A Place to Stand Blog

The novel A Place to Stand is an autobiography of Jimmy Santiago Baca. The novel recalls his life while growing up and how wrong events throughout his life have gone. He has to survive on his own in this world (starting at a young age), after his family abandons him. Jimmy does not always make the right decisions, but at the time, it is what is given to him. His anger with the world giving up on him upsets him more than anything. With Drugs, drinking and boredom, nothing good can come out of it.

            First off let me say what a good concept of a story this is, to tell about one’s own life so that his children may know the true. He really gives the emotional feel to all of the horrible things that had gone on in his life, and let us understand why he did the things that he did. For anyone willing to read this, I would say prepare yourself for an emotional toll.

            For myself I do not think I would recommend this book to others, just because of the emotional blow that comes along with reading this autobiography. I felt depressed and could not sit for long periods of time reading this. It seems like anything that was good in his life, was taken away his grandparents, his lovers, his job. Nothing seemed to work out for him in the end. His life was just one bad thing after another, and after awhile of reading it I starting to get mad and sad at Jimmy. On one Hand I was sad for him for going through so many horrible things while just a child, but mad at him for still continuing on this acts that were wrong in the first place.

 This novel is written for the ones who want to appreciate life and see how the legal system can really mess someone up, how life can change in a moment and the person who you use to be is so gone from who you are, you cannot go back nor do you want to. This novel is a journey for survival once you have gotten into a life such as this it’s hard to turn around and go back.