Madison

“Because racism was alive and real as shit. It was everywhere and all mixed up in everything, and the only people who said it wasn't, and the only people who said, ‘Don't talk about it,' were white.”

“Our silence is another kind of violence.”

“I wondered if anyone thought that what we were doing was unpatriotic. It was weird. Thinking that to protest was somehow un-American. That was bullshit. This was very American, goddamn All-American.”

“Had our hearts really become so numb that we needed dead bodies in order to feel the beat of compassion in our chests? Who am I if I needed to be shocked back into my best self?”

These quotes provide all the reasons for five stars that anyone could think of. All-American Boys is an incredible book and, unlike some other books I've read, it's not just a call to action hiding behind mediocre writing. It is awe-inspiringly well-written and everybody should read it at least once in their life.

The overall feeling I had when reading this book was a kind of sadness, I guess; a mourning for the culture that was lost during the years that Franco ruled the country. The other big feeling I had reading this was anger at the system and fascism in general. All in all, this was a great book, though the ending felt a teeny bit rushed. I also feel like there was a lot of backstory that went undiscovered and like there was just too much story for this one-off medium length novel.

This book was a very good read. Sure, it took me a whole lot longer than I thought it would, but I definitely enjoyed reading it. I feel as if a lot of the people who left one star reviews are the types who can't understand what empathy means. These types of people found “white devil” too offensive to them so they stopped reading before they could get to see the growth of a regular man who realized the error of his ways and set about trying to change other's lives for the better. Malcolm X may not have been a perfect man, but who is?

Above all, this book made me pretty sad throughout when Malcolm X would talk about what he thought the future would be like or how the system might change in the future. It's not fun to realize how little the core issues of the US or the system that produced these issues has changed over 60 years.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand more about Malcolm X or racism in general.

all over the place and a little confusing. it felt very open-ended in a way, though the last few chapters were clearly intended to provide closure.

While I admired the historical fiction and suffragette aspects of the book, I found Victoria frustrating and whiny most of the time. I did like the end, but I feel that's only because I tend to enjoy happy endings.

It's been a hot minute since I read this book but my opinion of it has stayed the same; it is well-written, and like watching a train wreck. It is gruesome and brutal but also enthralling and clever. All in all, a very good book, but definitely not exactly for the very faint of heart.

This book is one of those books that really affect one's perspective of the world, especially when one lives in the United States. The stories of these wrongfully convicted and wrongfully sentenced people are so well-written in a way that really makes a reader empathize with these people. I really loved this book and I hope that someday I'll be able to make a difference in the criminal justice system just like Bryan Stevenson does. (My only grievance is that the book doesn't really give the dates that these cases were happening)

Amazing

This book has got to be one of my new favorite books. It's beautifully written and I recommend it to everyone.

I think reading this in January, though still winter, was the wrong move. I'll see if I fare better with it leading up to Christmas next year while I'm at home. Still, I don't really like the blasé and frequently ignorant feeling attitude toward Catholicism.

When I buy it I'll eventually finish it

I read these books when I was something like 10 or 11 and now I feel overly nostalgic