Customer Reviews

Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

First of all, I'm horrified to see what some of the other people put in here about Runaway. I have the utmost admiration for Evelyn Lau because she had to struggle to get out of hooking and drug use. This book is very depressing but it's a reflect of a real human being's experiences, not a fictional chracter. As a non-white person growing up in Canada, I can understand the pressures that she had to conform to the society around her while trying to balance the messages that she got from home. There are no role models for people like us and there's often no one to talk to who can truly understand what it's like to be a visible minority, unless they have gone through the experience themselves. I think that's changing now, but that support wasn't available for minorities growing up in the 70s, 80s and early 90s.

There are very few exceptional people in this world and I think that Evelyn Lau is one of those people. She had to make her own values and create her own niche for herself and made a lot of mistakes doing it. But, she wasn't afraid to tell the world about them and help others learn from her mistakes.

I felt, very, very moved by Runaway. It is a typical runaway story, but what is not typical was that the author is gifted with a great intelligence and writing ability. Evelyn wanted to be a writer from age six, and she started getting published at age twelve. Her very neurotic mother was murdering her emotionally, so at age fourteen, she ran away from home. She went into the expected downward spiral into prostitution and drugs addiction. But Evelyn kept a journal through the two years she was on the street, and the process of journaling was a major factor in her survival.

As a minor she was under the care of government social services, which included outpatient psychiatric care. In her journal, besides all the explicit details of drugs, prostitution, and life on the street, she works through the whole therapeautic process. As drama it is very compelling. As we observe her trying to change her situation, one starts to view her as a hero rather than a victim. It becomes like a movie where we are in anxious suspense to see how the hero gets out of each predicament. We cheer her successes and wince in frustration and disappointment every time she returns to drugs or turning tricks. Her psychiatrists were magnificent. Someone studying to be a therapist could use this book as a case study in runaways, drugs, child prostitution and how a patient responds to therapy. I particularly liked her inner dialogues. She will surface one set of emotions, then surface other conflicting emotions and wrestle them to the ground. Once she gets something resolved, its on to the next set of emotions. She works all this out in her therapy session and in her journal.

I must say that as the father of two children I have had a more poignant reaction to this book. Throughout her book, I kept feeling a profound, My God, shes only a child! The book is a very moral book in that it shows the enormous damage that occurs to child prostitutes, not to mention drug addicts and runaways.

Since the book was published, Evelyn Lau has been pideon-holed somewhat as a Chinese-Candian or Womens issues writer. These kinds of politically correct labels have little added value. I find them limiting not liberating. Her material to be about being a human being and a victim.

Once you start this book, Evelyn becomes you. I had to just keep reading and reading...to finish it, desperate for a happy ending. It is the TRUE diary of a young girl - dabbling in prositution, drugs, therapy and homelessness. This book offers great insight in to the mind of a adolesent, and reminds one of a not so distant past of battling the same demons. Evelyn's world view is set to critique all that crosses her path...including our correctional services, family services, and basic social acceptability. Pretty smart for a 15 year old. Many wonderful thoughts, feelings and ideas can be gained from reading this book. I would recommend this book as required reading for youths who typically DON'T read. Its a great starting point and is sure to capture their attention. But nonetheless...a great story that in the end, any reader feels privilaged to have been on the journey.

It's several years now since Evelyn Lau wrote this book and she's gone on to write more great stuff! Having just heard and seen her speak at a Writers Festival in Australia, I can assure the doubters that she would indeed have written every word of Runaway. She remains passionately addicted to her writing and this passion has continued to affect her life. Have a look at "Inside Out : Reflections on a Life So Far ".

This is a story of a brilliant girl who trapped who herself in one of the worst strata of society there is. She writes from the heart and she strikes deep. I thought about this book for months. It touched me deeply. I only hope the author has come out of the other side of it and is at peace with herself and achieves her goals. It seems these other reviewers were just unable to fathom what this woman went through. I mean no criticism, the thought of being in this girl's shoes is a hard to face. A deeply moving statement of the human condition.

"Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid" by Evelyn Lau deals with a subject often treated by the media, by social science articles and any number of mags from charitable organisations. This book, however, is a painfully accurate day-by-day tale of the author's personal ordeal while searching for love in places where love is a dirty condom. Obligatory reading for anyone who deals with this problem professionally or otherwise - or anyone who wants to read about the details of the night! - My only doubt is this: How much has the text been worked over by editors before publication? Is this really the unchanged diary entries of a girl of 14-15-16? (Anders Blichfeldt, Denmark

This is a document Evelyn kept from a remarkable phase of her life as a drug addict and prostitute on the streets of Vancouver, and a teenage and ethnic one at that. It shows some of her survival instincts which exist within her and which fight to keep her alive through it all. However, as I read on, I found myself having less and less respect for her. It went from respect for a person who fought to get out of circumstances in life she couldn't stand - not that it was horrid or anything, just not to her liking - to thinking how pathetic she was to have just wanted the change and then making herself out to be a victim of everything. I don't believe she owns up to much, or if she did, it was all "talk", cause her actions didn't back it up. By the end, she came across as a spineless jellyfish with the survival instincts of one to fight and survive whenever it happened, but her life became meaningless without the adversity that gave it a purpose to survive. She can't be happy as a "normal" person without death half staring her in the face or walking closely behind, but is a victim otherwise cause it's stalking her so closely. Interesting insight into her life, yes, but it became difficult to read without judgment, and turns monotonous of the same "routine" after a while. Better than the average book, sure, but not sure by how much. Thus the 4 stars.

I felt, very, very moved by Runaway. It is a typical runaway story, but what is not typical was that the author is gifted with a great intelligence and writing ability. Evelyn wanted to be a writer from age six, and she started getting published at age twelve. Her very neurotic mother was murdering her emotionally, so at age fourteen, she ran away from home. She went into the expected downward spiral into prostitution and drugs addiction. But Evelyn kept a journal through the two years she was on the street, and the process of journaling was a major factor in her survival.

As a minor she was under the care of government social services, which included outpatient psychiatric care. In her journal, besides all the explicit details of drugs, prostitution, and life on the street, she works through the whole therapeautic process. As drama it is very compelling. As we observe her trying to change her situation, one starts to view her as a hero rather than a victim. It becomes like a movie where we are in anxious suspense to see how the hero gets out of each predicament. We cheer her successes and wince in frustration and disappointment every time she returns to drugs or turning tricks. Her psychiatrists were magnificent. Someone studying to be a therapist could use this book as a case study in runaways, drugs, child prostitution and how a patient responds to therapy. I particularly liked her inner dialogues. She will surface one set of emotions, then surface other conflicting emotions and wrestle them to the ground. Once she gets something resolved, it's on to the next set of emotions. She works all this out in her therapy session and in her journal.

I must say that as the father of two children I have had a more poignant reaction to this book. Throughout her book, I kept feeling a profound, "My God, she's only a child!" The book is a very moral book in that it shows the enormous damage that occurs to child prostitutes, not to mention drug addicts and runaways.

Since the book was published, Evelyn Lau has been pideon-holed somewhat as a Chinese-Candian or Women's issues writer. These kinds of politically correct labels have little added value. I find them limiting not liberating. Her material to be about being a human being and a victim.

When I read this book, I was still in Canada studying in a very small town and that I wasn't happy there that time... One day, I walked to the library and found this book. I read the book three days straight with little sleep as it gave me lots of feelings and has had sucked my tears out... I treasure the days I spent in Canada and really do want to go back but just I'm not able to go there to continue my study financially... I've to reckon that Evelyn is a strong girl who has been working hard to acheive her goal even in her hard days which I really do appreciate her determination, hard work and also, I envy she has such a precious chance to have her work published to share her inmost feelings that are regarded as taboo to be talked about but she's made a breakthrough on that. So after I came back, I have been trying to search for her books in my homeland and I just found two today and bought them...while I'd buy more too. Evenlyn, hope you are having a good and more satisfying life now and in the future as well!!! Take care and wish you all the best~~!!!

I've read a good many non-fiction-autobiographies. This book is the most viscerial yet cerebral, poignant, vulnerably heart-wretching; Honest, courageous mind boggling work of artistic genius, I have ever come across.

A sheer out & out mind-bender. A work of transcendent catharsis & tragic emotional metamorphosis, from a phenomenal brilliant writer.

After assimilating Ms. Lau's enthralling, somewhat beguiling stylism, one is simply left, torn asunder, as her spellbinding beautific word pictures are rendered in such astute & sultry erudition.

Evelyn Lau's comprehensive body of work is entrancingly seductive.Hauntingly beautiful & adoit; Scintillating,yet melancholy.Enigmatic & stupefying.Ultimately, I am left dumbstruck.

Her writing has an innate ability to create an obsession & infatuation in a reader,that melts away any notion of steel remnant cold calculated logic, that men may attempt to employ toward women.The games over...

On the meridian of art in written form, we find the pleatau of spirit; Immortal soul, eternal love...embodied within Evelyn Lau's art.

Once you have read her work, your life absolutely, will never be the same again...