This book Monster: the Autobiography of an LA Gang Member by Sanyika Shakur aka Kody Scott describes all the events that Kody went through since the day he joined a gang until he decides to leave the gang, and his life after the gang. He joined the Eight Tray Crips when he was just eleven years old. He is initiated into the gang after graduating from sixth grade and describes his initiation as an even greater right of passage into society than his own graduation. The reasons Kody suggests he joined a gang have a lot to do with the whole concept of belonging. He makes it seem like his home life wasn't very good and that he felt like he had no power at school because he mentions being bullied as a child. Being involved with a gang gave him more family than he had at home, and made him feel powerful because if he couldn't protect himself, his "home boys" definitely would. For his initiation he was beaten by the other gang members and then, not long after Kody joined the gang, he got the name Monster. One night, while robbing someone, the person fought back and ended up beating him so badly that the police told the media that whoever did this was a monster, and the name seemed to stick. Monster ends up earning the gang's respect very quickly and soon becomes a very important member of the Eight Tray Crips. During all this time he kills many people and seems to be very ruthless. This reputation ends up putting him on the enemy gang's list of people who need to be taken down. One night Kody was ambushed by three men who shot him six times, but he survived. Then, not long after he was released from the hospital, he was shot again. Survives all of this... middle of paper... labeled by society ultimately lives up to the label. Many of the men in this book were automatically labeled as criminals because of where they lived and the color of their skin, which I believe can greatly affect a person's life. Something Kody did that not many other people do was find a way to stop letting his label define himself. By leaving the gang and finding a job to support his family, he began to live a life that was no longer that of a criminal, he found a way to not be just another statistic. While he managed to stop living up to his label, many of his friends and gangmates did not, leading them to choose to stick with the life of crime. Furthermore, even though he changed his name and left the gang, he still carried the label only because society generalized people like him, but he no longer did things to live up to.