Luis Rodriguez's Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.: A Review by Natalie!

The story Always Running is about Luis J. Rodriguez. It centers on his years in high school to his years after high school. Luis grows up in Las Lomas which is a sketchier town in Los Angeles. In the memoir, he deals with drugs, sex, violence, gangs, and jail. For most of the time in his high school years he gets distracted with those subjects. Then, one day at his new school he and this girl run to be the girl and boy Aztecs people as the mascot of their school. They win the election. There they both implement a Chicano Studies program. The program become a huge success, and he and the girl become known very well by the whole school but especially by the Chicano students. That program helped many other students but especially Luis. He became off drugs and started almost a new life. In that same year, later one of his teachers tells him about a poetry tournament being held in Berkeley and that she has some of his writing that she was really impressed with it. She enters his writing and a few days later he gets a call that he was one of the winners and he would get $250 and a trip to Berkeley. Luis was really excited and that was a strong turning point in his life. One thing I like about this book was how the author really describes how he feels in moments when he is scared. You might like this book if you enjoy non-fiction stories about the tough lives of some when growing up.