Punching Bag

by Rex Ogle

Overview

A New York Public Library Best Book of 2021

The companion to Rex Ogle’s award-winning Free Lunch is a searing account of adolescence in a household torn by domestic violence.

Punching Bag is the compelling true story of a high school career defined by poverty and punctuated by outbreaks of domestic abuse. Rex Ogle, who brilliantly mapped his experience of hunger in Free Lunch, here describes his struggle to survive; reflects on his complex, often paradoxical relationship with his passionate, fierce mother; and charts the trajectory of his stepdad’s anger. Hovering over Rex’s story is the talismanic presence of his unborn baby sister.

Through it all, Rex threads moments of grace and humor that act as beacons of light in the darkness. Compulsively readable, beautifully crafted, and authentically told, Punching Bag is a remarkable memoir about one teenager’s cycle of violence, blame, and attempts to forgive his parents—and himself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324052210
Publisher:	Norton Young Readers
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	119,659
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Rex Ogle is the author of Free Lunch, which won the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award; Abuela, Don’t Forget Me, a finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award; and Punching Bag, a NYPL Best Book of the Year. Rex lives in Los Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

10/11/2021

In this vivid, empathic memoir, 1990s teenager Rex often feels that “something bad is just around the corner. Usually it’s a fist.” Picking up after the events of Free Lunch, the narrative follows Rex as he dodges white stepfather Sam’s anger and abuse while attempting to protect his younger brother—and his violent Mexican mother, Luciana, who “isn’t well” and blames seven-year-old Rex for the death of her stillborn daughter Marisa, Rex’s younger sister. The mystery of the presence of Marisa, who appears to Rex, drives the narrative-in-vignettes. Rex’s mother is evasive, but his grandmothers confirm Sam’s violence was the real culprit in Marisa’s death. In the wake of his parents’ on-and-off relationship, Rex struggles with guilt and helplessness, and with his own temptation toward “the darkness.” Throughout, Marisa guides and comforts Rex, helping him choose self-preservation. Though the story is often brutal, Ogle’s approachable narration reveals a complex picture of multigenerational trauma. Rex’s aunt notes, “Every generation has a choice to make. To pass on what they’ve learned. Or stop it.” In the afterword, Ogle makes his own choice clear, offering a beacon of hope to readers trying to survive their own childhoods. Back matter includes resources and a q&a. Ages 13–up. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Readers will see themselves in Rex and appreciate the hope he offers: life can get better.... This should be widely available to anyone who needs it."

Booklist (starred review)

★ 11/01/2021

Gr 7 Up—"Your sister is dead, and it's your fault." This haunting declaration sets the tone for the author's life when, at age seven, he returns from a three-month stay with grandparents in another state to be forced by his frantic mother to look at photos of his stillborn sister Marisa. In this follow-up to Free Lunch, his 2019 memoir about childhood battles with poverty, Ogle details years of merciless violence—emotional, psychological, and often physical—as mom and stepdad Sam brutalize each other and each of them attacks him. He recounts how, when the police show up at their apartment, he feels pressure to lie to keep the family together for younger brother Ford. Throughout, he is advised and comforted by a fleeting dream of Marisa. Despite all this, Ogle shows a remarkable empathy for his parents, both of them victims of severe domestic abuse in their own childhoods, as well as for his mother's struggle with mental illness and Sam's with alcohol addiction. Frequently coarse and profane language may be off-putting for sensitive readers. Instances of homophobia and anti-Hispanic bigotry (Ogle's mother is Mexican American), amplified by derogatory epithets, nonetheless serve to frame his social isolation. The volume closes with a list of resources for suicide prevention and combating domestic violence, as well as a Q&A with Ogle from earlier this year. Though the subject matter is harrowing and it is at times difficult to continue reading, Ogle's message throughout is focused on survival and hope. VERDICT Highly recommended for all middle and high school collections.—Bob Hassett, Luther Jackson M.S., Falls Church, VA

School Library Journal

Ramon de Ocampo, who vividly rendered Ogle’s first memoir, narrates the second with the same keenness. The author warns of his story’s intensity and the hope it can offer, and de Ocampo’s portrayals increase its rawness and promise. Rex is now entering high school; his poverty has abated as both of his parents are working. The domestic violence in his family, however, has reached new heights. The audio begins with a haunting flashback as Rex, at age 7, learns of his infant sister’s death. This memory weaves in and out of the narrative. De Ocampo’s characterizations are rounded and as complex as the people he is portraying. Rex’s furious, stuttering stepfather shows occasional tenderness and self-hatred. Rex’s Latina mother’s passion is as constant as her moods are erratic. Most poignant are Rex’s dedication to his brother and his own growth. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2022 - AudioFile

2021-08-16
The author of Free Lunch (2019) continues his account of an abusive childhood into adolescence.

Reassuring readers in similar situations in the notes he places fore and aft that he survived, and they can too, Ogle focuses here on his home life. Beginning with a flashback to age 7 when he came back from a long stay with grandparents to the news that he would have had a baby sister, but she was dead and it was his fault, he chronicles in explicit detail high school years of screaming matches and vicious beat downs by both his wildly unstable Mexican American mom and alcoholic White stepfather between times when they beat on each other. The little sister he never had (stillborn, it turns out, after a typically brutal parental argument) plays a continuing role in his story, as both a source of crushing guilt, no less devastating for being undeserved, and a ghostly presence who helps him control his own tendency toward outbursts of rage. What emerges in the wake of all the bruises, blood, vomit, denial, and psychological battering is less a feeling of relief that Ogle succeeded in becoming an independent adult, than a sense that, despite the hopeful ending and his speaking of letting go and moving on, his personal journey takes a back seat here to an indictment of the irrecoverably broken grown-ups charged with raising him.

Grim reading, with reassurance just the barest glimmer in a nightmarish landscape. (resources) (Memoir. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews