8 Ball Chicks
By:
Gini Sikes
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Lowest New Price: $8.00
List Price: $15.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Description:
Dismissed by the police as mere adjuncts to or gofers for male gangs, girl gang members are in fact often as emotionally closed off and dangerous as their male counterparts. Carrying razor blades in their mouths and guns in their jackets for defense, they initiate drive-by shootings, carry out car jackings, stomp outsiders who stumble onto or dare to enter the neighborhood, viciously retaliate against other gangs and ferociously guard their home turf.
But Sikes also captures the differences that distinguish girl gangs-abortion, teen pregnancy and teen motherhood, endless beatings and the humiliation of being forced to have sex with a lineup of male gangbangers during initiation, haphazardly raising kids in a household of drugs and guns with a part-time boyfriend off gangbanging himself. Veteran journalist Gini Sikes spends a year in the ghettos following the lives of several key gang members in South Central Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Milwaukee. In 8 Ball Chicks, we discover the fear and desperate desire for respect and status that drive girls into gangs in the first place--and the dreams and ambitions that occasionally help them to escape the catch-22 of their existence.
Description:
"TJ had never killed anyone before, but then who knew for sure? Sticking a pump shotgun out of a moving car and blasting into a crowd--you could never really tell which bodies fell because of you, whose life you were accountable for..." The cover may be gaudy, but this account of girl gangbangers is down-to-earth and refreshingly free of melodrama. In order to write 8 Ball Chicks journalist Gini Sikes spent a year hanging out with girl gangs in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and San Antonio. As Salon writes, "Sikes's analysis is sparse and not particularly illuminating ('Without an effective national policy for youth, kids fell through the cracks in droves'), but she's got a good ear and the sense to step back and let her subjects seize the microphone most of the time."
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: 1998-01-20
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Excellent peek inside female gangs - I loved reading this book! I felt it was very detailed and informative on expressing the activities and mentalities of females who are involved in the gang lifestyle. I highly recommend this book!!
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
LIFE BEYOND THE WHITE PICKET FENCE!! - eight ball chicks, was a great book. it tells you how it really is out there. in the places where there is no other choice, where you don't have time to be a kid, and where there's nothing but bad around you. gini sikes does what she set out to do. to study, learn, and let the world know about these girls and what they're all about in these gangs. although there was much more that could have been said, and many more gangs to see it was nicely written no doubt. these were just a few of the girls, but there are many more, with different stories, all leading them down the same path. it's showing you, where these women come from, why they do what they do. in most cases there's no other way. if they could all have that nice house, with both parents, and a nice safe community, i'm sure they would take it, but when all you have is a barrio full of drugs, and guns, with nobody who gives a damn, there really isn't much hope. you got to be strong, emotionally to survive these places. no doubt there's some who do it for the thrill and what not, but they all end up the same. another banger behind bars or shot down somewhere. all my respect to this book and to those people who really have no choice. there's a whole lot more trouble out there that some turn a blind eye to and wish not to see, but this book is an "in your face" kind of book and i love it for that.
Customer Review: 1 out of 5
Save your money - There is nothing insightful in this book.Gini Sikes basically tells the stories of a few women who made bad choices and then blamed everyone but themselves for the outcomes of those choices.The book bogs down only a quarter of the way through it and never recovers.It is monotonous and tough to get to the end.I would probably rather listen to a scratched Wham CD or eat a huge bowl of brussel sprouts than have to read this again.Save your money.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
I hate to say it's a FUN read, but it really is. - I agree with Amazon's review of 8 Ball Chicks. I don't think Gini Sikes had anything particularly insightful to say, but I give it the max rating because these women's stories are CRAZY (i.e. really entertaining to read, especially for people who love to read about how messed up the world is). Whoever you are, this book is worth reading.
Customer Review: 3 out of 5
Girl gangbangers - When I first heard of the book I heard it on TV and said to myself that the title meant the name of a girl gang and the whole book would be about that gang. I was wrong and do wonder why it has this title if it has nothing to do with "8ball Chicks".
Gini is very insightful on the research she made on these different race gang ladies and their gang life. I like the book but think she needed to include more on the gang culture of women out here and there.
All these writers write about gangs in California, Texas, Illinois. Yet, there are few compared to these states but there are more of us gangbangers out here in the other states. Such as the east coast; Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland. Some writers are careful in not stereotyping their novels but I personally dont judge them because most of them time it is about stereotypical stories.
I wish I can write my own books and let people know what more there is out there. The behind the scenes of behind the scenes of what people already know. The ganglife of us women, culture, pride, heritage, family, and mi vida loka.
Good book anyways.
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