddy’s restaurant, allows a fight between the privileged St. Brendan’s kids and those from the public high school to escalate, his inaction puts him at risk of being charged with negligence. As a result of the fight, Colin Chase has suffered brain damage. Shawver alternates between Casey and Colin’s mother Lea as they both investigate the circumstances behind the fight. Casey has been fired and in exploring the reasons for the fight hopes to find absolution for his inaction.
This memoir would be overwhelmingly sad for me, had I not already read Old School by the same author and know that he becomes a successful author and teacher of literature at Stanford. But if you didn’t know that this child redeems himself in the end, this would be sad, a sad tale indeed.
What would the world be like if instead of superheroes being 2-dimensional characters in comic books they were real people? How would that change history? What if we had superheroes in WWII? What about Vietnam and Korea? Would we have won the wars? Watchmen is the answer to these questions. The streets of America's cities are protected by masked adventurers who fight (mostly) for truth and justice (or a modeling contract). Unlike the perfect superheroes of current lore these people are plagued by the depression brought on by experiencing the dark underbelly of society everyday.
