Tears of a Tiger

Overall the book was very good. It relates to a topic that is very real to me and to

my classmates. The one thing that I disliked throughout

the entire book was the way that

these kids talked. You could tell that a teacher wrote this book because she tried to

replicate the speech of her students. However, she fell short in her attempt. The

language that this story used, such as "live game man," and "you be flyin with the hoops

man," are perfect examples of an adult trying to act like she knows how kids talk. I play

varsity basketball just like these kids do and I have never heard anyone on any team say

something like "you fulla mess." For conversation in the book the author should

have asked one of her students how they would say a certain thing.

Once I got past the language I liked everything else. The conflict in the book was

something that I could really relate to and I know my peers could as well. Depression is

a topic that anyone in high school could talk to you about. Whether their friend,

someone they know, of they themselves has suffered from depression, almost everyone in

high school could relate to this subject. I appreciated what this kid was going though a

little more than others that have read it because just two years ago my older brother lost

his best friend in an automoblie accident. Although the crash was not my brother's

fault I knew what Andy was going through because I had seen my brother go through

many of the same things. I know my brother doesn't like to talk about his friend anymore

but this book made me wonder just how much the death of his friend affected my

brother. This book made me just sit down and thank God that my brother didn't take the

same road that Andy took.

I felt that I could relate to the characters in the book as well. These characters

didn't have extremely unusual problems like I have read about in other books. They face

the same