From my blog Reading Mom! http://readingmom07.wordpress.com/"I spent the first twenty-three years of my life on the wrong side of the law. For most of my childhood, I ran with gangs and bikers. The only thing I knew about the law was how to break it. I got pretty good at that. It took a murder-one conviction to make me decide to change my life from committing crime to fighting it. It might seem strange that a man with my criminal past is so passionately concerned with what happens to the victims of crime. I have been misjudged misinterpreted. and misunderstood for most of my life. I have spent the last twenty-seven years trying to be one of the good guys. I love God, my wife, my children, my career. In spite of those efforts to be seen as a moral man of virtue, I am still viewed as an ex-con, a criminal, a killer. I am many things, including those just mentioned. Put it all together and you will see: I am Dog."-You Can Run But You Can't HideWhat would you do if everything you have worked for was just ripped out from underneath you? You then pick yourself up and build it again just for it all to be taken away. Every time you make something of your life, someone comes in and steals it all from you. Would you be able to keep building, and working for what you want? Or would you simply give up and say "I cant do this anymore!"?Duane "Dog" Chapman has had this happen to him more than once, and against all odds he has still come out on top.Review:Even though this is an autobiography I believe it can be used as a self-help book as well. Duane "Dog" Chapman started out life on the wrong side of the law, stealing, doing drugs, and selling drugs. One night changed his life forever! He was arrested on a murder-one charge just because he was with the person who pulled the trigger. Dog himself was not even in the house where the murder took place he was in the car a half a block away! But under Texas law at the time he had knowledge of the crime being committed and did not call to report it, so he was just as responsible as the man who pulled the trigger. Dog was later found guilty of first degree murder!Once he was released from prison he eventually began bounty hunting. Dog was able to make money by going to the different hail bond agents and catching their jumps. Dog then built his own company, unfortunately not long after his business got off the ground and started bringing him in money it was all taken away from him.The things Dog has been through in his life are amazing! I know that I would not be able to recover like he has. I tend to pick up this book when I feel like I can not handle the situations life has thrown at me. This book always seems to lift my spirits, when I read Dogs story I feel like I can overcome any struggle life throws at me!The only thing that unsatisfactory about this book was the fact that the story line skipped around quite a bit. You would go from reading about Dogs bounty hunting career to reading about his childhood with no transition between the two. It was hard to keep up with the story when Dog bounced around like he did.Ages 15 and up: I believe that every child should read this book when starting high school. Or shortly there after. You Can Run But You Can't Hide is a book that would be helpful to teenagers showing them the consequences of choosing the wrong kind of friends. It might help them to make better choices while they are young. I have every intention of having my daughter read this book the summer before she starts high school.Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this book to anyone who is having personal struggles. Anyone who feels like they can not handle their life. Reading about Dog makes you think "If he can handle everything that has gone on in his life and still come out on top, then so can I!"Reading Mom- Readingmom07.wordpress.com
wow what a book and what an interestingly unique man. I have watched his show and seeing what he does and how he does it and I must say I am still baffled by what bounty hunting really entails. I never really understood the high risk that is involved with this profession until reading his book and watching his show. Which at first I thought the show was kind of a quack but now after reading his book I'm inclined to think that he has a very genuine person and as long as you treat him with respect he would treat you with respect.Reflecting on doing himself he has a rough exterior and may look all bad and mean but deep down and on the inside he really is just your average Joe who I will say was one of the lucky ones and was able to turn his life around and make something positive of it. I would think anyone who has had a major run-ins with the law would take an opportunity to read a book such as this and gain a lot of valuable insight into how to turn your life around if you have gone down the wrong path or done things in life that you're not proud of. One message I did get out of this book and will carry with me is no matter what life throws at you even though it may not seem like there is a way out everything happens for a reason. Furthermore you just have to be a strong-willed person and bounce back obviously Duane has proven this time and time again. One other thing he is trying to teach here is that your faith will also guide you through a lot. I would say from firsthand experience that that lesson is most certainly true and he makes that very clear throughout the book and that is one thing I always take with me.So to sum it up I would recommend this book to anyone who needs to gain insight into life overall and if you have been on the wrong side of the law this should be a guide of inspiration to you. If you bet on the good side of the law know that this book may keep you on that side of the law by learning what not to do.Okay I promise I'm just about done in but to anyone who reads this you know I always have to comment on pictures in books. You not only get a first-hand look at dog through what he writes in the book but the pictures really add a lot of value to where he was where he has been and where he stands presently. So all in all this book was a great inspiration.
Luckily for me the book is a fast read or I don't think I'd have finished it. It wasn't a total piece of crap like its sequel (I'll review that later today; be afraid) but it's a long way from being good, even within the in my mind not very good genre of celebrity autobiographies.This guy is not too bright. I don't know how he's managed to live as long as he has with no better judgment than he's got. Just one example: he apparently had no clue somebody was drunk at ten in the morning even though it was obvious to everybody else. Uh huh.Also, he must think his readers are pretty dumb as well if he thinks, for instance, that we would believe he can save himself from getting hurt with pepper spray because he happens to be in the act of spitting out a big wad of gum when he's sprayed. Puh-leeeze. Was it a wad of gum as big as his damn head?Oh, and I think he, or his ghostwriter, has "borrowed" a few vignettes from other sources and claimed them as his own. Example 1. He describes a prison guard informing a fellow inmate of the death of his grandmother by saying "Everybody who has a grandmother still living, step back. Not so fast, Cletus."This joke has been going around for ages, though it's usually said to take place in the military. I guess it's possible the guard in question read it in the Laughter, the Best Medicine feature of Readers' Digest and decided to try it out at work, but I'm not betting any money on that.Example 2: I'm not going into much detail here as it's just too gross. Suffice it to say it involves Dog concocting a friend out of an old mattress, a poster of Raquel Welch and, wait for it, a hunk of raw liver. Alex Portnoy called; he wants his liver back.The religious talk didn't impress me much either. If somebody tells me a long story about a deep conversation they had with a 98-year-old man at the dentist's office who turns out not to have been there at all, I'm edging carefully away.One more: Mr. Law and Order boastfully admits to cheating his way through his eye test when it comes time to renew his driver's license, because he is too vain to wear glasses even though he is a bad driver and really needs them. That's great; I'll make sure to stay in a safe place whenever I know you're in town behind the wheel of a car.I felt like I lost about twenty IQ points reading this book. Like I got hit on the head with a slab of liver.
—Aimee
I loved this book! It was sooooo cool to see how much stuff Duane "The Dog" Chapman had to go through in his life. Honestly, I wish I could sit down with him sometime and pick his brain-he's seen some serious stuff! I love his show of course, and now I get to love him as a person. The best part was how the Lord helped Dog through all his rough times. Dog really had to trust in His help, not just on himself. D-o-g, stands for G-o-d, which was a nickname he earned because of his faith. That is awesome! I can't wait to read his next book!
—Brooke
A very interesting read, though not the most well-written book I've read. Of course, the mediocre writing didn't prevent me from enjoying this book; you can kind of hear Dog telling the story as you read. I didn't know much about Dog aside from what's shown on his TV show, but wow, now that I've read this, I am just astounded by how far he's come and how much of a turnaround he's made in his life. This is the kind of tale that I think would be very inspirational to a lot of people who've made a mess of their lives, dropping out of school and/or committing crimes, etc. The dust jacket calls this a "no-holds barred" memoir, and I'd definitely agree with that. This includes all sorts of sordid tales of where he went wrong... but then goes into how he went right and how he turned himself around from being a 7th-grade dropout, a prisoner in Texas, etc. to someone who believes in second chances, thinks God is constantly helping him, and has a TV show devoted to his bounty hunting.
—Sara
