28. Kindness for Weakness by Shawn Goodman
This is a young adult novel that I would say is squarely aimed at teenage boys. The story follows 15 year old James who has grown up in a broken home idolizing his older brother. When he naively gets involved with his brother’s drug trade he winds up in a juvenile detention facility. Most of the action of the story takes place there where James has to try and learn to navigate between the other juvenile detainees and the less than friendly guards. Though fiction, the story is probably all too true for young boys sucked into a criminal life and who are then caught in a system they are probably destined never to leave. I give it a 6 out of 10.
Around the Year in 100 Books 