Whale talk

The story Whale Talk takes place in a small town in Washington. I believe this stories main purpose is to show the physical and psychological effects abuses has on kids, and show there are evil people in the world, but eventually their evil will catch up with them. No matter how bad things get, a good person will eventually win over an evil person. There is multiple examples of, multiple types of, abuse, not only child abuse, but also domestic abuse in adults and teens alike.
The main character in Whale Talk is The Tao Jones, like the stock exchange. He goes by T.J. for obvious reasons. He is colored and living in a breading grounds for the KKK and skinheads alike, which makes life complicated at best. He’s also a freakish athlete all around, weather its basketball, or swimming, he does it all. This should be prefect being that he goes to Cutter High, a school that thrives on its athletic department, and he could be a great addition to any of their sports teams. He refuses to join any of them though, for a couple reasons, mostly because the thought of being yelled at and not yelling back doesn’t sit well with him. Most of the faculty say T.J. is selfish and has no respect for anything because he is “wasting” all that talent. While T.J. is the main character I don’t feel he is the most important character. That title goes to Chris Coughlin. He is mentally disabled after his mom's boyfriend wrapped his face in saran-wrap to get him to stop crying. His stepbrother, who is now dead, was a legendary athlete at Cutter High. Chris looked up to his brother a lot and his death really effected Chris. He wears his brothers old letter jacket all the time because it reminds Chris of him. This is where Mike Barbour and his band of meathead f...

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...at such a vulnerable age. I went over some of the different types of abuse in the story, but didn’t cover all of them. Its disgusting the things people do to children and thinking about how different that adult that was abused as a child might be if that never happened. The cure for cancer could be trapped in the head of a child abuse victim and it will never come out, because instead of going to medical school like he/she was destined to, they turned to drugs and alcohol to deal with what happened to him.
This was a great book, but took me a lot longer to finish then most, simply because of how upsetting some of the things talked about are. If you’re look for a book that will make you think, and bring tears to you’re eyes, and teach you a thing or two a highly recommend this book, and might actually read it again myself. Hopeful my eyes can stay dry this time.