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Hope's Boy: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Andrew Bridge
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 28774
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 1401303226
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.733092
EAN: 9781401303228
ASIN: 1401303226
Publication Date: February 5, 2008
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Product Description
From the moment he was born, Andrew Bridge and his mother Hope shared a love so deep that it felt like nothing else mattered. Trapped in desperate poverty and confronted with unthinkable tragedies, all Andrew ever wanted was to be with his mom. But as her mental health steadily declined, and with no one else left to care for him, authorities arrived and tore Andrew from his screaming mother's arms. In that moment, the life he knew came crashing down around him. He was only seven years old.Hope was institutionalized, and Andrew was placed in what would be his devastating reality for the next eleven years--foster care. After surviving one of our country's most notorious children's facilities, Andrew was thrust into a savagely loveless foster family that refused to accept him as one of their own. Deprived of the nurturing he needed, Andrew clung to academics and the kindness of teachers. All the while, he refused to surrender the love he held for his mother in his heart. Ultimately, Andrew earned a scholarship to Wesleyan, went on to Harvard Law School, and became a Fulbright Scholar. Andrew has dedicated his life's work to helping children living in poverty and in the foster care system. He defied the staggering odds set against him, and here in this heartwrenching, brutally honest, and inspirational memoir, he reveals who Hope's boy really is.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 44 more reviews...
 A voice of quiet perseverance against all odds August 20, 2008
Altogether, Andy only had two short years of his childhood with his beloved mother. As Hope had married and divorced at a very young age, Andy spent his early childhood in Chicago with his grandmother Kate. She relinquished him reluctantly to his mother's care in California -- a move that proved disastrous.
Not only did Hope struggle with poverty and single-parenthood, she also began showing clear signs of mental illness. By the time Andy was seven, he found himself torn from both mother and grandmother, and stuck within the foster system.
Unlike many other children, Andy at least was fortunate enough to stay with the same family for the next decade. Many other foster children came and went, yet Andy was never sent away, much to his confusion. His foster mother, especially, was a bully, who threatened and emotionally abused all the children in the household -- including her biological ones -- and made Andy's day to day survival a nightmare.
Yet somehow, the boy managed to hold on until he turned 18. An excellent student, Andy won a scholarship to college and is now involved with legal issues for foster children.
Bridge's life is quietly motivating, clear proof of what a person can do and what he can overcome if only he is persistent and optimistic. He is an inspiration to us all.
 Keeping Hope alive August 17, 2008
Hope is our emotional gray area between love and hate -- neither a malignant nor a benign force, sometimes acting to stay our hand from action and other times the only thing waking us up in the morning, hope is something we struggle to maintain throughout our lives. This struggle could scarcely be captured better than in writer Andrew Bridge's debut work Hope's Boy: A Memoir.
Exploring Andrew's childhood in the Los Angeles foster care system, the book paints a cruel picture of an institution that very literally robs children of parents and safety with the flimsiest of reasoning and the most heartless of machinations. Andrew holds tightly to the not-even-two-years he is able to spend with his mother, Hope, before the system snatches him up.
With no support from his ever-changing array of social workers, he is bandied between a care facility that has long forgotten human dignity and a foster family whose matriarch, I shudder to think, might be exactly as frightening and monstrous as she is portrayed to be.
This is a story of survival, and at times you feel that, truly, all hope is lost, that Andrew is doomed to a cycle of pain and misfortune that you feel sure would break you. But he learns and adapts, he keeps on going, never releasing the few good memories he is able to carry with him.
Part of what makes this structure work is Andrew's narration, which has no desire to supply easy answers, bleeding heart sentiment or even personal forgiveness for the author's actions. He comes by his words honestly, but often they are cold in the way he is able to analyze people down to their composite features and actions. For each of Andrew's faults, he is able to blame himself profoundly and logically, and while it's a cliché to call a memoir "honest," that's exactly how it reads -- an unabashed personal account.
This logical eye of his will have mixed results with people though -- at times Andrew, while clinging to his hope, sounds very much downtrodden and beaten by the world, and does little to deny it. This makes sense in a narrative, but it's a pain carried perhaps too well in the story, to the point that scenes with emotional highs or lows can feel pulled into a much grayer area. Though I enjoy the style, it may conflict with some who will see a boy about to be torn apart by a ravenous dog and find themselves somewhat numb.
That aside, I was mesmerized, having not read a memoir this good almost ever. I found myself needing to look at the page numbers to remember that this wasn't happening to me.
Hope's Boy makes me want to hold on, with even half the determination that Andrew shows, to everything good in my life.
 Hope's Boy - could have been half as long August 4, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was looking forward to this book more because I have a step-son who was transferred from his mother's care to his father's (and my) care when he was three. Not exactly the same situation, but I wanted to read about the love for a mother, even a disturbed mother.
What I got, is that a boy loves his mother no matter what. And no matter what, another adult must never point out even the obvious faults in her, he simply will never see them. He will always love and cherish her forever and hate anyone who dares to discuss the truth. The truth doesn't matter nearly as much as the love.
The details, DETAILS, ENDLESS DETAILS we so distracting. I found myself skipping entire paragraphs of meaningless details. I did not need to know what exact expression someone made, who was completely free of value to the story. Especially in the end, it seemed there were words describing places, things, faces, clothes, food, ANYTHING, just to add more width to the book. It would have been such an easier read.
Also, while the story was worth reading, it was not nearly as insightful as expected.
In the end, I applaud him for moving on with his life and helping other foster kids.
I wish him well to stay in remission, and am glad that he shared his story.
Parents and teachers! Don't miss this book. July 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is not a book to miss. All too often, it falls to a teacher to recognize and act on the needs of a child. It can be a responsibility of a parent to make their children aware of the meaning of "foster children" and how to treat and include these children into their activities. Andy's story is repeated in every court system in this country. So many children fall through the cracks. Despite her own mental illness, Hope finds a way to assure Andy that she loves him and later realize she did what she could do under the circumstances. Without this, Andy could have ended up the way the majority of children in the system do. A simple act of kindness could change a child's life.
An Important Book and an Extraordinary Read July 15, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Hope's Boy is a profoundly important book for all of us to read. Though other books about foster care have been written, few ever go into the inner life of child and what that child feels, thinks, and misses after enduring a devasting loss and the most tragic conditions. Equally refreshing is that Mr. Bridge shows not a bit of self-pity, acknowledging and describing the children that he saw and still remembers who suffered even great losses than he did. This is a story about a boy who loved a deeply flawed mother -- one struck down with a horrific mental illness through no fault of her own.
Bridge reminds the reader that simply warehousing a child in foster care -- giving him bed and food -- is not enough. We take these children into all of our care and we owe them the love and the nuturing needed to care and to tend for them.
Apart from an extraordinary story, the book is a beautiful read. It is tenderly written account about love and children who endure more than they ought to and often need to have endured.
Mr. Bridge has commited his life to helping these children. He has never forgotten or turned his back on them. As a Harvard Law School graduate, he could have done that. He did not. We should all remember these children as he does. We live in a society where hundreds of thousands of children wait for hope.
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