Customer Reviews

Dope Sick

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Walter Dean Myers' DOPE SICK does an excellent job of drawing you into Lil J's dangerous and disjointed world of punk dope dealers in New York City. The language, while harsh, isn't so crude as to be off-putting (or incomprehensible) to this suburban white reader and the characters are multi-faceted and intriguing. I even had sympathy for Lil J himself, as he (with the help of Kelly and his magical fast forward/rewind remote control) gets a look at decisions he has made in the past (and perhaps will make in the future.)

An intriguing and fast read. I subtracted one star for an ending that is without any sort of closure (for me at least.) After reading the final paragraphs, I had no sense of what Myers was trying to say, show or tell as far as Lil J and the decisions he must now make.

I was privileged to read an advance copy of Walter Dean Myers' new book Dope Sick, and let me say, simply: this is a good book. It was nicely crafted for its intended audience, well-written, intriguing and thought-provoking without being too preachy or overly complex. It had a science fiction flair in a realistic story, and I love when authors do that well. The main character, Lil J, was perfectly rendered, and his narrator's voice seemed spot on to me, though I admit some ignorance as to popular street slang of today -- I live in a small town in Oregon, which is not exactly the 'hood. I know that it sounded genuine to my dull ears, and I think it would seem the same to young men who read the book, so I will be recommending this book to them.

The story was interesting, though I know the ending will not satisfy many readers -- the lady or the tiger? I thought it was great, since the book's theme is how hard it is to pinpoint the moment when things start to go wrong in one's life. The story picks up as Lil J is running from the police, having been involved in a drug deal that went bad and ended up with the shooting of an undercover cop; J (whose full name is Jeremy Dance, and that name almost gave me goosebumps, it was so good) runs into a building that seems abandoned but isn't. On an upper story, J finds a mysterious figure named Kelly, watching TV. This TV can show J's life, past, present, and possible future, and Kelly shows J exactly where he is headed and what awaits him there -- and J doesn't like what he sees.

The rest of the book is a series of flashbacks, laced into J's conversation with Kelly, which (very nicely) never loses sight of J's current situation and its seriousness, as the police are searching for J and he is already being tried and convicted by the popular media. Through the flashbacks, we see what has happened to J to make him the way he is, as Kelly keeps asking him what he would like to change about his life, what single event or single day he would like to change in order to get out of the situation he finds himself in now. And several possibilities occur to J, and are described as he and Kelly watch them on the strange TV; most of them seem reasonable choices for the turning point, the watershed moment when everything started to go wrong, and the overall impression the reader gets is sadness -- because a lot in this young man's life has gone wrong. But the climax of the book comes, I think, when J tells Kelly, "Everything that's me ain't all my fault," and Kelly responds, "That's the deal. You got to find a way to make your life all your fault." That, I thought, was a brilliant line, and a brilliant message very well realized in this book.

I read this book in one sitting. It was an easy read even though it had a lot of dark shadows. It was a request from one of my 8th grade boys, so I wanted to read it before I put on our library shelf. I was a little shocked that the main character was involved with heavy drugs at such an early age. The main character finds himself in a vacant building and encouters someone he does not know. This encounter is a bit strange. However, as in most of Myer's books, he is forced to look inside himself and make better choices after a very scary night. Dopesick could open up a great discussion among young adult readers!

Gold Star Award Winner!

Lil J is running away from his problems. His alcoholic mother can't seem to get straight, he can't find a decent job, and now the cops are breathing down his neck. A drug deal has gone sour, and Lil J finds himself holed up in an abandoned crack house, wounded and afraid.

He meets Kelly, a young man who asks a lot of questions and wields a television remote control. The entire situation doesn't make sense to Lil J, and things really start getting crazy when Kelly begins to play segments of Lil J's life on the TV screen.

"If you could do it all over again, and change something, what would it be?," Kelly asks Lil J.

Lil J sifts through his memories, attempting to pinpoint the moment in his life that changed him forever. Many secrets are unearthed and Lil J comes to the realization that it wasn't just one thing; it was all the little things that added up and multiplied into this mess he calls his life.

Lil J is searching for redemption, but can he find it in time - and does he even deserve it?

Walter Dean Myers is a masterful storyteller who takes ideas about urban life and morphs them into something that is truly original and unexpected. His ability to use surrealism in a very real, life-altering situation shows that you can make a point without shoving it in your face.

DOPE SICK is an excellent piece of writing that will keep you questioning until the end.......and after.

Reviewed by: LadyJay

I usually cant read books mostly because they are too boring and they can't hold my attention long enough but this one did! This was an exciting book that I actually liked.

Dope Sick opens in high drama: Harlem teenager Lil J has hurt -- maybe broken -- his arm during a drug run gone bad, and he's deciding whether to surrender to the cops down the block or hide in a nearby abandoned building. He decides on the building, and in a twist that totally hooks the reader, discovers Kelly, a guy whose TV plays a movie of Lil J's life -- now the current moment, now fast-forwarding to a future where Lil J is caught by the police and puts his gun to his own head. This present and future are so different from what Lil J has imagined for himself and for his addicted mother, that when Kelly offers to rewind the movie -- to give Lil J a do-over if he can identify where he took the wrong turn in life -- Lil J is hooked by the possibilities, too.

Dope Sick is a quick, intense read, and Lil J narrates in a street voice that's effectively developed through credible language and speech patterns rather than intrusive dialect.

Myers blurs the fine line between reality and surreality in his latest. Lil J has gotten caught up in a drug deal he never intended to be a part of. In fact, his intentions for the day were to get a real job to help support his mom. Chased into a run down apartment building, he runs into a strange man who seems to know way more about Lil J than he should. This novel is fast-paced, strikingly rich, and important.

"'But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?'
"'It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!'
"Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.
"'You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. 'Tell me why?'
"'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'" -- A CHRISTMAS CAROL

A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN PROSE, BEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS is a tale of social injustice and poverty, written by Charles Dickens who was forced to go to work at the age of twelve when his father was sent to debtors' prison. In A CHRISTMAS CAROL, set on Christmas Eve in Scrooge's joyless house, Marley's Ghost holds a metaphorical mirror up to Scrooge, a man who has come to care for nothing but accumulating money. Gaining self-knowledge from the experience and perceiving what is to become his own wretched fate, Scrooge comes to understand that he has the power to change himself and alter that fate. Thanks to epiphany, change, and redemption, Scrooge's own future is brighter and -- like ripples moving outward in ever-widening circles -- things will be better for everyone around him.

"Kelly talked street, but I wasn't sure. Something about him wasn't from the 'hood. I wanted to go over to him and put the Nine against his neck, but for some reason I didn't think it was going to bother him. The sucker might have been crazy.
"'You know a way out?' I asked.
"'Why don't you cop a squat and check yourself out on the tube,' Kelly said. He was looking at the television.
"I looked at the television and saw the street below. It looked empty.
"'You got the television hooked up to security cameras?' I asked.
"'No.'
"'Then how come...?' On the television there was a figure moving across the street wearing a dark jacket. He had one hand up by his side and the other in his jacket pocket. It was me.
"'What is this, a movie or something?'
"'Yeah. I guess it's a movie. What part you want to see next?'"

DOPE SICK is also a story of social injustice and poverty, written by Walter Dean Myers who has again broken new ground in his celebrated, decades-long writing career. Myers' writings for teens have frequently focused on the poorest people and neighborhoods of the world's richest city, and DOPE SICK takes place in the bleakest of Harlem settings -- a reeking, abandoned building that has apparently been utilized as a place for drug addicts to temporarily duck into.

Lil J and his buddy Rico had been in the process of earning some quick money from a local dealer by conveying heroin to a white guy in the park. The buyer turns out to be an undercover cop and, in the ensuing chaos, the cop is shot and Rico is busted. Lil J, having been badly shot in the arm, narrowly escapes into the darkened building. He busts into the room where, inexplicably, a young guy named Kelly is set up with a comfortable chair and the television which is going to provide Lil J a long look at his past, his present, and his future.

Lil J is not especially forthcoming as to what is really going on in his life, and so we are repeatedly startled by what Kelly and his television help reveal:

"'I think I'm pregnant,' she said.
"'What?'
"'That wasn't the right answer,' she said."

"We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled â" doubled â" since we were children. We know the statistics â" that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it." -- Barack Obama, Father's Day sermon, 6/15/08.

Consistent with what President-Elect Obama was preaching about, one facet of Lil J that is revealed is that this seventeen year-old son of an absent father has, himself, become a father. Another is that he is a high school dropout. As he tells Kelly, "All you got to do is walk around and see what everybody who looks like you and living around where you living is doing and seeing they just like you and they ain't going nowhere."

The tension in Kelly's room builds as the hours tick away with the wounded, gun-wielding Lil J coming face to face with his own horrifying fate while the police remain just steps from the building, scouring the neighborhood in search of him.

Just as A CHRISTMAS CAROL was Dickens' visceral reaction to his own experiences and to what he saw happening around him, Walter Dean Myers has written an intense, brilliant, and timely piece of Twenty-first century social commentary that graphically illuminates a cycle of poverty and addiction and fatherlessness that must be addressed by the incoming administration and -- as President Elect Obama has said -- by Americans taking responsibility for their own behavior. (And by reading to their children).

On top of all that, DOPE SICK is one heck of a guy read. Hopefully there will be inspired teachers who have the guts to use this powerful piece of YA literature in the classroom. It would be really wonderful to track down some males in the community to come in and model guy reading behavior by reading this aloud to students. Hopefully, as with A CHRISTMAS CAROL, DOPE SICK will serve to enlighten those who are ignorant of what is going on in far too many of our communities.

"'This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.'"