Customer Reviews

Bully: A True Story Of High School Revenge

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I am sort of in the middle on this book. I find the story absolutely fascinating...apparently I am not the only one, they are filming a movie on it right now. But the actual narration and author comments seem a little off base to me.

Many times in the book, we read of the characters of the book as affluent, normal, high school kids. But in truth, the group described here is in no way representative of the typical high schooler, especially ten years ago. Prostitution rings, beating up retarded people, filming pornography, dropping out of school, and finally, immediately joining in on a casual murder--none of this is representative of the typical teenager.

At least from what is written in the book , the truth stands that these are kids joined together by the fact that they have rejected typical adolescence and have chosen to be bad kids. More than once, Bobby is seen as the one with the brightest future ahead of him simply because he didn't drop out of high school.

It's a sad, tragic story. All these questions run through your mind as you read it. How come murder came before any real attempt to confront? Why did Bobby beat up his best friend who he obviously cared about on a constant basis? The answers are hinted at but never really fully explored in this book. Another good question is how much of Marty's erratic behavior was Bobby's influence and how much was just him?

This is an interesting, compelling book. But it is not a story of high school revenge. When this murder took place, it had been quite a while since any of the people involved had been in high school. This is really a story of group of people who have seemed to go out of their way to make the worst decisions possible in shaping their lives...and taking others.

Ok, let me start out by saying, that the story in the book, "Bully", although very sad and disturbing, is very interesting, as far as true crime stories go. But, the book as written by the author is very flawed.

First of all, the book is VERY uneven, in several aspects.

Let's start with the title - "Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge". This title tends to imply that a ruthless bully finally gets what's coming to him. The actual narrative while exploring this concept seems to drift away from it. In other words, the story does not match the title. Bobby Kent is shown more as a victim, than the title would imply.

The first half of the book, covering the pre-murder days and the murder of Bobby is VERY detailed. It is detailed to the point that the details become hard to believe. The author, Jim Schutze, describes almost every situation down to the smallest detail and incident. He describes thoughts of the characters and describes motivations of said characters, as fact. Where did he get this information? Court documents, police reports, interviews with the killers? He never really says. It would be nice if he referenced, where particular information came from but he never does. The whole narrative is presented as fact, with no point of origin. I personally find it hard to believe that he found documentation of every fact presented, including thoughts Bobby Kent had just before his death. I may be wrong but I think that his imagination filled in the gaps.

On the other hand, the post-murder section of the book speeds by and at times is very sketchy. This transisition from a super detailed narrative to a narrative with big empty gaps is very disjolting. Only one of the trials, out of the 7 people convicted is covered in any amount of great detail. The rest are just brushed over rather quickly. I find this change as rather strange.

I watched an A&E documentary about the case several "facts" presented in the documentary were contrary to the book, despite, the author being interviewed in the documentary. One can also find the same discrepancies in old newspaper accounts of the case. I tend to believe the A&E documentary and newspaper articles over the book.

There are even certain minor facts within the book itself, which disagree with each other. For example, the cars which were driven to the murder site change within a few pages of each other. Since there is no explaination or even acknowledgement of this, one must assume that it was an error that slipped past the editors but it is rather obvious to the reader.

Another problem, that I personally have with "Bully" is its grim view of teenagers in 1993 South Florida. Schutze makes these dropout underachievers seem like the norm. I grew up and currently live in Hollywood, FL, the city that Bobby Kent and Marty Puccio lived in. I am around the same age, as most of the characters in the book. I can state for a fact that 1993 South Florida was not, as bad as Schutze portrays. YES, there is and was drug use. Yes, gangs exist. Yes, there was that prostitution ring. Yes, the murder did happen. But all of these (and other) things he describes, were not the norm. Schutze acts like this was the way of life for South Florida teenagers in 1993. These kids were dropouts from society. They were NOT "normal" kids, as Schulz tries to convince the reader. This may seem petty but being a teenager from Hollywood in this time period, I take offense for this bizarre version of teenage life being presented, in the way it is.

Ok, here is another thing. There is not one single picture of Bobby Kent (the victim), in the whole book. There is one picture of Bobby's corpse lying face down (and very hacked up) in a swamp. THAT'S IT! A reader can read the whole book and never have any idea what Bobby looked like. The whole book is about his murder and we have no idea what he looks like. I have never read a true life crime book before, that has pictures yet does not have a single living picture of the victim. Yet, on the A&E documenatry, there are several pictures of Bobby, in life. So they do exist but for some odd reason, Schutze doesn't (or maybe couldn't) include them. Heck, even the pictures of the killers are only police mugshots, not normal pictures (and yes they did have many "normal" pictures on the A&E documentary).

At the end of the book, Schutze tries to place a kind of blame on the killers' parents for somehow being at fault for what happened. EXCUSE ME, Mr. Schutze, I need to check but I am pretty sure that all of the killers except one were over the age of 18, at the time of the murder. They were (almost) all legally adults. How it is the parents fault is beyond me.

Also, "Bully" really needs an update section. 3 of the 7 convicted killers have been released and almost all of the sentences, including Marty Puccio's death sentence have been reduced on appeal.

So read the book, if you like. Just beware of its many faults. "Bully" might very well be more fiction than fact.

After having watched the movie, and given it a five star rating, I picked the book up off my shelf, blew the dust off of it, and read it. It did not disappoint.

Bully is the true tale of a group of middle class kids who live in Hollywood Florida. They decide that one of their peers, Bobby Kent, has pushed them around long enough. Bobby Kent and Marty Puccio were best friends since grade school, even though Bobby beat Marty up quite frequently.

One day, while working at the deli in the Publix market, the boys meet Lisa Connelly and Ali Willis. Lisa can hardly believe it when the boys ask them to meet up at North Beach with them for some surfing. As Lisa stares at Marty, she sees the hunks that adorn her adolescent room's walls, pictures of gorgeous and desirable men. Lisa is homely and plump, and until now has only dreamed of having a boyfriend like Marty.

For Ali, a very pretty, messed up, and spoiled girl, the meeting was just a quick fling with Bobby Kent. She didn't like him very well. Lisa continues to date Marty, though both Marty and Bobby physically and verbally abuse her, calling her Fatty and Shamu. When Lisa discovers she is pregnant, she gets her cousin Derek Dzvirko to drive her to Marty's house. Marty slaps Lisa around and mild mannered Derek intervenes, taking Lisa away. Lisa becomes convinced that Marty would treat her differently if Bobby were out of the picture.

And so begins the plotting, Lisa first convincing Marty, then bringing in Ali and her friends, Donny and Heather. After one foiled attempt at Bobby, the kids decide they need someone to help, so they enlist a friend of a friend who told them he was a Mafia hitman. Derek Kaufman still lived with his parents on the fringes of Weston, and though he had trouble with the law, was not a hitman or even in a street gang. Nonetheless, he convinces the kids that he's the real deal, and they take him in with them on their plan to kill Bobby Kent.

Jim Schutze does an excellent job of really bringing out the kid's personalities and quirks of character. The story reads like fiction, and I found myself having to remember that all of this was real, that these were events that really took place. Of course, as a caution, I am going to tell you that included in the pictures is a very grisly photo of the murder scene with the body still present. That brings the story back into focus pretty darn quick.

It's quite scary to realize that these were not gang kids or ghetto kids, they were mall-rats and surfers and pretty little girls. Some had been in minor scrapes with the law, most of them used drugs, and one had been involved in a teenage prostitution ring, but there were still kids you wouldn't expect to murder someone.

Even scarier is the way these kids convinced themselves that they did nothing wrong, not to mention the parent's complete lack of acknowledgement that their own little child could have been involved in something so horrid.

I highly recommend both the book and the movie, though with the book you will get more insight and much more courtroom information. The book is well written, the movie well cast and following the book closely on the key elements. Although I saw the movie first and then read the book, if you enjoy one you should enjoy the other, no matter the order in which you taste them. Enjoy!

The murder of Bobby Kent is a good example of what happens when parents do not perform the principal job of parenting; raise children to be responsible adults. None of the parents, including Kent's, can escape the blame for the death of Bobby Kent.

This is a well written book that maintains an objective stance when describing the events that led to Kent's murder. Though Kent did not deserve to die, his years of bullying Marty Puccio obviously pushed Puccio to a deep hatred that was brought to the surface by his friends and the right place and time.

The most disgusting part of the book was the domination of Ali, Bobby, and Lisa over their parents. I cannot understand any parent who allows a child to disrespect them and make decisions as if they were providing the income to pay the bills.

An update for this story was recently provided by A&E's 'American Justice'TV series. Heather got out of prison in 1998, Ali, now known as Alice, can get out in 2003, Lisa had her life sentence reduced to twenty-five years and comes up for parole in 2006. Marty had his death sentence reduced to life.

Lisa maintains that she knew nothing about a plot to kill Bobby, she thought Marty was just going to beat him up. Marty must have been eating his Wheaties since Bobby routinely whacked him on a daily basis. Ali (Alice, she's grown up) states she had no idea that Marty planned to kill Bobby(she doesn't talk about the previous night)and was in a state of shock after Bobby was killed. These girls should have to exchange their sentences with Marty because they were the prime movers by the killing.

I've always shunned true crime books, dismissing them as tabloid in nature. But Bully transcends the genre. Fast-paced like a suspense novel, it is written from a standpoint of moral absolutism so that a stinging lash of condemnation is rendered against a white upper middle class community in Florida that seems to be raising teenagers with no moral compass. The true story, the murder of Bobby Kent by his peers, is brutally shown not for sensationalism but to show how the murderers had no sense of right or wrong. In other words they were completely numb to the evil they were committing. There are some highly accessible companion books that deal with the loss of today's society's moral conscience. I'll name a few: The Wilding of America by Charles Derber; For Shame by James Twitchell (sadly out of print); and The Twilight of American Culture by Morris Berman.

I actually read this about a year ago and have since passed the book along to several friends(the book is so good I've yet to get it back). Bully is a real teen tragedy. The boys involved in the crime had it all, came from good homes, had nice cars, clothes & anything else they could want. The girls had it kind of tough and went looking for trouble, hanging at the mall tends to get boring pretty fast. Marty gets fed up with Bobby Kent's constant teasing and tormenting and decides to get even, recruiting Lisa & the rest of their friends. They thought they had it all figured out, collecting all kinds of weapons to use after they lured him to the beach. The crime itself is very disturbing and makes you realize how sick these kids were. A great, fast read.

Schutze does a spectacular job of painting the portrait of each character in this thrilling story.

Brief review.... Broward Co. FL, 1993... Bobby Kent is a 20 year old, steroid using massachist. A person with no regard for human feelings. He abuses his best friend Marty Puccio to the point where Marty almost becomes Bobby. Marty soon takes on Bobby's abusive ways and takes out his anger and frustration on his deranged girlfriend Lisa. Lisa recognizes the horror Bobby has inflicted on Marty and decides she wants him dead. Masterminding the entire plot, Lisa gathers a group of Marty and 5 other individuals to kill Bobby Kent. After the murder is carried out, all the teens turn on each other and desperately attempt to save themselves as they find themselves on their way to a life in prison.

The movie can be a bit decieving as you find yourself feeling sorry for Marty and to some extent the others involved. Schutze makes clear in his writing that Puccio is not a sitting duck and is just as deviant and violent as his counterpart Bobby. The ignorance of the parents involved in this story is incomprehensible. The fact that this is a true story makes it truly the most disturbing tale I have ever encountered.

This is the second time I've read this book. It is all too wild, the things these people do. I am 22 myself and find it impossible to think the way they do. A horrific murder, but humorous plan. They viciously kill a man, their "friend", and seem to see no harm in doing so. The author finds a kind of pity for, or kindship in the killers. The description of Bobby and lack of photo (other than his dead body) is disappointing. And beside making Marty & Lisa appear as "Romeo & Juliet"-like characters, the book is absolutely amazing. The hell they go through and create. Descriptive and stunning. An absolute MUST READ.

Many of the preceding reviews of this book are very helpful in understanding this book. I agree with the others' comments that many of the details in the book seem invented, inconsistent, and inaccurate. Unfortunately, it seems that "a true story" in a title invariably means "a fictionalized story."
Just as there is no photograph of Bobby in life in the book, the only photos of the seven defendants are their mugshots -- and even these aren't labeled, unless you scan them and enlarge them several times to read the infinitesimal print on the sheriff department forms. (Left to right they are Alice, Lisa, Heather, Derek D., Derek K., Donald, and Marty at bottom.) Nor is there any synopsis of who they are besides the pictures -- "this is Donald, Ali's new boyfriend, who struck the first blow" would be helpful. The book further has no index, nor list of sources. According to the author blurb, the author has lived and worked in Detroit, Houston and Dallas -- what is his familiarity with, and connection with, this Florida trial? What sources did he use? This is particularly important because Schutze purports to take us inside the minds of several of the defendants, into private conversations where one party is now dead, and into attorney-client conferences.
It's hard to see what purpose author Schutze was trying to accomplish by very graphic and repeated descriptions of Bobby and Marty's time in gay bars and the gay porn video they produced.
The number of pages Schutze gives to each subject is interesting: he gives 94 pages to establishing the characters, there are 63 pages covering the development of the murder plot, it takes Bobby 11 pages to die, there are 49 pages of cover-up and police work until Derek Dzvirko confesses, 52 more pages pass until Marty's trial starts, and Marty's trial takes up 33 pages. The trials, convictions, and pleas of the other six defendants combined take up a mere two pages. Schutze either hit a deadline, or got tired of writing.
Schutze's book itself focuses on lengthy dialogue -- most likely invented -- and an endless recitation of chronological facts, never getting into underlying causes of this tragedy except for a few passing quotations from the lawyers and media types on the culture that produced the ability to kill.
Yet the tragedy itself provokes much thought. Some defendants came from difficult situations, some seemingly just came from privileged but lax homes. Marty and Bobby take steroids. What is it about being 18 that makes murder seem the logical solution to Bobby's bullying of Marty and Marty's friends -- when the whole thing could have been stopped by Marty telling his parents that he wanted nothing more to do with Bobby? Bobby was capable of physical and emotional abuse, but only of those who voluntarily hung out with him -- or were mentally handicapped.
Yet the events of a few days, by these primarily 18-year-olds, at the same time both worldly and naive, led one to be killed, three of them to get life sentences, one a death sentence, and the other three a total of 58 years in prison (originally) -- not to mention the effects on their families and children. What could have stopped each of them on the way to this train wreck? Who (the defendants, their parents, society, and/or Bobby) is responsible for Bobby's death in whole or part? The book is silent on this, but the situation lends itself to much thought.
While I don't recommend this book due to its many faults, anyone interested in the story of a school bully who COULDN'T be avoided, and COULDN'T be stopped with adult intervention, and who was almost murdered to stop his bullying, should read the true graphic novel _My War with Brian_ by Ted Rall.

Rarely do you read a book that captures the sheer selfishness & pointlessness of the modern mallrat teen. Shultz has successfully painted a picture of teens with no place to go, no ambition & no purpose for living. They get up in the morning only to go trawling for more drugs & banal sex, whilst maintaining a stanglehold on their parents' over-indulgent wallets.

Thus, it is only natural when people who have had everything handed to them, & have never had to strive to achieve any ambition, start to look inwardly for the source of the void within their souls. Finding nothing inside their hearts but a great gaping hole, like kills like as they strike out at a reflection of themselves. However, the teens are tormented by continuing feelings of worthless & invalidity. The reason for the uselessness of their collective existences couldn't be themselves...could it?

Not a single teen in this book has anything remotely admirable about them: Marty, a whingeing, steroid-fuelled follower who can't do anything without his best friend holding his hand. Lisa, whose mother has indulged her, pampered her growing sense of victimhood & quietly condoned her childish tantrums. Ali, whose family figured that throwing credit cards & a car at her were good substitutes for active parenting - even when they learned of her drug habit, they continued to do nothing. Bobby, whose father continued to feed his overblown sense of ego, crticize other kids & other parents in racist, culturally-ignorant attacks, & yet conveniently ignored the vicious, cruel streak his son bore across his heart.

It was only natural that such over-indulged, soulless creatures would become predators of their own kind. And yet, the victim is probably the person who you would LEAST feel any kinship or even sympathy for. Far from being a kid who was destined to be the pillar of his community, the victim is simply an over-indulged, misognist brat whose overtly-homosexual tendencies were hidden behind a mask of menacing masochism.

These teens had so many chances to turn themselves around, so many opportunities to build themselves as worthy people, & yet had so little commitment to doing anything with their lives. Jim Shultz has detailed vividly the sense of pointlessness & 'Look at ME!' attitude that colours these banal teens lives, & beggars the question: Yes, these kids are obnoxious monsters... but where are the parents when the mud is being flung?

Written in clear, crisp prose & maintaining a cracking pace, Jim Shultz has achieved an admirable feat in finding motives for this pack of hopeless fools. Perhaps his greatest talent is in making the reader feel like they are really in the scene of the moment. I'll admit it - I've read this book 6 times, & will probably continue to re-read it occasionally as it is a story that never loses its sting. Every parent should read this book & take heed....

Final verdict? Put down anything else - read "Bully" NOW!