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The Death of Jayson Porter

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Although the title of the book seems to give away the ending, THE DEATH OF JAYSON PORTER surges to a new life after that bleak moment. I'm not familiar with Jaime Adoff's work, but the premise of this novel caught my attention. Judging from a quick survey of the other books he's written, Adoff spends time presenting tales about urban, biracial boys trapped in harsh worlds. This book is actually bigger than that, though.

Jayson Porter is a young teen who has a black father hooked on crack and a mother that spends her time with an avalanche of boyfriends and alcohol. Given the terrible neighborhood he's in, Jayson doesn't stand a chance at a decent life. His mother is a Jekyll and Hyde that loves him one moment and physically abuses him the next. Unable to depend on his mother, he works at a car lot detailing vehicles under an abusive boss that taunts him with firing him nearly every day. The bus Jayson has to take to go to work crosses gang territory and his light skin marks him as a target. He spends every day trying to gather the courage to leap from the 18th floor balcony and end it all.

I don't usually go for bleak novels filled with despair, but I have to admit that Adoff kept me turning pages on this one. The prose is short and punchy, paragraphs separated by a lot of space, and headers in heavy black font throughout that beckon the eye.

The narrative style (first-person) lends itself to constant introspection and allows Adoff to bring his readers up to speed regarding situations and other characters. Reading the book is almost like eating potato chips: I didn't get really engrossed in the narrative, but continuing to read was just too easy. Adoff also discloses Jayson's life in a random manner as well, going back and forth in time, and even stepping sideways to bring in additional story material.

I enjoyed the book overall because Adoff definitely has a grip on his characters and the urban landscape. I've never lived in an inner city environment, or with the troubles that Jayson has, but I got a distinct taste of all of those with this book. Adoff wields his prose wickedly, constantly smashing the reader between the eyes with his vision of reality (which is all too real for a lot of people).

The language in the book his harsh and from the street. The adult situations around Jayson fill his days with sex and drugs, but Adoff never portrays those things in a positive manner. They're landmines that Jayson has to constantly avoid while other people fall prey to them.
Ultimately, as bleak as the tale is, there is a brief respite of redemption and hope. But the reader has to wade through an ocean of despair to get there.

I recommend the book to aggressive inner city school libraries and to ones that want to show a harsher life to suburban high school readers that are interested in seeing what else is out there. The prose is written on a low reading level (RL), but the interest level (IL) is high.

Jayson is sick of living in a run-down apartment, in the middle of his very own war zone of violence and drugs. He soon begins holding onto the rail, imagining what it would be like to simply jump off and end all of his suffering: the mom who drinks all the time and beats him, with a dad who is strung out on cocaine most of the time. Though he has his best friend Trax and eventually finds himself with a girlfriend, nothing can ever cheer Jayson up quite enough for him to believe that life is worth living. After all, as soon as things look a little brighter, another tragedy strikes Jayson's life until he simply can't take it anymore.

The Death of Jayson Porter is an amazing, emotional, and sincere novel. It's the type of book you have to read for yourself to fully process and enjoy, with the use of italicizing, bold letters, and the often poetic form of writing that helps bring you in and relate to Jayson. As you read, you'll feel the thoughts and emotions of Jayson as if he was personally telling you his story.

An intense read that will stay with you after you finish.

I am currently reading this book to my summer school classes and it is a bona fide hit! I read a chapter a day to them and they do not want me to put it down. They love that the voice (Jayson/first person)sounds like a true and genuine teenager. I love the fact that the story line has something or someone that each student can relate to. This book should be on every parent's teen summer read list. I would love to hear this as a book on tape!

When you first read the book, read the first sentence you feel the emotion and the feeling the author puts in the story.

The book The Death of Jayson Porter is a book about sixteen year-old Jayson Porter who has an abusive mother who is a prostitute and a drunk. Jayson and his friend Trax live in the inland Florida projects; Jayson finds it extremely hard to fit in at his basically all white school, while he is struggling to get through school he is somehow trying to maintain of what seems to be a thread of a relationship he has left. As I quoted "This book is so moving tears shed from my eyes when I read this peace by: Jaime Adoff." Here is a quick written essay, a summary of the book.

The book starts off with Jayson's mother beating yelling at him to clean up of what she says is a disgusting mess; Jayson is in fear and will do whatever his mother commands him to do. His mother informs Jayson that Layla and her are going out for a girls night out, she tells him not to stay to stay up half the night, she doesn't want her son to look like a zombie every morning., right before she left she told him why her friend Noreen doesn't come by the house anymore and she blamed Jayson for that. When Jayson's mother left Jayson talk behind her back and hates the fact that his mom buys designer clothes and has a sports car when she is a cashier at SaveMart.

When his mother arrives home with Layla, which by the way is completely hammered, Jayson's mom goes into her room and he can hear her yelling voice sounding like a messed up scratchy record. When Jayson finds the kitchen supplies, he remembers last night when one of his mom's guy friends spills a whole plate of spaghetti and his mother blames it all on Jayson. While Jayson is remembering last night his remembers his dad and how he left but to him that's the past, he knows that no matter how many times his mom beats him, swears at him, or blame him for things he didn't do he knows she still loves him no matter what. When Jayson's mother gets home he just knows it's a regular day in Bandon, Florida, hot as ever!

While Jayson was working his knees were starting to burn from moving on the rug too much , so he gets up and goes to the kitchen and to him the water usually comes out hot which it did.
That concludes my essay on The Death of Jayson Porter hope you enjoyed it.

I learned about this book after a couple of librarians came to one of my Literacy teaching classes at my University. It really caught my attention so I decided to get the book. "The Death of Jayson Porter" was one of the better reads I had in a long time. I grabbed me at the first poem and kept me engaged throughout. I hid and read it while I was work and when I had to stop, I found the quickest way to get back to it. The heartbreak and betrayal had me hurting inside as well and just thinking about touching a rail and jumping had me scared and thinking about times when I felt down and a failure. I would recommend this to my friends and future students.

Jayson Porter lives on the eighteenth floor of a rundown Florida apartment building with his abusive mother and whatever boyfriend she is currently entertaining. He is trying to hold down a part-time job and still keep up with his homework at the exclusive private school that has offered him a scholarship.

Each day as he walks along the railing outside his apartment, he considers how easy it would be to just end it all. He fantasizes about how quick and painless death would be if he jumped.

Only two things keep him moving from day to day - his one friend, Trax, and April, a recent acquaintance who might prove to be a cool girlfriend or perhaps an annoying stalker. When Trax dies because the meth lab explodes in a neighboring apartment, Jayson's fragile life begins to seriously crumble.

Author Jaime Adoff takes readers deep into the troubled mind of Jayson Porter. His sometimes sparse and always brutally honest voice reveals the heartbreak and trauma that make up Jayson's young life. Although he dreams of death and does make an attempt, there is still hope left for Jayson if he chooses to work hard enough to hang on to it.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"