Wes Moore (1) (1978–)

Two boys with the same name grow up in the same Baltimore area neighborhood and end up in very different places. Some of the negative reviewers say they found the book 'unrelatable' - but isn't that sort of the point of the book in the first place; to expose different origins and experiences, comment on how those differences led to diverging lives. That said, the fact the boys have the same name ends any real similarity - the successful Wes moves away, is sent to military school, and ends up show more with a solid education. It's not a bad book, but the author equivocates too much about why he succeeded and the other Wes did not. it's actually pretty clear, but the author tries to make more of their similarities then their differences and seems reluctant (guilty) to make the calls.

3 bones!!! show less

Kid's version of an adult memoir. Wes Moore is a Bronx survivor and a challenge to the statistics of poverty and violence. He grew up with a single mother after his father died suddenly when he was 4. Despite their surroundings, Wes' mother was determined to give her kids choices for their future. She works a few jobs to pay for Wes to go to an elite school, but when he begins to squander this opportunity and succumb to 'hood influences, she ships him off to military school in PA. After a show more rocky start that breaks him down, Wes flourishes, goes on to be one of the youngest leaders in the school, graduates from Johns Hopkins, and becomes a Rhodes scholar. Meanwhile he learns from his Mom about another Wes Moore, about the same age, also from the Bronx, who has chosen a completely different path and has just been jailed for murder. The name connection is what gets to Wes, so he strikes up a correspondence with the jailed Wes and learns his story and bears witness to its outcome. A tale of triumph, but also evocative of Gang Leader for A Day, so a little disheartening in that inner city woes have no easy solution. A very interesting correlation -- true, as I did further research! between reading scores around 3rd grade and the likelihood of jail time. Good discussion and eye-opening narration. show less

Two men named Wes Moore grew up in almost the same place at almost the same time under very similar circumstances: poor, Black, raised without a father in a neighborhood ravaged by violence and drugs. Wes Moore, the author, managed to have a highly successful life and is now, more than a decade after this book was published, serving as the governor of Maryland. The other Wes Moore was sentenced to life in prison for his part in a jewelry store robbery in which a policeman was fatally shot. show more Wes Moore, the author, found himself unable to stop thinking about the coincidence and the extent to which it seems like each of them could have so easily had the other's life. And in this book, he tells both of their stories.

It's an interesting and depressing look at what life is like for young men growing up in such circumstances, and, for those privileged enough not to have any idea what it's actually like to experience this kind of life, a useful one. But I can't escape the feeling that there's something a bit unsatisfying about this as a book. Maybe it's just that the author doesn't have any answer to the question of what it is that made the difference in the two men's lives, other than pure, random luck. Which I think is a good answer, and almost certainly the right answer, and I applaud him for resisting the temptation to invent any easier, neater, more self-serving ones. But having come to accept that lack of other answers, what do you do with that? What insights do you take away from it? There aren't a whole lot of those here, either, and while I'll take a shrug and an "I don't know" over a simplistic made-up answer any day, I am still left with a sense of something slightly incomplete. show less

The book has a great beginning and a strong ending. It bogs down a little in the middle as he tries to identify and encapsulate significant incidents of each of their lives.

The last chapter has a reflection which compares how young black men are viewed by their culture - in inner city America versus the townships of South Africa; both cultures plagued by poverty, prejudice and lack of opportunity. That was very striking and thought provoking.