Title: Proud Pants: An Unconventional Memoir
Author: Gregory G. Allen
Website: ggallen.net
Genre: Memoir
ISBN: 978-0-9836049-2-1
Available for Kindle at only 99 cents.
Reviewed by Brittany Jedrzejewski, originally for Amazon
Reviewer’s Rating: 4-star
Oh, the beauty and courage of perspective, of putting yourself in someone else's shoes (or in this case, purple and yellow striped pants) to help understand another's personal struggles and choices. Gregory G. Allen's unique memoir, Proud Pants, bravely does just this.
In this quick paced snapshot into the mind of Johnny, a troubled, angry and misunderstood boy, we learn of his heartache and confusion at his absent mother and how he is derailed because of this and blind to the other love surrounding him. Proud Pants shows how fragile we are at our core and how much we all need love, acceptance, security and little things that make us feel special...unconditionally. Even though Johnny's stepmom in particular is absolutely amazing, he continues to fall all the way into a destructive path of drug addiction.
Only at the end of this book do we realize that that the book is told from the perspective of the author, Gregory himself, the half-brother of Johnny. Understanding this unique voice explains the story structure and concludes with a powerful memory of Gregory's own perspective of an encounter from the book, "When I was nine years old I picked up a lead pipe and prepared to hit my fourteen-year old half brother in case he did something to my mother."
If only all of us were lucky enough to have someone try to truly understand us by putting themselves in our shoes. While reading this, I wanted Johnny to prevail, to recover, to find his freedom. Above all, this memoir shows the power we have in being present in each other's lives and the affect we have on each other.
In this quick paced snapshot into the mind of Johnny, a troubled, angry and misunderstood boy, we learn of his heartache and confusion at his absent mother and how he is derailed because of this and blind to the other love surrounding him. Proud Pants shows how fragile we are at our core and how much we all need love, acceptance, security and little things that make us feel special...unconditionally. Even though Johnny's stepmom in particular is absolutely amazing, he continues to fall all the way into a destructive path of drug addiction.
Only at the end of this book do we realize that that the book is told from the perspective of the author, Gregory himself, the half-brother of Johnny. Understanding this unique voice explains the story structure and concludes with a powerful memory of Gregory's own perspective of an encounter from the book, "When I was nine years old I picked up a lead pipe and prepared to hit my fourteen-year old half brother in case he did something to my mother."
If only all of us were lucky enough to have someone try to truly understand us by putting themselves in our shoes. While reading this, I wanted Johnny to prevail, to recover, to find his freedom. Above all, this memoir shows the power we have in being present in each other's lives and the affect we have on each other.
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :
No comments:
Post a Comment
Authors and reviewers would love to hear from you. Please feel free to include the URL (permalink) of your post in your own blog or website.