I Beat the Odds Book Review

Michael Oher, is a young black kid who is growing up in the ghetto of Memphis,Tennessee. He is growing up facing many challenges. He does not have a supportive mother who can help him and teach him the right things to do in life, he does not attend school because he thought it was useless, and he is always getting into trouble and stealing things to get food and clothing. He goes to different foster homes most of the time, and is always trying to escape because he thinks it does not feel right. Out of all the struggles that he is dealing with on a daily basis, the one thing he has a passion for was sports, and has a dream to make a living off of them. A man who ran a local basketball team had a feeling that Michael might be a good basketball player, because of his height and size for his age, so he gives him a chance on the team. The coach is letting Michael stay with his family for a while, and wanted to try to get Michael and his son into Briarcrest Christian School. With many challenges ahead of him because of the fact that he never attended school when he was younger and now he wants to get into a private school, he has to pick up his game both in the classroom and on the field if he wants to make his dream a reality of going to college and eventually the NFL.

If there had to be one theme or something that Oher wanted me to take out of this book, it would be to never give up and always keep trying no matter what gets in your way. I say this because Michael grew up with nothing given to him, but also many challenges that he had to face to get what he wanted. I learned from this book what life was like to live in the ghetto and what he had to go through to be successful, and that was a total different multicultural perspective than what I grew up with. I had more given to me than he did, and he had to work a lot harder to be successful and even to survive.  He had to work for what he wanted and even though some things did not go as planned, he had to fight through the adversity and never gave up. You cannot just sit back and wait for things to come to you because they will not. You have to go out and get them but also be able to fight through the bad things along the way.

Out of all the books that I have read in my life, this book was by far the best book that I have read. I loved it. The fact that I got to see into a totally different “culture” that was located in the same country that I live in was unreal. I would highly recommend it to a reader who likes learning about different perspective of life. I myself am not a very avid reader, but trust me, if I liked this book, you will too. I usually never like to read, but I finished this book the fastest I have ever finished a book because it was such a great read.