This memoir by Johnny Santiago, who is referred to as John-John by his endearing siblings, is just one sibling in a string of sixteen children by his parents. He has survived impoverishment, physical and mental abuse, racism, the suicide death of his three siblings to also having experienced his young son survive cancer, a thirty-eight-year marriage, and depression. It has given him the wisdom in life to write about it, and despite it all, he overcame the odds against him by graduating high school, becoming a Marine, and achieving a very successful twenty-five-year computer engineering career. Late in life, he has becomes a graduate of four collegiate science degrees. Johnny is still going strong in his marriage to the mother of his children and in his continuation of maintaining a great bond with his two adult sons.