Where Tomorrows Aren't Promised
A Memoir of Survival and Hope
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4.3 • 69 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From iconic NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony comes a New York Times bestselling memoir about growing up in the housing projects of Red Hook and Baltimore—a brutal world Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised.
For a long time, Carmelo Anthony’s world wasn’t any larger than the view of the hoopers and hustlers he watched from the side window of his family’s first-floor project apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn. He couldn’t dream any bigger than emulating his older brothers and cousin, much less going on to become a basketball champion on the world stage.
He faced palpable dangers growing up in the housing projects of Red Hook and West Baltimore’s Murphy Homes (a.k.a. Murder Homes, subject of HBO’s The Wire). He navigated an education system that ignored, exploited, or ostracized him. He suffered the untimely deaths of his closely held loved ones. He struggled to survive physically and emotionally. But with the strength of family and the guidance of key mentors on the streets and on the court, he pushed past lethal odds to endure and thrive.
By the time Carmelo found himself at the NBA Draft at Madison Square Garden in 2003 preparing to embark on his legendary career, he wondered: How did a kid who’d had so many hopes, dreams, and expectations beaten out of him by a world of violence, poverty, and racism make it here at all?
Carmelo’s story is one of strength and determination; of dribbling past players bigger and tougher than him, while also weaving around vial caps and needles strewn across the court; where dealers and junkies lined one side of the asphalt and kids playing jacks and Double Dutch lined the other; where rims had no nets, and you better not call a foul—a place Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
As an adult, basketball superstar Carmelo Anthony has enjoyed wealth and fame. But his evocative memoir shows that his younger years were all about surviving the day. Born in Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects and then raised in a notoriously violent area of Baltimore, the hoop prodigy watched as friends and family got caught up in a cycle of drugs and guns. Melo doesn’t waste time bragging on himself—instead, he uses his pulpit to talk about what’s wrong with the neighborhoods he came from and what should be done to fix those problems. (Anthony saves his strongest rebukes for an educational system that he claims was more interested in cashing in on his b-ball talents than in teaching him.) By ending this memoir at the moment when he was called up in the NBA draft, Anthony shifts the focus from his athletic success, asking us to take a hard, honest look at what he had to endure to get there and to think about all the talented young Black children facing huge obstacles.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his debut, NBA All-Star Anthony shoots and scores with a gripping account of how he went from being "a Black kid from the bottom" to being a world-renowned pro athlete. Born in 1984, he spent his early years in Red Hook, a rough neighborhood where "pistols banged all day." Despite having a loving family, daily life was perilous—his brother once escaped a shoot-out only because the armed drug dealers paused to let him pass. When Anthony was eight, his family moved to Baltimore's housing projects. While life there was no less dangerous, Anthony turned his focus to honing his natural basketball talents in high school, became a "big college recruit," and accepted a scholarship to play for Syracuse University, where he set an NCAA record for most points by a freshman and won a national championship. After one year in college, he entered the 2003 NBA draft and was drafted by the Denver Nuggets. Even with his enormous success, Anthony's humility shines throughout his narrative: "For a Baltimore kid like me, making it to the NBA meant you had to be one of the top 453 players in the world... I had to weave around poverty, addiction, gunplay, and unresolved pain... But I did it." Those in search of inspiration will find no shortage of it here.
Customer Reviews
Great Read
Amazing read Melo had to be determined and focused gives insight into growing up in the inner city
Outstanding
Great read, very relatable and helps you understand Carmelo as a person and not just a ball player!
Great Read.
I connected to his upbringing very much. I grew up in west Baltimore like Melo. He’s 4 years older than me but we share similar paths.It’s wild to know someone so successful grew up the same way I did. I feel like this was a love letter/ autobiography to Baltimore in my opinion. I appreciate the canid, raw, storytelling. I hope to read more literature from Melo.