This was as good at the first one. I love the way he writes! ( )

This book has been the most “lost/stolen” book in my high school library. When another copy “took a walk” this year, I decided to check out the remaining copy to see for myself why it’s been so hard to keep on the shelves. “Once a King” is actually the sequel to Sanchez’s first book “My Bloody Life,” however, I had to read this one first since my library didn’t have any more copies of “My Bloody Life” left for me to borrow as they had also “taken a walk.”

Read the rest of my review on my blog: http://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/once-a-king-always-a-king-the... ( )

Not nearly as good or as engaging as My Bloody Life, Once a King, Always a King, tells the story of Reymundo Sanchez after he is "violated out" of the Latin Kings.

The first part of the book comes across as nothing more than Sanchez's braggadocio vis a vis how many women he can screw, often in more-erotic-than necessary-detail. It's hard to feel like he regrets it when he describes it with such relish.

The book picks up when Rey lands in prison on drug charges, giving sparse but interesting information about what jail life is for gang members. Not to mention demonstrating how prison is a breeding ground for gangs.

However, the book soon hits a lull in again in describing Sanchez's relationship with a college graduate in excruciating detail. His attempt to build a new life with her is interesting, to be sure, but their overall relationship? Not so much. Nor are his endless struggles to come to terms with his feelings for his mother.

While the language and sentence structure in this book is just as juvenile as it is in the first book, for some reason it grates more here. Perhaps it's because the concepts being described in My Bloody Life matched the linguistic skills, while Sanchez is struggling for higher expression here.

Not a waste of time if you read and enjoyed the first book -- after all, you are probably as curious as I was to see how it all turns out -- but not a stellar read. ( )

This was a part two to the 'My Bloody Life".It was a good book.I really like the gang stuff.

this book is about the author and his life and about him being in the gang and what he did. ( )