The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll

This novel is written in the 1st person and it is a story set in the 1960s about a teenager between the ages of 12 through 15. This teenager’s name is Jim Carroll who is also the author of this book. Growing up stealing, getting high, playing basketball just trying to make a name and find a place for himself Jim also at the same time learning how to survive in the streets of New York. He is virtually alone after unexpected obstacles occur in his life, and he just gets sucked in deeper and deeper into this life style and it is slowly taking him over. Post reading this novel I pondered on all of the things that I visualized while reading and everything seemed so real to me. But what intrigued me the most after reading The Basketball Diaries wasn’t so much what I thought about it but it was what other people thought. I decided to look up why people liked reading this book. The results weren’t what I thought they would be. Mostly all of the people who have posted anything on the internet or blogged about The Basketball Diaries have said that this book actually helped them through and get over any drug addiction that they have previously been burdened with in their lives. And this fact was very interesting to me, not so much about The Basketball Diaries itself but that a piece of literature can be so nourishing, and literature to these people seems almost like a placebo to their addiction.