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Always Running  By  cover art

Always Running

By: Luis J. Rodriguez
Narrated by: Luis J. Rodriguez
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Publisher's summary

By age 12, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as that culture claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation. Achieving success as an award-winning poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more - until his son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in this vivid memoir. At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-learned lesson for the next generation.

©2005 Luis J. Rodriguez (P)2011 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Critic reviews

"Rodriguez's account of his coming of age is vivid, raw...Here's truth no television set, burning night and day, could ever begin to offer." ( The New York Times Book Review)
"Every spiky anecdote from a life of guns, razors, uppers, downers, glue, heroin, sex, and early death supports this former gang member's view of the violence as collective suicide. That Rodriguez's memoir takes place... before the '92 L.A. riots only makes this beautifully written and politically astute account more compelling." ( Entertainment Weekly)
"Luis J. Rodriguez gives voice to a unique American experience...compelling...[a] fascinating, brutal and ultimately triumphant chronicle." ( The Philadelphia Tribune)

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What listeners say about Always Running

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Book for all educators

This is a book that should be read by all who educate children/teenagers. We need to make sure we are still Honoring our Latino students heritage and are aware of their cultural background and struggles.

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11 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Narration like no other

This is an important book for many reasons. The narration, by the author, is remarkable and brilliant.

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7 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

great book

my son who is in h.s. had to read this for his class, the book look interesting so I purchased the audio version. listen intently & finish in about 2 days, my son was astonished. It's been great discussing the book with him. Love Luis poetic descriptions & the book.

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7 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN

I GREW UP IN EAST LOS IN MONTEBELLO IN PRIMERA FLATTS BARRIO. MY LIFE WAS EXACTLY LIKE THIS. IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE THIS BOOK THEN YOUR A SQUARE AND DO NOT DESERVE TO READ THIS BOOK GO READ 20 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA OR OLD YELLER. Hahaha!

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Such an awesome book

Loved this book! Sad things that still happen today! History repeats itself every few years!

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4 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Horrible self serving myopic

I lasted until the last hour of this horror waiting for luis to show some awareness of how he and his homies, not the police, not teachers etc ere the problem. His pressuring one of the three girls he was having sex with to abort his baby was last straw. This book was hours and hours of self serving narrative about how this guy and his homies basically turned their community into a wasteland and how they not " the man" were what kept them marginalised. And yet the author has the ludicrous comment that it was the police who caused trouble between the gangs. Every ready to take a grant, a scholarship, a handout, these folks nevertheless resent and attack and even, in many cases at random. No acceptance of responsibility, no shame. The reader cannot pronounce the word " ask". Don't waste your tine. This ain't the Mexican " to kill a mockingbird". This is a litany of gratuitous violence sex abortion and drugs. The self righteous intro pretends that people banned this book because they are uptight. Maybe they did so because it is smug hypocrisy where women are merely cyphers and objects. Nope .

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4 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Zzzzzz... Zzzzz...

The first 30 minutes are just the author gloating about his "accomplishments". This book was more about adolescence and less about crime. I'm not saying that no one would enjoy this book, but there's are plenty of interesting stories from the barrios of la and this, to me, wasn't one of them. If you want to listen to a grown man make himself sound like a teenage revolutionary/civil right leader, this book is for you. If you want to read about a Hispanic gang members time on the street, and inside various prisons, buy "The Black Hand" by Rene Enriquez.

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4 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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couldn't get into it

What would have made Always Running better?

This sounded like an amazing story, but when I started listening I just couldn't get into it. The narration is awful, and his constant lauding of his achievements was really off putting to me. The story moves so slow....
I would like to read this book instead of listen to it

Would you ever listen to anything by Luis J. Rodriguez again?

No

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Luis J. Rodriguez?

No

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Too close to home

Great book brought home many memories of the good and the bad still out there

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3 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Decent book. Jumps from one subject to another.

The story can be strong. There's a lot of downtime in the narrative. Not a lot of violence but more focused on the authors youth at school and jumping from a gang to another.

The book does have its moments. Memorable scenes of stabbing, forced into committing assaults, but these are anomolies in a narration mostly focused on everyday mundane details about attending school and the obstacles all Latinos face in schools that don't share the same interest.

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2 people found this helpful