L4: The Death of Jayson Porter

This week’s book consists of a very touching topic that everyone has at some point voiced their opinion on, child abuse. Jamie Adoff’s story The Death of Jayson Porter is about a city boy, living in the so called “ghetto.” He tries making everything better off for himself, by working weekends cleaning RVs and going to a nice school outside the slum side of the city. He doesn’t try to be a bad kid, but his mom’s alcoholism doesn’t see that. Night after night, she comes home drunk. What better of a target than a sixteen year old to take out any of her pain and anger? His only way of venting was to his best friend, who didn’t always have the time to listen because of his stripper girlfriend and their son. But then suddenly, his friend was gone; dead. Jayson was now stuck with his alcoholic and abusive mother and his crack head father. With no one to turn to, what are the options? He chooses the balcony and the concrete underneath it as his option. The process was a lot slower than he thought, but he was in the hospital bed much quicker than he thought. After all the pain he went through prior to the accident, you’d think his mom would be there right next to her son. Finally, it’s time for him to leave the hospital and guess who shows up? None other than Jayson’s mom! Of course, drama and trouble follows close behind. You’d think that him being physically impaired would leave his mom giving some support to him, not just being back to her usual self. At this point and time, Jayson’s life ironically starts to fall right into place. The unfortunate events that are constantly occurring in Jayson’s life are all pulled together in the end for a shocking and happy ending.