“Paperboy”

A review of Vince Vawter’s emotional book, “Paperboy”

More stories from Sammie May

Mi Jalisco
January 16, 2015
Vawter visits LCHS to speak to the students who read his book.

Photo by: Sammie May

Vawter visits LCHS to speak to the students who read his book.

Paperboy is a fiction book, but the image that it portrays is all so real. The man behind the story, Vince Vawter, is telling his life story. Although some of the events that happen in the story are fictional, some of the charters along with some of the events were real life experiences that Vince Vawter went through.

At the age of 11, Vawter had a terrible speech impediment, the worst of them all, stuttering. He was teased and bullied through his childhood. The book includes the struggles that he had through his childhood, along with stories of how people tried helping him “get over” the stuttering.

“The hardest thing I had to do with this book was to stay in the mindset of an 11 year old boy,” said Vawter.

While reading this book, I felt his hurt and his passion with writing. When I got the opportunity to meet with Mr.Vawter, he stated that,

“I always knew that I would write this book, I just didn’t know when or how.”

Vawter said that he made many different versions of this book, and the one that got published was the best one and was his voice. The book does not have any commas.

Vawter said that this is because when he was a child his English teacher told him that commas were a symbol to tell the reader to pause, but he didn’t want to use them because when he talked he would have to pause for short or for a long time, so in his writing he personally did not want to pause while he wrote.

I personally loved this book because while it’s not a biography of Vawter’s life, it does tell his story. I honestly would give this book a 10 out of 10.

Everyone should run out to by this book. It will take you on an emotional roller-coaster.