Perspective

My Bloody Life is told in first person narrative, in past tense. This gives the feeling of a mature Reymundo telling anecdotes about his life in the Kings, perhaps from a jail cell. Sanchez has gained enough distance emotionally, and enough time has passed, for him to see some events in a clearer light. He now recognizes that the sense of complete acceptance he felt with gang members was fueled by drugs, especially alcohol and marijuana. He knows that gang members are not willing to die for each other, if they ever were. Most of all, he has come to resent a gang system in which older members earn enormous amounts of money from the short, violent lives of younger members. By the end of the book, Reymundo sees education as the only way out of this quagmire.

Despite this growing maturity, Reymundo still retains several early prejudices...