Hole In My Life was a book I really enjoyed because it was well-written and the author left you with some questions to think about after we read it. During our discussion, we talked about these questions and partly answered them. Some questions we had were:
How did Jack Gantos bounce back after these events?
Did he have any withdrawal issues, does he still do drugs?
Where does he live now, does he still want to be a doctor?
What would have happened to Jack if he didn’t work at the prison hospital and lived the normal jail life?
These questions were really good questions for Jack to ask us because knowing this was a true story, we know there are answers and while we probably won’t learn these answers, they are still real life questions that aren’t based on a made up character as some of the other books we have read. What I contributed most during our discussion was the questions and just providing my insight and what I thought about the book to keep the conversation going. I thought about many things in new ways during this discussion. One thing was that since the book is true, I want to know about the characters in the story. What happened to them? I didn’t really think of this before because I had just learned that this story was true.
I really enjoyed this book because it was funny but gave a really great insight into prison and how another side of the world functions and how you can easily get caught up in it.