The Lovely Bones

     The Lovely Bones is such a great book because it has so many different genres in one book! It goes from suspenseful to romantic to sad, etc. You can literally feel this suspense by just reading the first page where it says "I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6^th, 1973”. In this book Alice Sebold shows how just one life can have so much different levels of emotions through out it. She also shows how ones life can effect dozens of other peoples. 

     Something that makes this book so great is that while reading the book you can picture it all happening. It feels like a movie while reading. The emotions and feeling of every character is clearly stated. The father is a big part in the book he's was closest the Susie and hangs on to whatever left he has of her.

     This book is FILLED with irony and suspense! MR. HARVEY killed Susie and then Susies DAD is helping her killer make a trap to kill another girl and he doesn't   even know it! So not only is he helping the killer of his daughter, but he's absolutely clueless.. Eventually he figures it out.

     Reading this book for a second time in book club groups helped me go back and understand some stuff that I didn't get the first time, or stuff I was too lazy or forgot to go back and check out. Working in the book clubs helped me understand and appreciate the characters more too.

Starry Night

   Vincent Van Goghs painting and Anne Sextons poem go together almost perfects. Its seems as if they share a similar understanding of eachother and the theme. In some way they both made their works of art peacfully dark in someway.

   Throught the poem the line "oh starry night this is how i want to die" is repeated   over an over. Its as if the author is not afriad if death sneeks up on her. The repetition  of this line kind of shows tht the writer is ready to die, unafraid to die, and if she had to die she would do it right then and there in tht beautiful starry night.

   If you look at the painting you would see bright yellow blobs (the stars) and elegant blue swirls (wind), but if you kind of look closer you see the darker dreary colors and shadows. There is a cypress tree in the painting and that is mentioned in the poem, "One black-haired tree slips up like a drowned women in the hot sky."

   If you really read the poem you would see that the words that are being used are pretty harsh, but are written in such a way that they seem peaceful and maybe even enjoyable. "The unseen serpent swallows up the stars." The linebreak, commas, and periods being used also adds to the slow pace/peaceful feeling of this poem. "Oh starry night this is how I want to die!" the exclamation mark shows excitment. 

   This text makes me wonder if Anne Sexton is writing this poem in the perspective of Vincent or from her in a depressing time. If se is writing from her own perspective than I wonder if her and Vincent are alike and that is why she chose this painting to write off of.

Perfect

     Isabella Lee -main character- had to attend Group therapy after her little sister walking in on her in "the act". Recently Isabella lost her dad and thats really when the urge to purge came in. This book shows a lot about what teenage girls with eating disprders really go through. It also shows self love and how you should really love yourself no matter what shape and size.

     Page 12 to 17 really just talks about how much Isabella is obsessed with "The most popular girl in school" Ashely Burnum. She also says multiple times how she wishes she could be Ashely. When Ashely and Isabella make contact for the first time was outside of group where Isabella freaks out shortly after.

     Isabella and her mothers relationship isnt the greatest at first. Her mother is constantly crying at the mention of her dead husbands (Jacob) name. Attirst Isabella would make little remarks that would be very insensitive. At night Isabella could hear her mother almost every night crying moaning her fathers name.

     April -Isabellas little sister- at the beginning of the book sort of comes off as not really caring about Isabella. Isabella would try to brib her not to tell her mother secrets, but really she wouldnt care if Isabella was hurting herself or not.

     

Nonfiction reading response

According to the article "The Tianamen Square Protest" by Veronica Majeroi and Merrill Perlman, the biggest pro-democracy in Chinas history was held within the year of 1989. Thousand of prople were killed after peacefully protesting on the streets of China. These were grad students, either shot or mowed down by the armys tanks. 

One of the main people envolved with thos protest was Shao Jiang. Three of Shaos friends were killed during they're  protest. "Shao spent two months in hising before he was arrested by military police". Chinas government would not allow political reforms or greater personal freedom. Shao was forced to face 18 months in prison. The author wants the reader to see really how unfair the rules are in China. Thousands of people were killed because they wanted personal freedoms and poltical reforms.

After reading this article, I have come to understand that Chinas president at the time was probably veryunreasonable. They killed thousands of protested when better procautions could of been held. This article has also made me appreciate the amount of freedom we have here in America. 

Opal

In the book opal by Jenifer Armentrout, Jennifer creates this beautiful, magic relationship between main characters Katie and Daemon. In the first book of this sequel it shows how much Katie and Daemon really cant stand eachother, but now its like they're joined at the hip.

After Katie fids out Darmon and her sister are aliens her life becomes under threats.

    Katies is a very clumsy person. Being she is so clumsy she is always in likfe threating situations. Daemon has the ability to heal people. After Katie being healed so many times she became mutan. She is now half human half alien.

    Daemon is so in love with Katie tht when she got kidnapped for being for her mutation Daemon puts his life at risk jut to save her an get her back. Daemon was also outcasted from his "circle" (alien family) for being in love with a Human.

The Lovely Bones

    In the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, I felt myself resisting a lot because, there are a lot emotions and intense scenes in this book. In the book it gets straight to the explict parts within the first few pages of the book

    On page 12, Mr. Harvey (The old man that lives on her block that eventually rapes and kills Susie) tells Susie, "take off your clothes... I need to check if your a virgin... Your parents will thank me for this". 

    The whole book is mostly based off Susies perspective and Susies thoughts. Susie watching her family mostly but also other people. While Susie is in heaven there is this part that she sees her father telling  her little sister that they found something they believe to belong to Susie. An elbow. Her sister then throws up and you can sort of feel her pain... You can sort of see how they really care for Susie.

John Green TFIOS

The Fault in Our Stars is written off the perspective of Hazels life, a sixteen year old with terminal cancer. Hazel attends a support group to please her mother, this is where she meets Augustus, a cancer survivor. Their relationship grows fast, after seeing that they shared the same understandings.

Even though this book is filled with the love/relationship of Hazel and Augustus there is also tragedy. I felt myself really pulling away at intense parts of the book. For example when we found out the cancer had come back, lets be honest, I think that was an emotional scene for all of us. Or when Hazel pretty bad new... Heart breaking actually about Gus. Its like... you connect with these characters and, when they suffer or die... You kind of too.

I also felt myself pulling away mot only ay intense parts.. But alson at what they would say "regular times".

When Hazel and Gus are having dinner they start screaming and going crazy, but theyre having fun so they dont really cares whos looking. There were people constantly people looking or treating them differently because of their physical apperance, but they didnt care.

All in all the restitance I felt shows that this book can be very intense at time, or very non sholonte, anf just living in the moment kind of. I really enjoyed though how this book wasnt a cliche kind of book really. It was the cold hard truth, and thats what made it very real and intense and made me want to pull away at times.