Sleepers (Book 1996)

Sleepers is an overwhelmingly powerful true story. Some would ask if "Sleepers" is considered horror, and to me you're damn right it is. Some of you may have never heard of this book or movie but it is a horrific tale. It's also a beautiful drama and a story about the power of friendship and the power of revenge. 

This is a book that has had critical appraise as "Undeniably powerful, an enormously affecting and intensely human story" and "A GUT WRENCHING PIECE OF WORK... Carcaterra's graphic narrative grips like gunfire in a dark alley."  

This is the story of four friends who grow up to fast. After joining a local gangster King Benny, they begin running mob errands, like running packages and dropping off  and picking up money. This soon leads to them acting out in more confident ways and gets them into trouble. They decide to hijack a hot dog vendor's cart and push it down some steps. And in doing so they severely injured a man and got time in a juvenile detention center.

The four friends find themselves rats in a trap when they arrive at the correction center. The guards are ruthless perverts and pedophiles. They're also even meaner bullies. Constantly running these boys down every opportunity that arises. They beat these boys up on a regular basis as well as take out their perverted desires on the defenseless kids.  

They degrade and humiliate these boys. They break these boys. All they have is the hope that one day they'll be able to exact some sort of revenge. They're lives were forever changed when they entered that hell they call a correction center.

One day years later two gangsters who used to be two of the kids in the correction center see the head guard/tormentor, Nokes. And they shoot him several times.

The rest of the story is the re-bonding of friendship after years of moving on and finding the strength to do what is necessary, to get their revenge and make all those who tortured them get what they have coming.

This book is gripping, and touching, it's scary because it's horrific what these kids have to go through.

Before I read the book I saw the movie and thought it was a true masterpiece. Shorty after I found the movie at a Farmer's Market very cheap. And so I watched it again shorty after buying it. Then I decided it was time to read the book. The movie was so well done that when I read the book I saw their faces and saw what was happening in the book in the movie. Jason Patrick, Brad Pitt and Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman all star in this movie and their acting sold me on the movie and giving the book a chance.

Overall I thought the book was very authentic and depicted old New York very well and that lets you know that this story is true. We see how the men treated women back then and how people acted in general. It's a remarkable tale. It's unsettling and it's tragic.

THIS BOOK GETS 3 REAPERS OUT OF 4