Book 2 Post

 This Boy's Life

by Tobias Wolff


For my second book, I have chosen to read This Boy's Life, by Tobias Wolff. I decided on this book because I watched a little bit of the movie, which came out in 1993 and starred a young Leonardo DiCaprio as the main character Jack, as well as Robert De Niro. I was drawn to it for a few different reasons (the first being that I am a HUGE DiCaprio fan), but also the small parts I had seen from the movie had shown me a story of youthful recklessness in a depressing setting. It is definitely not the most happy story, and had me thoroughly sad at some points. However, there was an overarching theme of no matter how bad the current situation is, there is always hope for the future. Your situation can always turn around as long as you do not give up hope, which I think is a really great message and is inspiring to keep grinding and improving yourself.

The journey begins with a 10-year old Jack, originally named Toby but his desire to distance himself from his deadbeat father pushes him to change his name in honor of the author Jack London. This is an early sign of independence from any authority figure, that stays throughout the book. His mother, Rosemary, is taking Jack and moving from Florida to Utah to escape an abusive relationship from a man named Roy. Unfortunately, due to her own abusive upbringing, she is unable to stand up for herself or punish Jack, both of which cause issues to relationships each party has. Eventually Roy leaves them and Rosemary and Jack move to Seattle. Rosemary gets into a relationship with a man named Dwight, who starts off nice and loving but eventually turns into the same, abusive and manipulative partner that Rosemary is so used to. They all move to a city called Chinook, which is where Jack creates lots of friends and new issues at his new school.

Now in high school, Jack escapes from his reality in a few different ways. The usual drugs and alcohol are present, but he also has a very vivid imagination, that often he lets run wild. These thoughts go more than the usual entertainment, and sometimes develop into obsessions. For example, he develops a crush on a girl who dances with him at a school dance. Now every boy has these thoughts and gets excited about girls, but Jack takes it to another level. It was after a quick dance but in his mind they are going to be together. Of course, she ends up dating someone else and hardly remembers the dance. Since Jack's imagination is so wild, he tends to make grand plans before anything concrete comes up, and then ends up disappointing himself. He eventually cons his way into getting accepted into a private high school for his senior year, after pretty much breaking every rule and narrowly avoiding jail for his first three years of public high school. To no surprise, he flunks out, but as he is driving away he still has hope that he can start over again.

This story is full of ups and downs, but you can pretty much count on every upward momentum type event being followed by a soul crushing downward spiral that undoes any good that came from the first good event. I was rooting for Jack in the beginning, but towards the end I was just thinking to myself that I would like to see just one win at all for the poor kid. It gets very depressing when you think that there are kids that go through this stuff and makes me want to help out as much as I can. However, one inspiring part is the love and faith he has for his mother and the future. Even though his mother is unable to punish him for any of his rule breaking and gets abused by the men in her life, she is able to persevere with the hope of a better life. Jack gets this from his mother and is constantly hopeful that his luck will turn around in the future, no matter how bad it gets. It is a very well written book, but I don't like being sad so this might be a book to read only during some times when you are in the mood.

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