Rating: 
Summary: Shallow Plot
Review: I was disappointed with this book. Although there was plenty of action, the characters were not developed and I almost quit reading it half way through. The plot was very transparent and the story, as told, was not believable at all. I would not recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: fans of World War II action dramas will enjoy this tale
Review: In 1943 Italy, three GIs are sent to Naples to investigate the disappearance of two fellow Americans working with the resistance who failed to show up when the allies pulled out of the area. Corporal Steve Connors is separated from his two companions, but meets up with an underground army of two hundred orphans, whom are the only local occupants of the eerily deserted bombed out Naples.Steve and his new allies begin fighting the much more powerful German Panzer Division led by Colonel Von Klaus. The battle is intense as lives are lost on both sides. The outcome should be obvious, but is not possible for an army of children and an American law student turned Commando to hold back the mighty Nazi war machine, but at what cost and for how long? The action never slows down as STREET BOYS matches pace with the blitzkrieg of France. However, the characters including the hero, some of the resistance who kind of stand out in the crowd, and Von Klaus seem like one dimensional depictions of Captain America vs. the Red Skull. Still, fans of World War II action dramas will enjoy Lorenzo Carcaterra's tale, but wish the heroic Connors was developed as much as Lee-Kirby did Rogers. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Lots of action; not much suspense
Review: It's not much of a novel, but I bet it will be a terrific teen action movie. (In fact, the same story in a different setting already WAS a terrific movie back in 1981, "Taps") The book reads as though it was fleshed out from a screenplay. There is little exposition, back-story, plot intersection. It's your basic, linear white-hat vs black-hat war story, the twist being that the white-hats are teenagers and the black-hats are adults.
Rating: 
Summary: Four-day screenplay
Review: Let's recognize some basics: In September 1943, a small number of people, most of them young orphans, fought a pitched street battle with German tanks and soliders in the dying days of the war in Naples. Quattro Giornate is an historic event; "Street Boys" is not. Some will say the book reads better as a screenplay; the Italians already made the movie, forty years ago. Books need to be copy edited for spelling, accuracy and consistency; "Street Boys" is missing some of this. Some want the book to be truer to the history or at least more realistic; "Street Boys" has battle scenes that read like a cross among "Saving Private Ryan", "The Little Rascals", and the Hardy Boys. Enter 'Quattro Giornate' along with 'Napoli' and '1943' in a Google search and you can find enough history to judge the relative accuracy of this book. If you're looking for historical accuracy, this book is not it. Men and women were more of a presence in the battle; the Germans were not the pathetic, Keystone Cops portrayed in the book. Naples was crushed, literally and figuratively, by petty, evil, vengeful Germans, but not without a fight, however small and however late. The characters are cardboard. Picture Colin Farrell as the one-man American army. Select any llithesome, nubile, dark-haired, olive skinned starlet du jour to play Nunzia. Or a young Leonard DiCaprio as the partisan child leader, Vincenzo. But the scenery and weather are pretty, no matter how much desolation brought on by the war. The events are heroic and ripe for Hollywood over-the-top scenes, e.g., menancing Germans shot by amazingly accurate fire from untrained youths at the last second. "Street Boys" could be a whole lot better. The story deserves better. But I would not dismiss this book, if only because the basic story should be remembered and writing your own screenplay in your head from a mediocre book is a much better exercise then watching a bad or even mediocre movie.
Rating: 
Summary: A Major Disappointment
Review: Lorenzo Carcaterra is a very good writer, however 'Street Boys' is not one of his best works. The plot, action and characters are like something out of the old TV show "Combat", only not nearly as good. The author has brought a great deal of passion to the story. . However nothing about the book is very believable. I really wanted to like this book but grew more resentful with each page. It just falls apart and keeps on going downhill like a runaway Sherman tank.
Rating: 
Summary: Masterful
Review: Lorenzo Carcaterra latest novel "Street Boys" is not just another WWII war story, Carcaterra's narrative is heart-wrenching nonstop action and the best I have read. This author has taken a piece of history and woven a fiction sure to touch the heart of every reader. It is 1943 and Nazi bombs have riddled Naples for months, now their orders are to level the town. Word has reached the German tank troops that the only live residents in the city are children. In an effort to ease their job, German planes drop individually- wrapped, poison-laced candy. From page one of Carcaterra's story, readers will cheer for these homeless hungry heroes as they fight for the only home they have known. What this ragtag troop of children accomplishes will astonish and enthrall and make you forever a committed Carcaterra fan...
Rating:
Summary: Some good points, but very predictable
Review: This book is much less than I expected from Carcaterra. There was one flaw that stood out among the rest. It was the number of times when the situation was hopeless, with a character on the ground helpless while a nazi stood over him just about to kill him. Then, all of a sudden, the nazi soldier is killed at the last possible second to save the life of a good guy. More noteable flaws was that the children seemed invinceble. While the highly trained Nazi troops would fall by the dozens after missing their target repeatedly, the children could all take a shoulder wound and continue to fight. I couldn't count how many shoulder wounds there were, barely missing vital organs so the good guy could fight again. Eight year old children could outrun adult soldiers. Nazi tanks seemed useless against these children who would just blow them up by the dozens. This might make a good, inspiring movie; but it made a boring, predictable book.
Rating:
Summary: It's all about bravery
Review: This book might not have been very accurate, but the auther did tell us at the beggining of the novel that not everything was accurate. Its a very compelling book about how brave children faught the german army. They faugh from the heart like true soldiers. Even though this book is not very accurate it is a good book to read, it shows what bravery is.
Rating:
Summary: Street Boys. . .The Movie?
Review: This book will probably get a better response if it's made into a movie. It reads like a screenplay with all the usual suspects: Nazis, Italy and WWII. The author spends most of the book detailing minor battle sequences of boys destroying tanks and picking off Nazis-scenes best left for the big screen special effects studios. I was barely able to get behind our hero-Connors-the sole American orchestrating much of the Neapolitan insurrection. My favorite part was when the boys of Naples ask Connors where in the US he was from. They explained that they knew only of California and New York and asked if Kentucky was in New York. Connors incredulously said it was somewhat near Chicago, "surely you've heard of Chicago" he asked. They responded with laughter saying they couldn't believe the US had a city names Chicago, which in Neapolitan means "The place I [poop]." It was the same response I got when I was visiting Naples after telling a waiter in Sorrento that I was from Chicago.
Rating:
Summary: "The most poorly written book I have ever tried to read!"
Review: This book, by a supposedly noted author, contains
several hundred mispelled words, including many with the
same pronunciation as the correct spelling, but with different
meanings and spellings.
What I consider the definitive screw-up was finding
the name of one of the minor German army characters spelled
two different ways on consecutive pages.
It is not even remotely acceptable, no matter how busy
or well-meaning one is, to rely completely on spelling,
dictionary, or grammatical software when writing a book to
be published.
This book is apparently intended as a joke, but is so
lacking in any merit, humorous or otherwise, that I actually
gave up in disgust after reading half of it.
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