i read an article in Roling stone.. it in first paragraph stated the parents took this kid out of soccer coed... or something of that nature.. mostlikely the parents have all to do more with the death as much as the hospitals who take advantage .
i happend to be a honors student in art school no drugs or alchol and recovering frm bulima when my father intended to keep me from school by trying to tell a doctor iwas ill.despite he was told to leave me alone .. the next fifteen years of my life were draged into hospitals on lies and hysteria. i was subject to for no reason .. ect. and drugs and i had nt even suffered depression i was a higly educated and adjsuted happy person till my father began to do this.. he admitted this to but not to doctors my father was a md so it was easy to get away with this . my fahter was also a food aholic and gamblerand sick.. see a movie called terror in the family it goes into the lies parents tell of children and who realy is the sick person...
my life was destroyed by these places and i saw first hand what goes on and parents who realy need the places not kids who ar exposed to sick families dysfunction who are basicly reacting to an illness.....
they realy need to have the parents admitted along side the kid id they do this ...
i was kept sick for 115 years and negelcted of anything i said that would have saved me . as a reslut my life suffered ill from truama.... i saved my own life when i escaped this cycle of doctors looking for insurance. butthe effects of damge it left on my life eventuly despite i live about four to five years very happy super healty like i was before this happened i will now die from thethings that were done to me inthe years i was [mistreated] by this system.....
parents have all todo with this kids death .. if they were functional parents they would not need a shrink . they mighttry communcation and being honest with them self.. somewhere they failed and it is not just the system...

Christy Scheck did not have to die. The mental health system is getting better but there is so far to go. Especially in the eyes of the public. People with mental illness are not lepers, they just need medicine as a diabetic needs insulin. The general public is so ill-informed. This book is about this young girl who got caught up in the protocol of management and money and greed, and she did not have to die. There is hope and with movies like A Beautiful Mind and Girl, Interrupted and others, like Mike Wallace and Kim Basinger to bring mental health to the forefront of society, it will not hide behind the doors any longer, and will be dealt with in the dignified manner it deserves.

It's amazing and truly sad what greed and money does to people, at the expense of someone else's life and a families happiness.

Smoked, by Leon Bing was a terrific portrayal of some parents and children today. If more people read this book, I can surely tell you that parents would keep a close and comfortable eye on their children. The amount of drugs and sex could have been prevented if only the parents would have been less in to their work and their own lives, and more into the safety of their children. Unfortunately, the parents in SMOKED had to learn the hard way. Not only did 3 girls get killed, but the parents and families of the murderers also suffered. This is what happens when you dont care enough about your children. SO, dont learn the hard way and read this book while you still have the chance to learn with a truly fantastic novel!!!!!!

Leon's story is a great book. I gave it a five star because it tells how colored (black) people were treated in the old days. Leon's family was treated very poorly by white people who didn't appreciate them for who they were nor did they like the color of there skin. Leon's family worked on a lot of farms in order to survive tragedies such as Leon's father being killed. That is an example of what often happened to colored people and their familys. Leon tells you what went on during his days. I would recommend this book to people who love to read about history and I also recommend this book to African American people who like reading and finding out new information about what their ancestors past was like.

I thought this book was awesome. I read it for a novel that i had to read for a school project. Someone recommended it to me. While i was reading, i found myself continously thinking that these kids were in their 20's...but dave and vinnie committed the murders when they were only 15 and 16 years old. Also, the ammount of drugs and alcohol used by the teens blew my mind. I am only 18 years old, and when i was in the 8th grade, i was not even thinking about using those kind of drugs. (speed, cocaine, shrooms, acid) It just blew me away! Also that the book was a true story made the book even more scary, because these were just normal teenagers that were given WAY too much freedom. How could Kathy's parents NOT know that there were 2 boys living in her guesthouse? my parents would FLIP! All together, i was very pleased with this book, and have learned alot from it.

Although it is definitely refreshing that the author allows the gang members to speak for themselves in this book, she has not really done her job as journalist and author. I would like to have seen her spend more time examining the SOCIAL FORCES that created the gangs, putting them into some kid of overall context. Why Southern California? Why South-Central? Why now at this time in the country's history? many important questions are not even raised, much less explored.

Bing provided an interesting description of gangs and the juveniles that becomse involved in this lifestyle. Rules are noted and some of its budding offenders are followed to the facilities where they jump through the hoops. This book was well written and an informative quick read. Bing inspired me to read more books about the topic, which I have, and am still doing now. The only solution we have, besides social bandades, is to remove the viscious from society. After a period of time, rehabilitation and the ability to get up in the morning to get a job, becomes highly unlikely. A very good book.

This book is real, in your face, account of LA's street gangs. It is amazing that the author gained the trust of the people she interviewed. This book adds no "fluff" or drama. It is a real-life account what our young people face in the street everyday. This book is a MUST for those wanting to learn about gang members, their lives and our youth who are incarcarated. Whether you are a professional or student wiritng a paper, read this book.

This book touches more on interviews of young gang members, but with very vague story line's. She never tells what gang or exact set each person she interveiws is from, just affiliation, Blood or Crip. I don't know why this is important but after reading Monster: autobiography of an LA gang member it gives it a more in depth perception of the person. Also she never really gets into the politics of gang bangin, such as the fractions in crips or the difference between a neighborhood crip and a gangster crip. In the book there is a part where she is interviewing two crips from different sets and one of them is intimidating the other and constantly correcting the other, she thinks it's because one of them is older, but if it were known what set (gang) each of them is from it could be their sets could be at war with one another. For a better in depth look on gang bangin read Monster by Sanyika Shakur.