A review by overhillunderhill
Caged Warrior by Alan Sitomer

1.0

Emotionally manipulative.

It was a lifetime movie version of the shady areas of America. It was every movie about a kid from the wrong side of the tracks making it out. The ending was obvious and just dark enough to bump it up from a G to a PG rating. If this was a slightly longer book I wouldn't have been willing to get through it. Luckily it was only about 2 total hours of reading. Generally, it is a book about a world in which the author obviously does not live.

Also, there is one very big moment in this story, it's not really spoiling anything so I'm just going to describe it. The father creepily hits on a waitress. The next day MD gets hit on by a high school girl. He mentions now he knows how that girl feels, just like a piece of meat. I almost threw the book across the room. That girl almost got beat up by the douche father and has legitimate fears of the dad or a man like him raping her for being a polite waitress and "leading him on" where MD would NEVER have to worry about that from the random high school girls who think he's hot. Yes, he is dealing with emotional abuse at the hands of his father and manipulation of every aspect of his life, but that is one thing he will never have to worry about.