Hole in my Life

Hole in my Life

Gantos, Jack. Hole in my Life. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2002.

Annotation: The promise of adventure and escape and the opportunity for quick cash was too much to resist for Jack. Follow him as he struggles to find himself as a person and as a writer and tries his best to make the best choices.

Justification for rejection:

This book failed to engage me as a reader. He starts himself out in jail the first chapter so there is a large lack of surprise in what is going to happen to him on his journey. Jack getting caught is only a matter of how and when. Throughout the book there is a constant predictability factor that makes the book less enjoyable. Young readers who are well read might enjoy the constant name dropping of literary heavy weights. But, I found it obnoxious and I believe that this book is written at a lower reading level than the reading level of any student that would catch these references. When borrowing ideas such as the use of the color yellow as a mental condition (which I believe is a reference to "The Yellow Wallpaper") he generally fails to live up to the other writers he is trying to pay homage to. The main thing he wins on is fulfilling the basic laundry list of adolescent literature such as "who am I?", a search for self, a need to break free from adult control and bad decision making. In one of his chapters he makes reference to the cheesy scared straight convict story tellers that visited his high school. That chapter made me think that he was aware of how cheesy he was being, but decided to tell his story in the manner in which he did. Even though this was a memoir/autobiography his voice seemed inauthentic and forced. I personally enjoy Law and Crime novels, but this one fails to live up to the classics he is constantally trying to reference (such as Crime and Punishment).

Genre: Autobiography, Memoir