Kate R. (nausetsunrise) reviewed early Conover on 5/14/2009 + 34 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

Don't mistake my rating as judgment of the writing in this book. Conover puts you there, in the action. You feel like you are jumping trains with him. You might just pull your own legs up and tense your upper body when he describes grabbing onto the sides of a train and holding on for dear life.

The thing I don't like about this is the background information I have on Conover, the circumstances under which the book was written. It is another of those books by young men who have middle to upper-middle class upbringings who are fascinated with the underbelly of society, mostly because they are so far from it. And, they might feel a bit trapped by their own lives, mistaking the lifestyles of the poorer among us as "freer."

The subsequent books, like Coyotes, or another author's book-from-LA-Times-columns, Enrique's Journey, provide much more purpose to the writing.

If you like Conover's books, or first-person narratives, you will like this book. As I said, the writing is amazing. He is vivid, but not overly adjective or adverb driven. The prose is straightforward but captures the feel with great skill.

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