The Official Bra Boys Story: My Brothers Keeper
Maroubra was a tough place to grow up. Ringed by a jail, a sewarge works, a rifle range and a housing commission estate, it was where the streets of Sydney met the beach. It was a place where the local boys surfed hard and partied harder. It was a place where trouble easily found you.
Adopted by Maroubra Beach at a young at, the four Abberton brothers, all born to different fathers and a mother in the clutches of heroin addiction, grew up at a time when the area was shadowed by drugs and gang violence. Raised largely by their grandmother, Sunny, Jai, Koby and Dakota found solace in the surf, and solidarity with their mates, the Bra Boys.
The official biography of the Abberton brothers follows their story from a turbulent upbringing on the sands of Maroubra to international surf stardom, and the fateful events of 5 August 2003, when Jai shot dead Maroubra underworld figure and childhood friend Tony Hines, only to be acquitted on the grounds of self-defence. This book is raw, gritty, from the heart....and everything you won't read about in the newspapers.
Reviews
My Brothers Keeper by Sean Doherty.
Published by Harper Collins in 2009.
This book is a biography on the up bringing of the Abberton brothers, Sunny, Jai, Koby and Dakota. This book describes what the Abbertons and their friends went through growing up. It tells you about their family and living in the housing commissions, their mother was a heroin addict and none of them knew their fathers.
I personally loved this book. My favorite part of the book was when the Abbertons were talking about what lead up to the Cronulla riots and what happened during the riot and also about Jai killing Tony Hines who believed 3 people slept with his girlfriend leaving 1 of the 3 dead, the other in life threatening condition and the last one was Jai who was the last person. Tony was stalking Jai for a long time then entered Jai’s car with his girlfriend and Tony said to Jai that they were going to rape her, as he said this he pulled out a gun, Jai grabbed the gun, closed his eyes and shot Tony.
In this book I didn't like hearing how their mother abandoned them to do drugs. All of the Abberton brothers have different fathers, none of them knowing who their fathers. Their mother was bashed on a daily basis but still chose the drugs over her children, they had to live with their grandmother ‘Ma’, with her being so close to the beach this introduced them to surfing and all of the kids they would end up growing up with forming he gang the ‘Bra Boys’
Koby Abberton was charged for accessory to murder, in-between court hearings he went and surfed the biggest waves he could. As soon as Jai was found innocent the Abbertons went to surf the biggest waves they could.
I would defiantly recommend this book to other people. If you are interested in surfing or gangs this is the perfect book, although it had strong violence and coarse language.
I think the author wrote this book to show people what the Abbertons have been through in more detail than the movie Bra Boys.
Sean Doherty worked well with the Abbertons making this book, I couldn't compare this to another book as it is a book that talks about their up bringing, there is no other book out there like this.
It is a book written for teen-adults.
I would rate it a 5/5. I found it very interesting and it was good to find out what they have been through from them, it also explains all the events in a lot more detail than the ‘Bra Boys’ movie.
My Brothers keeper
The Official Bra Boys Story
My Brothers Keeper is a book about 4 brothers that live in Maroubra. These brothers have had an extremely rough upbringing, with all 4 of then not knowing who their different fathers are, their mother deserting them for different men, drugs and gang violence. The boys moved around a lot, but spent most of their time living at their grandparents place. All 4 boys help Sean Doherty to write this book. The 4 Abberton brothers Jai, Sunny, Kobe and Dakota were adopted to the Maroubra beach from a young age.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I enjoyed reading this book because it told you the truth about what happens inside one Australia most notorious gangs the Bra Boys. This book tells you what it was like growing up with a rough crowd. Not knowing who you’re farther is, having a mother that is not there for you. Who would choose guys that sell drugs so one she wasn’t on the street and so she could score some drugs but what she didn’t know is that she would end up second best with both the guy who would end up abusing and violently hitting her as well as her needing her to go to rehab. This book tells you firsthand what it were like to be an Abberton family and their feelings about life and the people around them. There are many good parts to this book as there bad. It tells you about what it was like for these boys. Some of the highs were traveling all over the world to some of the best surfing spots that some people would dream of going to and winning major competitions and for Kobe been called the world’s best big wave surfer to the real low like been thrown in jail for something that you didn’t even do.
Some of the things that I didn’t like in the book were hearing how their mother deserted her 4 young boys just to see if she could score some drugs and too hook up with some guy that was passing through. I would recommend this book to some people. This book has strong violence and coarse language. If you can handle hearing about some of the things that have happened to the boys as well as what they had done and all the strong language that these boys use could repel some people from reading this book. But if you don’t mind reading about it you might enjoy reading this book.
Sean Doherty worked well with the Abberton boys to write this book, but considering that Jai, Sunny, Koby, Dakota and some of their mates wrote the book with the help of Sean Doherty to publish this book. I think the main idea of the boys releasing this book was to get their side of the story out. Most people think of these boys of gang bangers and criminals but once you read this book you realise that yes that they are trouble and criminals but there not as bad as some people think. Some of the things that they are accused of aren’t actually their fault. Sometimes other people might have started the fight, or been accused of murder or Tony Hines like Jai was in 2005 but then was later acquitted for self-defence. There aren’t many books like this one out there to compare this book to but if there is I would read them. This book would be for more mid-teens (16>) all the way through to adults. I think you just need to be old enough to understand some of the concepts and be able to follow the book because it jumps backwards and forwards a bit.
I found this book to be a great read and would recommend it to people if they were interest it reading it. Hope you enjoyed reading my review and would like to read this book in the future.
