Contender, The by Lipsyte, Robert Reviewed by Peter , age 13 THe COntender By Robert Lipsyte The Contender is a very interesting story about a kid named Alfred and his best friend James who they say they will be friends forever. It starts off with it describing Alfred’s life and his family. Alfred is in this so call “gang” and James is in it too and the leader Major tries to bring both of them down. When he tries to bring James down he succeeds and makes him become a druggy but when he tries to bring Alfred down he fails. After bringing James down he and Alfred slip up and their friendship starts going down the drain. Well when Major tries to bring Alfred down he tries to make him rob this store but he refuses so Major and his crew go and beat him up. After Major and his crew beat Alfred up he comes across this boxing place and starts his boxing career. He begins to fight in match and won the first two and got a draw on the third. Then his trainer told him he should quit after his last and in the last match he loses very badly and gets beat up very bad. Then when comes home finds his friend James is hurt so then he goes to find him and does and then brings him to rescue. Afterwards they become friends again and will stay together forever. The main characters in this story are Alfred Brooks which is a teenager that is trying to becoming a boxer. Another main character is James who is Alfred’s best friend that becomes a druggy. Some good things that Alfred did were that he started training for boxing and won his first two matches. He didn’t let Major bring him down in the beginning and make him become a druggy. The bad thing he did was smoked marijuana and broke training for boxing. The conflict in the story was when Alfred starts training for boxing and actually starts fighting in real matches and starts winning. A good quote that Alfred says is “Don’ worry about that, James; I got plenty of blood for you”. He says that when James just robbed a store and got cut and told Alfred he just lost a lot of blood. But Alfred said that, that didn’t matter a t the moment. What that means to me is that even though he’s hurt if Alfred is there and their friendship is there then nothing should hurt. I thought that the book was very intrusting and sad in other parts. Like how he becomes a boxer that was pretty interesting and his life was sad. The book will interest anyone that likes stories about someone’s life that has some action in it then they will love this book. Other reviews of this book were also done by: Rusty, age 14 Ariel , age 14 Tess, age 14 Alisha, age 14 Peter , age 13 Jamiel, age 14 Halleigh, age 13 Jeanette, age 13 Alex, age 13 Jeanette, age 13 zack, age 14 Karla , age 14 Diana , age 14 Jeanette, age 13 Junior , age 15 Vanessa, age 15 Zack, age 14 amber, age 14 Perla, age 13 Caitlyn, age 13 Jesus, age 14 Joey, age 14 Jennifer, age 14 Joey, age 14 Jesus, age 14 chris, age 14 Priscilla, age 13 Cristal, age 14 Hector, age 13 Shy, age 13 Andy, age 13 Beatriz, age 14 Tyler, age 14 Cameron, age 14 rodrick, age 14 jacquez, age 14 Anaise, age 14 Ashley, age 13 Delvon, age 14 randy, age 15 Armando, age 13 Angel, age 14 zack, age 15 cristian, age 13 ivy, age 13 Ivan, age 14 TOMAS, age 13 Gaby, age 14 Laura, age 13 luis, age 14 Jonathan , age 13 Hannah, age 14 Lucero, age 14 Haley , age 13 tabitha , age 14 Briana, age 14 christopher, age 14 Bobbie, age 14 oscar , age 59 jose, age 14 Daniel , age 14 Gabriel, age 14 juan, age 14 Carolina, age 14 Chris, age 14 Heather, age 14 jake, age 14 Brea, age 13 Dustin, age 13 Jessica, age 13 mary, age 14 Dustin, age 0 Jessica, age 0 Edwin, age 0 Christian, age 0 Samuel, age 0 Curtis, age 0 Elizabeth, age 0 Christian, age 14 Ashleigh, age 14 curtis, age 15 Elizabeth, age 14 Efrain, age 14 Carlos , age 14 Samuel, age 14 Kaley, age 13 Whitney, age 15 Kaley, age 14

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