Theories of Relativity Book Review

This book was a pretty fascinating read. It's about a boy who gets kicked out of his home and finds a life on the street, where he dodges thugs and the cops while stealing and begging for change to get by. Winter is on its way and he is hungry and cold.

It's a story of broken families, abuse, and living on the streets as a young teen. Drugs, booze, hookers, shelters, good sameritans, the whole 9 yards. I am not going to ruin anything, but I have to say that this book was wonderful

However, I do have a few criticisms of it. It is very vague. things just happen, and sometimes from one chapter to another you are not entirely sure what happened. It feels like a DVD skipped over some details at times. The ending feels kind of rushed, with a huge scene near the end that involves Einstein that seems a bit out of place.

Aside from that the characters are very stereotypical. Which is probably what the authors were trying to portray, because at the end of the book in the authors notes, they do talk about this motivation for writing the book. The thing is though, some characters, like Twitch, or the father, are overly stereotyped. It just kinda felt as if it dulled the story. Some of the situations seemed a bit rushed and highly stereotyped as well.

But aside from some minor flaws, this story is pretty good. The main protagonist boy is smart, and has a very good heart, and life is just shitting all over him as he tries to learn how to deal with it and succeed.

And this story did portray what it was supposed to portray. There are many homeless teens who were either kicked out or ran away at a young age to avoid violence and abuse at home. Many of these people turn to drugs to dull the pain, once hooked they fall into stealing, prostitution, and begging to get enough money to even eat. Putting themselves in dangerous situations just to find a decent place to sleep and clean up, usually doing such in libraries and fast food restaurants. They are generally dirty, have no degree, and have no address, and therefore cannot get a job. They can usually get in trouble with street gangs, drug dealers, and pimps.

So for a book trying to bring attention to the issues street kids face, it definitly did its job. It's an excellent book, the storyline is pretty awesome, definitely a page-turner in my opinion. And that is saying something, because it usually takes me MUCH longer to finish a book.