Review Detail

KINDNESS FOR WEAKNESS is meant to teach the meaning of manhood and what has to be done to acquire it, and it started out pretty well. The main character, James, is wandering around, contemplating his messed up family, life and such. It was intriguing, but then he gets sent to a juvenile delinquent center, and it all kind of stalls (this happens in the first few chapters or so, so I don’t feel too bad about telling you chaps that). The main problem is that in juvie nothing can really happen, except being beat up or having deep personal epiphanies, at least not as far as the books tell it. This can turn out well sometimes, but not so much in this case. For one thing, James didn’t really do anything terrible, and for the most part is a good kid, but at the same time how he manages to get himself in this situation is so dim-witted that you can’t feel sorry for him.
That said, it did pick up in the middle, stuff managed to happen. The book collected a bit of intrigue. And the characters evolve.
It felt as though the story was trying too hard to be inspiring, and turned out a little fake. All of the events in the place seemed to center around James; it makes you wonder what they ever did without him. There was also quite the excess of cussing, especially of the brightly coloured variety, and after all do teenage guys really talk like that? Maybe, but do we need to hear about it that often? Nope.
KINDNESS FOR WEAKNESS is one of those books that sort of depresses you without being meaningful. It tries far too hard to have a message about life, and ends up coming out as unbelievable.