Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member | Sanyika Shakur

Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member | Sanyika Shakur | monster

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Monster: The Autob...

	Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member Sanyika Shakur Grove Press, 2004 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 182 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Sanyika Tells His Story

Monster is an auto-biography of the the ex-Eight Tray Crip member "Monster" Kody Scott, or as he's known now, Sanyika Shakur. This book sheds light on the harsh realities taking place in inner-city America, telling a story that few would most likely not live to tell. Sanyika holds nothing back whilst telling his story. He lived with a single mom, and he had five other brothers. There was no man in the house. At the tender age of eleven, he was initiated into the Crips (Eight Tray Crip), after he belted rival gang members with eight shots from a sawed-off shotgun. After he was initiated, Sanyika earned respect for himself by commiting terrible acts of violence and always being on his guard. This earned him the name of "Monster".

From early on, you can see the street mentality that Monster has. He was relentless in his attack on rivals (Namely the "Rollin' Sixties" Crips), and he takes on the leadership of his set, which he pledges allegiance to early in the book, and the importance of comradery is presented. As his story rages on, it turns into an all-out war with other Crips. It's through these times you see just how real his story is. Soon his little brother, Kershaun, is into gangbanging too, getting his name "Li'l Monster" from being Monster's little brother. Monster was in and out of jail periodically, but one incident led him to Youth Training School for 4 years. Here, he meets the Muslim Muhammad Abdullah, who introduces him to a different way of thinking. Over the years, through his stint in YTS and in San Quentin, his way of thinking alters. He starts to read more about the Black Panthers and Black men who rebelled against the government. He soon tries to leave his gangbanging lifestyle, all while changing his name and trying to provide a better life for his wife and their three kids, so they don't follow in the same path as he did. However, he also lets you know that this transformation was not easy. Of course there was going to be bangers who wanted Monster and not Sanyika, and considering that street life was all he'd ever known, it would be hard to leave his old lifestyle behind. Even though he was not a banger anymore, at the end of the book, Sanyika was serving another 7-year stint for beating a crackdealer who refused to move off his block.

Sanyika's story is very powerful. It helps you to see what really goes on in South Central, through the eyes of someone who was there participating fully. It's also amazing to learn that he could barely understand words like "struggle" when handed phamplets by Muhammad, and how he couldn't communicate his thoughts through writing very well. If not for him mentioning this in the book, you wouldn't have known, for this book is very well-written. Another thing I'd like to point out, is that Stanley "Tookie" Williams was referenced in this book, as Sanyika knew Tookie and had talked and smoked with him before. If the book was written just recently, it would have been nice to know what Sanyika thought about Tookie's execution, since Tookie had also changed his ways in prison. But since this was published years before Tookie's trial, of course there is no mention. Towards the end, he talks just a little about the Bloods & the Crips supposedly ending their rivalry, but he says the real war is Crips vs. Crips.

I strongly recommend picking this up. This is one of those books that grabs your attention from the start and never loosens it's hold on you. Sanyika doesn't hold anything back or water anything down. The story remains just as raw and gritty as the reality behind it all. Mark Annichiarico of the Library Journal said it best though. The many names of gangs and gangbangers can get confusing, but overall it doesn't make a difference. Sanyika presents a harsh reality for inner-city youths and many, many people everywhere have no idea what it's like to live as a banger or why teens do it. This book will defnitely lead you to understand better the mind of youth in the ghetto. I recommend this for anyone's book collection.

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monster

The book Monster is the auto biographie of a L.A.gang member. He wrote the book when he was in prison. While in the gang called the cript he would do alot of stupid things. He would high jack cars steal from people,kill people, and do types of drugs, with his freinds. His freinds would get caught doing stuff and were arrested but he never was caught doing anything. He was stupid and selling drugs in the open and thats how he was put in prision

My Baby Got Back!

My 16 month-old son thinks this book is the only book in the house. Every day, he picks it up, backs into me to sit in my lap, and puts the book in my hand to read. I've offered other books but he will have none of that. We read this one at least 7 times a day (and I work full-time!) He has learned body parts and street games. He knows what the next page says now before I turn it. I say, "How phat be dat ho?" Jonathan raises his hands! I am looking for more books written by this talented author. Sanyika Shakur was right when he said, "Babies love to look at other babies."

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A halfway decent book

This book is so-so, I enjoyed it, it was gripping, but it wasn't very enlightening.
Sanyika Shakur is a good writer, his book is well written and relatively informative. It gives a good account of gang life in L.A. and all, but it doesn't shed any insight into the emotions of the people whom the narrator interacts with. It's extremely unsentimental and the ubiquitous maimings and killings prevalent in the story are remarked upon casually, as though shakur is reciting an amusing anecdote, or mild annoyance from his day. What is apparent in the book is that Shakur is the alpha-male type, and he has no regrets, and little sympathy for those less hardened than himself. He seems to care little for the lives of those he hurts, and that attitude never seems to change. I feel as though he must be a highly intelligent person, but the lack of pity he demonstrates is unnerving, especially when he renounces black-on-black crime in the end, yet never stops and visualizes the senseless brutality that surrounded his whole life prior to this epiphany. I think this book should be complemented with Reymundo Sanchez's "My Bloody Life" to balance the coldly romantic feel of Shakur's narrative. Also The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Manchild in the Promised Land (Claude Browne), and Live from Death Row (Mumia Abu-Jamal) can all be read along with (or even instead of) this book.
Still, for all of that the book is a superb achievement for someone whose dealt with so much. Shakur's narrative style is well done, and I appreciate it above anything else the book has to offer.

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