Week of 11/27/13: Son

Prompt:   What emotions did you feel while you read? 
Pages: 1-185

   Son has quite a lot of heavy topics and themes throughout it's many pages; so as you can imagine, there are a lot of emotions to be felt here.  For me, the most prominent feeling I get from Son (as of right now) is frustration.  Which, from reading the back of the book, you wouldn't expect.  But if you were to actually read the second part of this book, I'm sure you would be feeling the same way. You would feel frustration along with me because Claire (the protagonist here) loses her memory (a deeply annoying and unoriginal plot twist, sorry Lois Lowry.).  This means she *SPOILER ALERT* forgets the whole purpose of her running away from the town/'utopia' she lived in (the same town where The Giver takes place) and basically sets the whole plot of the story back a whole section. Now that may have been a bit dramatic, but it's frustrating when someone who finally decides to be an individual in a society that looks down on the prospect, gets held back from doing that. Can you just imagine my frustration? 

  Another emotion I feel after and during reading Son is awe.  This is the same kind of awe you felt after reading some of the final chapters in The Giver.  The kind where you just cannot believe that a society could do that.  I am in halfway in awe of how a society could conform to that, and halfway in awe of how people would do that.  My awe is neither negative nor positive, just an observant state of awe. This paragraph looks quite a lot smaller than the other, so I'll fill it with unnecessary words, kind of what like happens in Son.  Although I don't mind this book, it is kind of entertaining. 

  Lastly, on a more positive note,  I felt like Claire was very brave to be running away from a society that she doesn't think is right, or right for her.  So I feel inspired.  Is that an emotion?  I think it is.  I am inspired because it seems like Claire is doing the impossible, which always makes a character more interesting, especially because she is a female (duh) and she isn't just crying over the fact that she lost her baby, she is actually doing something, which isn't too common when a female is a protagonist.  So I applaud Lois Lowry for that.  

Week of 11/18/13: Boy Meets Boy

Prompt:  How did the reading make you feel? Why?
Pages read: 0-113

    Boy Meets Boy is an extremely fun, if not realistic book. Which puts me in a good mood, especially after reading the Chocolate War, which was a very dark book.  To sum it up, the main character is a boy who likes other boys and is in high school.  The story revolves around him and his friends, particularly him and his boyfriend (well it's early in their relationship, but there has already been complications).  One of the reasons this book is so fun and enjoyable is the interactions with the different characters, all of them being so different in personality to each other.  Some of my favorite parts are the conflicts between the Infinite Darlene (a drag queen) and  Chuck (who is a somewhat brute with questionable manners, and who used to like Darlene).

     This book made me feel like doing fun things with my friends because David Levithan, the author of this book, goes into vivid detail about Paul's (the main character) adventures with his friend, through the good times and the bad.  Boy Meets Boy also makes me appreciate my friends because it is set in high school, and as you know not everything is a fairy tale in high school.  "Fairy Tale" is actually a good way to describe this book, as it is very fun and kind of a breeze to read, but is also not entirely believable.  Which is a great thing after reading a lot of realistic fiction.

   Lastly, Boy Meets Boy makes me feel like not everything is as serious as it seems.  As an almost teenager, I am subject to be overdramatic about little things, which is not necessary all the time.  This book makes me think about the good things in life and has themes of friendship, life, and family which are all important topics but are portrayed lightly in this book.  Which is quite refreshing.  I have read books by David Levithan before and this, along with the others, is a fun, breezy, light-hearted book.  I have to say I like it a lot.

Week of 11/11/13: The Chocolate War

Prompt: Are the characters realistic (do they seem like they could be read people)? Why or why not?
Pages read: Start-End (I think a little over 260)


   This was a very upsetting book un which teenage boys attending an all make school use psychological warfare to try to do a variety of things.  Most of all, it causes the characters to break down, and has an immense affect on the mental state of the main character and those associated.  So in that case, these characters (which were very interesting, and I have to say this was a very well written book) were not believable.  The fact that one teenager could create an organization within his school and have that organization (the Vigils) terrorize students, and even scare administrators off, is not altogether believable.  But it certainly makes for a great story.

  However, I do believe someone could be evil enough to *SPOILER ALERT* try and kill off a classmate, or anyone who you've known for a while.  One argument I always have a say in is if people can be born inherently evil.  My opinion on this is that no one is born evil, just more clever and cunning than the rest.  Archie from the Chocolate War I think proved my point.  Archie is described as extremely clever and creative, which helps him do all the things he does in the book.  A favorite quote of mine from the TV show Sherlock when Moriarty (an evil genius) says "I am not normal", which describes Archie very well.  So in this case, the characters are believable.

  One final point I have about the characters being realistic or not is about the background characters.  The supporting characters, because I thought the main characters persona was believable.  An unfortunate character, who's name I can't remember, was very sensitive to what was happening, and behaved in the way I think people in real life would in that situation. Most times, I felt bad for him.  The teachers were absent during the book, so that was nice and I thought is was believable that they would stay out of the situation to avoid getting hurt, or avoid their reputation getting ruined.  The only teacher that was not absent was Brother Leon, one of the creepiest characters I have read about in a while.  Although he was a fantastic character, personally I thought he was cruel (in a very cool way) and I was wondering how he got away with it.  So his persona was a bit unbelievable to me.

That's all the characters I had a strong opinion on.  If you planning on reading this book, I warn you.  This book was quite upsetting.  But if you're like me and  love reading books with unhappy endings and evil characters, this is one of the coolest books you'll ever read.

Will Grayson Will Grayson Week of 4/11/13 *Spoiler Alert*

Prompt: Who are the characters? Describe who they are, what they look like and how

they are connected.

Pages read:  Start-End (about 300 pages)

There are two main characters in this book, Will Grayson and Will Grayson, as the title suggests.  I'll start with my favorite of the two, the one that "wrote" in the capital letters.   He is the less emotional, I guess more relaxed, Will Grayson.  He goes to public high school and has probably 2 friends, Tiny Cooper (who he feels is using him until the end of the book) and Jane (who he ends up dating).  This Will Grayson has a motto for life: Shut up and don't care (which is actually one of my motto's, it was funny to find a fictional character who thinks like that too) and he enforces it in his life, hence me saying the less emotional Will.  This Will Grayson is described by his flamboyant friend Tiny as "cute and too skinny" . He is portrayed in Tiny's musical wearing baggy clothes, old jeans, and normal stuff for straight teenage boys.  To elaborate on this description, he is almost the exact opposite of his friend Tiny, who is flamboyant, intensely emotional, and over 300 pounds.  

The other Will Grayson (who writes in the lower case letters) has a bit more emotion.  He is going through depression and lives with his mother.  He also attends public high school where his only "friend" is Maura, who later is demoted to "enemy" status.  Now both Will Grayson's go through something semi-life changing, but this Will Grayson's was the most dramatic.  In the end, he learns how to be closer to people and how to build relationships with them.  Physically, he has dark hair (or I think he does from his moody demeanor) and is skinny.  He is gay, but not the stereotypical flamboyant kind you would think.  Like the other Will, he isn't in touch with his emotions as much as other people, so he naturally is more relaxed about things.  

Tiny, Jane, and Maura are the secondary character's, but they play a big role in this book.  A subplot in this story is Tiny's musical, which gives meaning to the story.  His musical kind of helps both Will Grayson's through their trouble and sheds light on their problems.  Tiny is one of the Will's big, fat, stereotypically gay friend.  Maura is a goth girl who writes poetry in her "blood".  Jane is a normal teenage, who has a very cool taste in music for which she is very proud of.   All of these character's are believable and interesting, and so I thought this was a good book.