Helpful Score: 6
If you liked the movie, you will like the book much better. The story is horrifying and keeps you involved. The characters are realistic. One of my favorites!
Helpful Score: 3
The movie version of "Sleepers" was great with an all star cast, but you will never truly understand the richness of the characters unless you read the book first.
An amazing read.
An amazing read.
Helpful Score: 2
this was a really good book. the story was compelling and fast paced. the author could easily have been way too graphic in certain parts, but wasn't at all. i look forward to renting the movie now and seeing how it stacks up.
Helpful Score: 2
This is a touching true story of real life horrors four young men had to live through, and how it shaped their lives. Many sections of the book are unbelievable!!
Helpful Score: 2
I enjoyed this book but had a hard time reading some parts of it. It is a very chilling story and I felt the boys pain through everything that they were going through.
Helpful Score: 2
In his controversial memoir SLEEPERS, Carcaterra remembers harrowing months in the Wilkinson Home for Boys and the elaborate vengeance he and his friends exacted against the guards. He tells it all in spare, stylish prose...with relentless momentum and sheer drama.
Helpful Score: 1
excellent book - much better than the movie
Helpful Score: 1
An often wrenching coming of age story. Autobiographical, funny, sad and unforgettable.
Helpful Score: 1
An extremely well-written book about the loss of innocence (not for the squeamish)
Compelling and frightening. Could not put it down.
Spellbinding page-turner. I saw the movie and then plowed through the book.
An incredible story. Everyone should read it!
the book is better than the movie'
A terrifying account of brutility and retribution searing its emotional truth. Big in passion and scope.
An extraordinary true tale of torment, retribution, and loyalty that's irresistibly readable... Takes a hairpin turn into horror and then changes tack once more to relate grippingly what must be one of the most outrageous confidence schemes ever perpetrated... Carcaterra has run a moral and emotional gauntlet, and the resulting book, despite its flaws, is disturbing and hard to forget
One of the best books I have ever read. How sad to think a justice system failed our children....5 stars book for sure....You can NOT blame the 2 that ended up as killers. OUR justice system that was suppose to help them turned them into killers....So glad they got their revenge...
This book kept me glued to the pages for hours on end. very good read, I think.
Very compelling memoir of abuse and revenge.
wow! what a great book. You'll fall in love with these sweet boys and then cry with them through their anguish. I felt like I was growing up with them in Hell's Kitchen.
I really enjoyed this book. I was disappointed to find out the book is FICTION. The book is still worth reading.
Great, fast moving story. The film also does it justice.
Disturbing read
Disturbing read
Carcaterra\'s controversial memoir of growing up in NYC\'s Hell\'s Kitchen and as an inmate at a sadistic detention center was a PW bestseller for eight weeks.
A terrifying account of brutality and retribution, searing in its emotional truth, peopled with murderers, sadists, and thugs, but biblical in its passion and scope.....PEOPLE
"In his controversial memoir SLEEPERS, Carcaterra remembers harrowing months in the Wilkinson Home for Boys and the elaborate vengeance he and his friends exacted against the guards. He tells it all in spare, stylish prose...(with) relentless momentum and sheer drama....SLEEPERS is a thriller, to be sure, but it is equally a wistful hymn to another age" --THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
"In his controversial memoir SLEEPERS, Carcaterra remembers harrowing months in the Wilkinson Home for Boys and the elaborate vengeance he and his friends exacted against the guards. He tells it all in spare, stylish prose...(with) relentless momentum and sheer drama....SLEEPERS is a thriller, to be sure, but it is equally a wistful hymn to another age" --THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
This was a very intense account of brutality and courage. Not everyone made the right decisions, but all faced hardships straight on.
A stunning period piece if nothing else, and a tale of horrifying violence against children.
From back cover (although there has already been a movie adaptation.) A book with a punch equal to its publicity hype! Journalist Carcaterra tells with gripping force of his days growing up in the tough New York City neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s (the names have been changed to protect the innocent "and" the guilty). He and his three closest buddies engaged in petty crime until the day their tricks got out of hand and escalated into a major offense, for which they were sent to a juvenile home in upstate New York. They were tormented during their months there, not by other young inmates but by their adult guards, who brutalized them relentlessly in a program of horror and torture that included rape. Once out, once grown up, one of the boys became a lawyer, and through a bizarre twist of events worthy of being turned into a movie (in fact, the movie rights have been sold, with Barry Levinson lined up as director), he, Carcaterra, and the other two friends expose the horrible wrongs they suffered in that detention home. Both difficult to read and difficult to put down, this book will garner lots of attention, and as a result, readership demand will be high.
From back cover (although there has already been a movie adaptation.) A book with a punch equal to its publicity hype! Journalist Carcaterra tells with gripping force of his days growing up in the tough New York City neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s (the names have been changed to protect the innocent "and" the guilty). He and his three closest buddies engaged in petty crime until the day their tricks got out of hand and escalated into a major offense, for which they were sent to a juvenile home in upstate New York. They were tormented during their months there, not by other young inmates but by their adult guards, who brutalized them relentlessly in a program of horror and torture that included rape. Once out, once grown up, one of the boys became a lawyer, and through a bizarre twist of events worthy of being turned into a movie (in fact, the movie rights have been sold, with Barry Levinson lined up as director), he, Carcaterra, and the other two friends expose the horrible wrongs they suffered in that detention home. Both difficult to read and difficult to put down, this book will garner lots of attention, and as a result, readership demand will be high.
jumps around and is a bit confusing at times but overall a good read.
Excellent book,fast pace,funny at times,sad and heart breaking at other times.
From the back of the book- review from the Washington Post Book World:
"In his controversial memoir SLEEPERS, Carcaterra remembers harrowing months in the Wilkinson Home for Boys and the elaborate vengeance he and his friends extracted against the guards."
"In his controversial memoir SLEEPERS, Carcaterra remembers harrowing months in the Wilkinson Home for Boys and the elaborate vengeance he and his friends extracted against the guards."
A terrifying account of brutality and retribution, searing in its emotional truth, peopled with murderers, sadists, and thugs, but biblical in its passion and scope.
Wonderful fast read. Captivating ... but not for the squeemish. Author claims a true story with names/times changed, but if this is true there ought to be outrage by someone at some of the things he says are done. The 1st half of it was a great story with funny parts, sad parts, great characters and parts that will make you think. The 2nd half is not for everyone. If you cannot read about child abuse, skip this one. It comes out alright in the end, but the descriptions of what happens at an upstate New York youth detention facility (jail) are hard to read.
From Publishers Weekly
Carcaterra's controversial memoir of growing up in NYC's Hell's Kitchen and as an inmate at a sadistic detention center was a PW bestseller for eight weeks.
Carcaterra's controversial memoir of growing up in NYC's Hell's Kitchen and as an inmate at a sadistic detention center was a PW bestseller for eight weeks.
New York Times Bestseller. Excellent book. Was also a movie.
