Doing Time for the Last Time

Akindele Washington tells a story based on his life in the American prison system. The story doesn’t follow a chronological order, which I found interesting. The author writes how he speaks, and his writing follows. The shocking claim that his son killed his daughter and that “The System” is to blame for it caught my attention.

His story starts with a phone call with the news his daughter was killed. Chapter One introduced me to his life as a child. Akindele’s story centers around his life in and out of prison. It’s not until chapter 8 that I see or hear anything about Akindele’s son. There’s a good reason for that.

He was locked up for most of his son’s life. The picture painted is one of a victim. There is some accountability but it’s not enough.

I would have liked more specifics. Washington writes generalized for instance instead of names of people he’s known he attached labels. For instance, ex-wife and cousins, except when he came to his children. He uses their names but no descriptions. Dates and locations follow, instead of specific dates the authors use year benchmarks with no descriptions.

I liked that this memoir is written in a scrambled thought process. As if he just needed to get it down before he lost the motivation for it.

There were some things I didn’t like I would even go as far as to say “triggered.” His description of his ex-wife seems unfair. He paints a picture of an abusive relationship that’s one-sided, more interesting there are no “soft” moments within this relationship that held him even while he’s locked up. It was hard to relate to his journey, but this portion made it even harder.

And finally, the relatability, the book is a scramble of broad dates and events, I didn’t mind that he jumped from childhood to adulthood within a section dedicated to early childhood. That wasn’t the problem for me, it was that I couldn’t relate to this man at all. I don’t like that the story despite being “his” story is left with so many holes.

It's too easy to say, “She pulled a gun on me three times,” without saying the why of it (I’m not saying the ex-wife did only that someone did). And so, in short, it’s the quiet parts he’s not mentioning that turned me off from this book.

I rate this book a 3 out of 5.

Doing Time for the Last Time is a short read with 59 pages.

I purchased the ebook through Amazon.com for $4.99 plus tax.

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-time-Last-message-born/dp/B0C7JJ9NC5