Hole in My Life | 
| Author: Jack Gantos
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Category: Book
List Price: $8.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  53 reviews
Sales Rank: 84316
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0374430896
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780374430894
ASIN: 0374430896
Publication Date: September 8, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Never Read-may have light shelf or handling wear-publishers mark- Great Copy- I ship FAST!
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Amazon.com Review
"I find myself moving like a knife, carving my way around people, cutting myself out of their picture and leaving nothing of myself behind but a hole." A gaping hole of misery is what popular young adult author Jack Gantos remembers when he thinks back to 1972, "the bleakest year of my life." Just 20 years old, Gantos was in a medium security prison for his participation in a get-rich-quick drug scam. Scared silly by the violence he saw around him daily, Gantos's only lifeline was a battered copy of IThe Brothers Karamazov/I, which he painstakingly turned into an impromptu journal by scratching his own thoughts into the tiny spaces between the lines. There, he recorded both his fears and his dream of someday writing a book of his own. Before prison, Gantos had penned a scattered myriad of journals, but had never been able to pull them together into a cohesive narrative. It was during his time behind bars that he found himself growing into a focused, diligent writer who eschewed drugs for the bigger high of watching his words fill the hole once and for all. p Gantos, best known for his award-winning Joey Pigza titles, mines darker material here that is as deeply compelling as his lighter fare. Using short, meaty sentences, Gantos manages to write in a way that dismisses the dubious "romance" of prison, drugs, and "life on the edge" without ever sounding didactic or heavy-handed. Older teens will appreciate his candor and sheer willingness to give them the straight story. Vigorously recommended. (Ages 13 and older) I--Jennifer Hubert/I
Product Description
In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring young writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a boat loaded with hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City. But federal agents were waiting. Gantos was caught and, for his part in the conspiracy, sentenced to serve up to six years in prison.br
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| Customer Reviews: Read 48 more reviews...
 High School Interest Level March 21, 2008
I have talked with my high school students about the fact that although there are defining moments in life, we should not let one moment define who we are for the rest of our lives. This is a great story to exemplify this point! Although drug use and sales are important components of the novel (and serve to attract the attention of adolescent readers), drugs are not glorified, which is an important point that parents and educators should be aware of if asked to defend this book choice. It can also be used for students to see how one author "found his voice" and became a writer. Interesting read that will hold the attention of even reluctant readers.
(= March 5, 2008
Jack Gantos' "Hole in My Life" is his autobiography and story of how he left his hometown to become a writer and ended up in a federal prison along the way.br /His memoir is very well written and truthful. He describes very well his situation and the quirky characters he comes in contact with. He shows that the road to becoming a writer is rarely smooth and how spending time in jail, in fact, helped his writing career.br /I recommend this book to anyone wanting the real story of a troubled kid that is both well written and meaningful.
 the audio version is excellent January 18, 2008
I came online to order this book. I just got this audio tape from the library and listened to it in the car with my "pre-teen" children. Its a great story and his delivery of the tale is funny and dry and compelling. He never gets preachy or plays the victim. We hated getting out of the car when we reached our destination because we needed to know how the story ended. I didn't get it as a "lesson" to my kids--I didn't even really know what it was about. But it turned out to be a great lesson and entertaining at the same time.
Fantastic Story June 15, 2007
Hole in my Life by John Gantos was one of the most compelling reads that I have found in a very long time. Rather then writing just a memoir, his use of musing, self-discovery, and character building create a story that reads as a dripping dramatic novel.br /Gantos uses musing in a very smooth manner throughout this novel. His first chapter, and the openings of many other chapters consist of him reflecting on the event past by grabbing the readers attention and foreshadowing towards an unknown future. He also uses musing to bring humor into such terrible situations. For example, when talking about the arrest that brought him to prison, he references about how prisoners have some funny stories about their experiences of "getting caught." By using past and present tense fluently throughout the novel, Gantos transitions through this time in his life in a very well-written re-creation.br /The main point that Gantos is trying to make is that throughout these events he went through, he changed from wanting something from his life to taking charge and pursuing his goals. One statement that he commonly uses is that he "needs to stop thinking about being a writer and just be one." It takes him being secluded in jail to realize that the possibilities for him to create a life out of his ambitions are endless. br /Rather than using many characters to help describe his personality, Gantos specifically centers on his own thoughts, feelings, and emotions to give the reader an image. The connection the reader feels towards Gantos throughout the novel is based on his descriptions of how places, people, events, and objects have changed him for better or worse. He builds a strong structure of description that changes the feeling of the book from a memoir to a fantastic, story-driven rollercoaster. I couldn't help but feel his sense of anguish as he was thrown into a spiral of tumultuous events. br /
My Life Reicarnated May 19, 2007
"You don't just end up homeless, hung-over, sleeping in your car with all your worldly possessions because you have control of your life." That is one of my favorite quotes from this book, and there are many more, too. Hole in My Life was one of the best books I've ever read alongside Go Ask Alice. One reason is that it is a biography (the author wrote about himself), and another reason is because it connected to my life a whole lot more than I expected it to.br /Jack Gantos was an ordinary aspiring writer just trying to get into a nice college. Then one of his friends offered him ten thousand dollars to help crew a boat loaded with smuggled drugs to New York. He has an adventure that looks good for his future, but eventually takes a turn for the worse.br /I really liked this book, mostly because of the description the author used and much of the word choices. For example, "...with the needle in my arm and the blood blooming into the syringe..." or when he's explaining his drunken stupors he uses the phrase "power barfed." I love this category of writing and I'm pretty sure I always will and I encourage many of you to read it because you will probably learn many life lessons. Even if you do think you'll never get caught. I used to think that, too.br /By: Jaime Erlenbaughbr /Chippewa Falls, Wisconsinbr /br /
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