WILLOW IN A STORM- JAMES PETER TAYLOR & KATHLEEN MURPHY-TAYLOR

well, I have had this book sitting on my shelf for a few months before I finally got around to reading it. I was actually kind of dreading it, thinking it was going to drag on and talk about pointless details of a man's life in prison. I also thought that maybe it would just be too damn depressing. Neither of these things happened. Yes, the book was long, and full of detail, but I would not have gotten rid of any of it; I feel it was all neccissary for the book to be as powerful as it was. Although the book was depressing, I also think that it was just as inspirational, so it had a good balance. Below is my review that I did for www.frontstreetreviews.com. This memoir is amazing and it would benefit everyone to read it. I would not recommend it to teens, only because some of the subject matter can be traumatic to read.


This was an extremely powerful memoir. If ever there was a book that successfully exuded raw, human emotion, this is the book. James Peter Taylor endured years of torment, abuse, frustration, depression, unfairness, and punishment. What is amazing is that this man lived through all of this to tell his story.
James Peter Taylor grew up in a household that was not all that healthy. His father abused him in many forms. He did have a lot of positive, influential family members, but they seemed to pass on when he was just a boy. James got hooked up with some bad people, had some head injuries, and before he knew it he was in jail. James spends a little while in jail for crimes that aren’t too major, then when he gets out, he commits his biggest crime; in the midst of trying to rob a bank he kills someone. This is the setting for what becomes his 40+ years in the prison system.
What shocked me the most, and tugged on my heart strings the hardest was the fact that our fellow human beings can treat a man so poorly. Yes, James Peter Taylor murdered a man in cold blood. Yes, he deserved some form of punishment. His entire stay in the prison system was not simply to pay for his crime of murdering a man; a big portion of his stay was due to people in a seat of power, who held a grudge, lied, falsified documents, and just didn’t care about this man’s life. I cannot think of a time when I have felt so much disgust for my fellow human beings. James Peter Taylor paid for his crimes, but who is going to pay for the crimes that were committed against him?
Another issue in this story that totally shocked me was the fact that this poor man was raped more times than I can count. He said that in order to stay safe in prison he had to act feminine so that a male lover would claim him as his own and offer him protection from the other inmates. How sad that it is a well known fact that things like this go on in the prison system, and yet we do nothing about it. If a man or woman is raped out in the community, we as human beings balk at the notion of someone committing such a horrendous crime and we do all we can to make sure the rapist is punished; yet when this happens in prison, we turn a blind eye. It is disgusting.
I think that this story was meant to shock and awe its readers. I think that it was also meant to show the world that there are people out there that maybe do things they regret, but that they can come out of their experience a better, and changed person. It is a beautiful and uplifting story to know that this man has found happiness after having so much of his life spent behind bars. I would recommend this story to anyone; especially those who work in the prison system, or have a seat of power that have maybe turned a blind eye on some injustices that are being done to people. Shame on them. I hope this book opens their eyes and makes them realize that it’s time to take action.

LOOSE GIRL- KERRY COHEN

This is a must have!!

All of us women have a special power that men do not have. We have the ability to seduce and get what we need by using our body parts. Using that, plus our sometimes manipulative talking, allows us to be a very powerful being. Unfortunately by doing this, we are not only disrespecting the person we have turned our attention on, but also we are disrespecting ourselves. Kerry Cohen does just that. In her memoir, Loose Girl, she shows us just what women and young girls are capable of and how our society can take advantage of that.

At the age of eleven, Kerry realizes this power she has when an older man gives her a suggestive smile while he is checking out her young, maturing body. This power she had was lying dormant until this point in time. She got an adrenaline rush, and decided that she really liked how it made her feel. From then on out she started to seek out men, using her body to get their attention. She hung out at clubs, went into the city, went to boys’ homes that she didn’t even know, and hung out with the wrong crowd to accomplish this. She starts to sleep with a lot of these boys and men and eventually even loses count of how many she has slept with. Some people in her life start to lose respect for her and I think at one point she even starts to lose respect for herself.

Kerry realizes along that way that what she really wants is to feel loved. Her parents are split
up, and are not very good role models to boot. She and her sister have grown distant as well. Kerry saw her mother act sexually inappropriate with her sister, and her father tried to climb into bed with her one day. The boundaries of what are sexually appropriate and what is not has been blurred for this young girl. With that image being skewed and her hunger to feel powerful, Kerry gets herself into a routine that is very damaging to her. She has to deal with heartbreak after heartbreak, gets used, contracts STDs, etc. She eventually realizes that she is doing something wrong and that if she keeps acting the way she is acting she will never find true love. Kerry goes to great lengths to get some help for herself.

This memoir does not leave anything out and Kerry Cohen allows you to feel her greatest triumphs and her greatest failures. I was very impressed with this book and how honest Kerry Cohen was able to be with her audience. Her writing was smooth and easy to follow and she gave us just enough detail to really pack a punch. I think this is an excellent book for all young teens to read. The more we can educate these girls the better. All of the events that take place in this book are all things that could easily happen to any one of us. If you have young children and want to try everything you can to help them succeed in a very tough society, where they get lots of attention for all of the wrong reasons, then this is a book you should make sure they own.

Check out more of my reviews at www.frontstreetreviews.com!!