This Boy’s Life, by Tobias Wolff and The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll are both similar coming of age memoirs dealing with rebellious teenage boys. Toby and Jim are both trying to discover who they are. Being introduced to a new environment makes the boys anxious and they start to exhibit destructive and violent behavior. Though the reason for their violence hasn’t been verified, the absence of a paternal figure in the lives …showed first 75 words of 726 total…

…showed last 75 words of 726 total…better about themselves. It gives them power. Also, both boys have an absence of a paternal figure. The boys feel as though they need to be bad in order to get the attention of their mother’s, who are both preoccupied with their own personal relationships. Concisely, Toby and Jim are at a stage in their life when they need to start figuring out who they are, and not who others want them to be.