Brief Summary Of The Book 'The Contender'

In the book the Contender, The main character, 17 year old Alfred Brooks, goes through life as scared high school dropout until he finds a boxing club in Harlem. He then goes through some challenges and comes out as a contender. This book has many themes to it. Don’t do drugs and follow through your goals, but the one that stuck to me the most was choosing your friends wisely. The Contender provides some insight to this theme and explains its importance through the actions of the characters. This theme impacts everyone but mostly to Alfred Brooks, The main character.
In the beginning of the book, Alfred is a person who doesn’t really care about his future, but he does care about James. James is Alfred’s best friend. But, as demonstrated in the book, James is addicted to drugs and he always makes bad deicions. You would think that Alfred would …show more content…
This is the part when Alfred goes downhill in making good choices. He tries heroin and drugs for the first time and blacks out. When he wakes up, Aunt Pearl tells Alfred to do certain tasks for her but doesn’t do them. While he was making (or should I say trying to) make coffee, Hollis calls Alfred saying that the Gang is going to an amusement park and are inviting him to come. The Gang eventually reaches the house and asks Alfred again to come. Alfred agrees and goes with them. While they’re there, Alfred finds out that Major actually stole the car and now the police are after them. Alfred gets away and starts blaming Major for everything. But, then he realises something. Page 132 says “That last time Major used his fist and feet to bust me up. This time he… Don’t blame him man. He didn’t pour all that stuff into you at that party. You did that. He didn’t put a knife in your throat and make you take a ride. You got in the car. Major was just being friendly.” Alfred realises that HE chose to hang out with Major and he chose to be in this