I liked "A Life Without Consequences" for its ties to Chi-Town and friends of friends, but the book came up short for me in the plot. I just felt the subject of shunned, struggling teens is a tad typical. "Happy Baby" is his superior work.

he is a good writer...

I never see this anywhere, and it starts at like a dollar on abebooks- I guess because it's early stuff and he doesn't really write about kink? And mostly I, too, am interested in Mr Elliot's stuff about kink- there's one paragraph from Happy Baby that just fuckin haunts me- but I liked this one a lot. It's a funny book, and not the sort of thing that I usually get super sucked into, because it's all about atmosphere, wet blankets and thick snow in Chicago winter, two kids hiding from those elem...

semi-autobiographical novel by stephen elliot... another super smart kid with shitty parents learning to start life from the bottom up and making it through chicago institutions to become a more interesting individual. it's scary, sweet, thoughtful, with such well written observations and i read the whole thing in one night.

Mindblowing story about teenage homelessness by someone who knows first hand. Semi-autobiographical.

What I like best about Elliott's book is the narrator's first person pov. The character narrates without irony about the specifics of his world. The voice seems in perfect pitch. I didn't know for sure that I wasn't reading a memoir until very close to the end.The story is rough going, but the narrator, his distinctiveness, will stay with me.There are few writers now as good as Elliott. No matter how ugly the stories he has to tell, I'm hooked, for now at least. Now I need to figure out which bo...

Very interesting. The story is great and it was pretty well written. It's more of a page-turner than most memoir type books. It is definately worth reading.Good Read.

Non so se sia veramente autobiografico e se l'autobiografia sia solo uno spunto, però notevole. Crudo ma permeato di pragmatico romanticismo. Elliott passa da un'esperienza disgraziata all'altra, compreso un manicomio. Ma evidentemente - come scrive lui - c'è una quota che ce la fa, e lui fa parte di quella quota. Più sveglio? Più dotato? Chissà, non si piange mai addosso, nonostante ne abbia i motivi!, forse è ancora troppo giovane e la vita dopo l'inizio brutale non l'ha ancora risbattuto a te...

Elliot is a great writer. I'm generally not a fan of memoirs of a troubled childhood, but boy if I didn't read two of his books in a row.He has some great moments of language in here, and doesn't try to wallow in the harshness of what he experienced. For me this makes the experience of reading far more real, more like talking to a friend you fell out of touch with than meeting some weirdo at a bar that wants to prove how square you are.He's more than willing to admit that he's had it easier than...

A LIFE WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES by Stephen Elliott (PB) $12.50 A deeply moving story of hard truth.. of hard life. Chicago is known for its cold, merciless winters and for Paul, it last almost a lifetime. A runaway "street rat," he is shoved from mental hospital to housing project to group homes - always fighting to hide the hole of emptiness he suffers. With more biography than fiction, his ugly duckling metamorphosis is not without some lost feathers. Yet somehow, he emerges from this snake pit to...

There is a thing that Stephen Elliott does better than anybody else, and he does it seemingly effortlessly. He writes in this sparse, almost simplistic style - but then the words just tumble through your skull, snowballing and adding more and more meaning until your drowning in the story, just as his desolate characters are always drowning. Elliott is just a remarkable person who has led a remarkable life, and then has the talent and guts to present his story in an outstandingly relatable and be...

A Life Without Consequences tells the story of Paul, a young man who is moved a lot around by the system because of his lack of a family and history of behavioral problems. The amount of sex, drugs, profanity and violence is great throughout the the book, but those attributes are not exploited. If we use these types of characteristics in our writing, we have to make sure we don't use too much. And if we happen to use a lot, it has to be relevant to the tale and help it progress.

Of interest mainly to those who have enjoyed Elliott's later works, such as Happy Baby and the Adderall Diaries. This is his first novel, and while you can see some elements of the style Elliott later honed to become one of the best writers working today, its not quite there yet here. There are some good sentences, some good paragraphs, and some poignant moments, but the good parts aren't sustained throughout. Definitely read his later work first, then consider checking this one out.

This book was okay. Not what I thought it was going to be and it was not very informative - more of a partial biography.

This is the first book of my #DontJudgeABookByItsCoverChallenge although it is an older purchase. I was in a book binge mood a few months ago and selected this one from Better World Books based only on the title and short description. When it came, I scoffed a bit at the cover and stuck it on my shelf, no longer interested.I decided to give it a chance after all and, well, it could have been left on the shelf. It wasn't terrible, but it also didn't make me repent my judgmental ways.The story is

It wasn't necessarily a book I had wanted to read; I was looking for something else that was not on the shelves (and supposed to be - thanks, CPL), and this one caught my eye. To be sure, a grim story and I certainly recognize that most of the people he describes in the book do not end as well-off as he did. Elliott's writing style eventually hooked me, I appreciate his short, tight sentences, it almost starts to feel like a cadence. Fun to read about local Chicago locations, many of which are p...

Elliott quickly became one of my favorite writers of the year, mostly because he writes almost exlusively about Chicago (discounting the sexual memoir). His personal history with the city--in and out of group homes, street kid--provides a ridiculous amount of material, which he wields well. After a couple of his books, he does tend to repeat himself (sometimes, entire passages are re-used), but he provides insight into an underbelly that I haven't seen or smelled. Why aren't there more Chicago w...

Whoah! Great read! And all the crazier for being 110% true. Stephen Elliott is super good and you should read Happy Baby too.

Semi-autobiographical story about a guy caught in the juvenile justice system. He is a druggie and has the tendency towards violence. Not exactly uplifting but interesting none the less.