Página InicialGruposDiscussãoMaisZeitgeist
Pesquisar O Sítio Web
Este sítio web usa «cookies» para fornecer os seus serviços, para melhorar o desempenho, para analítica e (se não estiver autenticado) para publicidade. Ao usar o LibraryThing está a reconhecer que leu e compreende os nossos Termos de Serviço e Política de Privacidade. A sua utilização deste sítio e serviços está sujeita a essas políticas e termos.

Resultados dos Livros Google

Carregue numa fotografia para ir para os Livros Google.

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and…
A carregar...

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx (edição 2004)

por Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

MembrosCríticasPopularidadeAvaliação médiaMenções
1,3573713,712 (4.27)39
This New York Times bestseller intimately depicts urban life in a gripping book that slips behind cold statistics and sensationalism to reveal the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour. In her extraordinary bestseller, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses readers in the intricacies of the ghetto, revealing the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. Focusing on two romances--Jessica's dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George, and Coco's first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar--Random Family is the story of young people trying to outrun their destinies. Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between survival and death. Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy Geor≥ Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and, throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty. Charting the tumultuous cycle of the generations--as girls become mothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation--LeBlanc slips behind the cold statistics and sensationalism and comes back with a riveting, haunting, and true story.… (mais)
Membro:jowley
Título:Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
Autores:Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Informação:Scribner (2004), Paperback, 432 pages
Coleções:A sua biblioteca
Avaliação:
Etiquetas:Nenhum(a)

Informação Sobre a Obra

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx por Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

A carregar...

Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro.

Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro.

» Ver também 39 menções

Mostrando 1-5 de 37 (seguinte | mostrar todos)
When I saw David Sedaris do a reading of [b:Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim|10176|Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim|David Sedaris|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166130619s/10176.jpg|2582035] he said everyone should buy two copies of this before buying his book. So I checked it out the next day.

Even though I read it over two years ago, I probably think about it at least once a month, especially the part about how people rationalize unwise behavior. ( )
  LibrarianDest | Jan 3, 2024 |
DNF @P.188
I tried to finish this book but I seriously couldn't. As Dylan Zierk, another Goodreads reviewer who read this book commented, there's no explanation for how families like this one evolved to the lives they have. It's as Dylan said, a soapoperific book. I did not see anyway that this book was helping this family, it's just people looking at their dirty laundry. ( )
  burritapal | Oct 23, 2022 |
This was an extremely compelling book and highly recommend it. I gained a first-hand perspective on what its like to grow-up and live in poverty and how difficult it is to overcome. The women in this book stayed with me long after I finished reading it. ( )
  baruthcook | Aug 26, 2020 |
Random Family was written over 10 years by LeBlanc who immersed herself in the lives of an extended family of Puerto Ricans living in serious poverty in the Bronx. As a non-fiction book this is a little old now in relation to it's subject matter (written in 2003, chronicling from 1985 to 2000), but no matter - it's still incredibly powerful stuff.

As an immersive piece of fly-on-the-wall piece of journalism (LeBlanc was trusted and welcomed into the lives of those she chronicled), this book is so affecting because of the extended length of time the author spent with her subjects. We don't just read about the 'whats' in their lives - by really getting under the hood of their world we start to understand a little more about their 'whys' in terms of bad choices made.

At its heart this is a story about abject poverty in an area overrun by crime. Depressingly, although each generation wants better for their children than their own upbringing, the cycle gets endlessly repeated again and again. Young mothers (14, 15, 16) end up with large families from different fathers while they're still adolescents themselves. Families typically have no firm roofs over their heads, drifting between small, rundown apartments belonging to extended family members that often have multiple adults and children already living in them. Adults most usually are unemployed or ensconced in the drug trade. Addictions are the norm, child molestation is common but not dwelled on (there are so many adults on the scene figuring out the culprit is often near to impossible), and kids are generally neglected by their families and schools despite good intentions. Young girls typically end up bearing the brunt of the work in bringing up their younger siblings (before starting motherhood themselves), and young boys - lacking guidance from fathers who are usually not involved in their upbringing and typically in jail by their late teens or murdered - eventually get into trouble on the streets, with tough attitudes and uncontrolled anger leading quickly to involvement in gangs, drugs and serious crime.

LeBlanc started writing this novel after following the trial of notorious young drug kingpin Boy George, who, before being sent down for life, was living the high life with Bentleys, jewellery, furs and beautiful women. One of those girls was Jessica, a knockout girl from a poor slum in the Bronx, and it's starting with Jessica that LeBlanc weaves this true story. Within 15 years, Jessica will have gone from rags to riches to a 10 year prison sentence back to rags, becoming a mother of 5 and grandmother of 1 in that same period. We also follow the story of her brother Cesar and his inevitable spiral into crime, and that of Coco, mother to 2 of Cesar's children who extracts herself from the Bronx but ultimately can't escape the grinding poverty that keeps her stuck in the same cycle as previous generations.

As a white, privileged reader, many of the life choices made seem utterly crazy - more babies when they can't cope with the ones they already have, money windfalls (from robberies or insurance claims) frittered away within weeks. However, LeBlanc is pretty successful by the end of the book in helping us understand that when living in this level of extreme poverty, amid everyday violence and dysfunction, there are few support structures, few reliable people to guide or help, and few opportunities to do the right thing when the day-to-day grind is like quicksand.

This is not a book of hope and light at the end of the tunnel - it is a book of stark realism about those living in the poorest sectors of society.

Were it written today, I wonder would LeBlanc be accused of writing a story that is not hers to tell. I think in this case that would be an unfair argument. In researching Random Family she spent a significantly long time immersed in her characters' lives, and it's doubtful that any of her characters would ever have been in a situation privileged enough to have been able to write their story themselves.

5 stars - thoroughly engrossing, albeit incredibly tragic. ( )
2 vote AlisonY | Apr 20, 2020 |
well written, but I'm just not interested in the story and the characters (people). This doesn't fit my criteria for one of the 100 New Classics. ( )
  deldevries | Oct 27, 2017 |
Mostrando 1-5 de 37 (seguinte | mostrar todos)
sem críticas | adicionar uma crítica
Tem de autenticar-se para poder editar dados do Conhecimento Comum.
Para mais ajuda veja a página de ajuda do Conhecimento Comum.
Título canónico
Título original
Títulos alternativos
Data da publicação original
Pessoas/Personagens
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Locais importantes
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Acontecimentos importantes
Filmes relacionados
Epígrafe
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
...Some say that Happiness is not Good for mortals & they ought to be answerd that Sorrow is not fit for Immortals & is utterly useless to any one a blight never does good to a tree & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.
William Blake, letter to William Hayley
London, October 7, 1803
Dedicatória
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
For my parents,
Eve Mary Margaret Mazzaferro
and Adrian Leon LeBlanc
Primeiras palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Jessica lived on Tremont Avenue, on one of the poorer blocks in a very poor section of the Bronx.
Citações
Últimas palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
(Carregue para mostrar. Atenção: Pode conter revelações sobre o enredo.)
Nota de desambiguação
Editores da Editora
Autores de citações elogiosas (normalmente na contracapa do livro)
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Língua original
DDC/MDS canónico
LCC Canónico

Referências a esta obra em recursos externos.

Wikipédia em inglês (1)

This New York Times bestseller intimately depicts urban life in a gripping book that slips behind cold statistics and sensationalism to reveal the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour. In her extraordinary bestseller, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses readers in the intricacies of the ghetto, revealing the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. Focusing on two romances--Jessica's dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George, and Coco's first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar--Random Family is the story of young people trying to outrun their destinies. Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between survival and death. Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy Geor≥ Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and, throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty. Charting the tumultuous cycle of the generations--as girls become mothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation--LeBlanc slips behind the cold statistics and sensationalism and comes back with a riveting, haunting, and true story.

Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas.

Descrição do livro
Resumo Haiku

Current Discussions

Nenhum(a)

Capas populares

Ligações Rápidas

Avaliação

Média: (4.27)
0.5 1
1 2
1.5 1
2 6
2.5 2
3 33
3.5 13
4 76
4.5 15
5 137

É você?

Torne-se num Autor LibraryThing.

 

Acerca | Contacto | LibraryThing.com | Privacidade/Termos | Ajuda/Perguntas Frequentes | Blogue | Loja | APIs | TinyCat | Bibliotecas Legadas | Primeiros Críticos | Conhecimento Comum | 203,207,369 livros! | Barra de topo: Sempre visível