Customer Reviews

Stranger to the System (Life Portraits of a New York City Homeless Community)

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

 

 

This is a must read for everyone. Jim Flynn does an extraordinary job compiling the life stories of the homeless in New York City. This book will bring laughs as well as tears. You will feel as if you actually know the people personally, especially since all of the stories are in the first-person. This book allows the homeless to be heard as people, not as throw-aways of society. A powerful and important book.

This study of homelessness brings you to the realization that being homeless is just a step away for any of us. It give you an insight into the lives of the homeless in NY; once you get to know them you realize that these are gifted and talented people who through a quirk of fate... This is a book you can't put down; you travel from story to story with a sense of urgency, the need to learn more about each source. You will laugh a little, you will cry a little and you will be transformed.

I recently went to NY and bought this book from a street vendor. I didn't have any real expectations from the book, but when I started reading I could not put it down. This book seems to be a real, open and honest look into the lives of people that I would otherwise not have though twice about.
Thank to Jim Flyn and all the people that contributed to this book for bringing these enlightening stories into my life. I'm now about to order several copies of the book to give to friends and family.

This book let's you see how people really become homeless and opens your mind and makes you realize that these people are not lazy but life is what happened to them that made them end up this way.

A great book. What is also funny is that homeless people in New York will sell you this book for a buck fifty. Or you can buy it here for 10 dollars

The book does not feel like an honest, in-depth look at the personality and life of these homeless people in Tompkins Square. It reads more like the interviewer's biased interpretation and projections onto these people.

I would like to actually get to know many of them, as far as that can be done through a book, but either they did not open up to him, or he cut out much of the interviews.