The Hunger Games: Free: E.C.

While reading The Hunger Games I felt many different emotions. I felt excitement, fear, and joy, just to name a few. The book itself was very exciting, obviously, because it is about children between the ages of twelve and eighteen killing each other for food. During the reading process, though, it did not seem like that sort of book. It was as if I was just reading another action/adventure/romance type book. The excitement was not dulled down by this quality though. In a few parts of the book I felt fear. Fear that Katniss would get caught and that Peeta would not make it. I felt fearful for Gale when he had to watch Katniss battle and when he had to watch her pretend to love someone else. Katniss was good, yes, but that does not mean that she was the best in the Games. She did end up winning, but most of the time she spent during the Games she was hiding. When she found Peeta and his leg was so infected, I thought for sure he was dead. I remember thinking, “I was just starting to like him and now he’s going to die???” I was scared that he would die and the plot would not go the way I expected it to. I also put myself in Gale’s shoes. To like a girl and to have to watch her love someone else must have been an ordeal. I was fearful that he would hate her and then Katniss would be all alone when the Capitol came after her. I was joyful when both Peeta and Katniss made it out of the Games. I thought for sure the book was over when they were both going to swallow the berries and that the second book would be about different people, but they made it through. I would encourage everyone to read The Hunger Games and see which emotions the text stirs up within them.

Suicide Free Write

In Thirteen Reasons Why, Hannah Baker killed herself. I have never known anyone who has killed themselves, but reading this novel makes me feel like I do. It also makes me think of myself and how others see me. She looks ok on the outside, but on the inside she is torn up. She goes through drastic changes emotionally and physically, but no one can see that she is going to kill herself until after she does it. I have never thought of suicide before, but I have gone though moments like this. Like now, for example. I look fine on the outside and I seem happy and composed, but during the last few weeks of every semester I start to freak out inside my head. I change myself physically, a sign of suicide according to 13 Reasons Why, but that’s not why I do it. I need a change every once in a while, so I show it on the outside. It is easier to change one’s physical appearance than one’s mental functions. During the last few weeks I also change socially. I will start getting edgy with people and start showing signs of withdrawal, another sign of suicidal thoughts. I could never be suicidal though. I know I would hurt too many people is the thing. If a person were to kill themselves, they would usually be afraid of how much pain they would go through. For me, I would be afraid of the people I had left behind and how bad they were hurting.

The Lovely Bones: Free Response: E.C.

In The Lovely Bones, there were so many emotions going on inside me that it was hard to decipher what I felt about the book. When Susie was in the hole with Mr. Harvey and her parents were looking for her, I felt panicked that they would not find her, even though I already knew she was going to die. I wanted her parents to find out who killed her or find her body or something. Yes, they found her books and her bracelet, but that is not evidence enough to say that the neighbor murdered her.

Another scene that really hit home was when her mom started acting different and then just left. Psychologically, that was a punch in the face. To “watch” her mother leave her family when they needed her most, and that she did not even seem to care that her daughter was dead, was heartbreaking. I actually got teary-eyed when this happened and she started sleeping with Len. When she came back from California, though, to see her husband in the hospital was heartwarming. It showed that she never really forgot about Susie and that she always loved her family.

The text stirred up many emotions in me because from one chapter to the next, no, one page to the next, there was a different emotion going on. So many people were feeling such different things that it was hard to know when to feel happy or sad. I got teary-eyed through happy parts and laughed off the tears through sad sections. In the end, it was happy though and I was very satisfied with this book.

The Lovely Bones: Guided: E.C.

Many changes went on in The Lovely Bones. Susie Salmon, dies, and quite gruesomely if I do say so myself. She is dead by page ten and we already know who has done the deed by page five. Now, to go from living to dead may sound like a huge, major, gargantuan change. It really was not for Susie. When Susie died, she “ghosted” away, just like a kite. As she was leaving our world and moving on to the other side, she touched someone. She touched Ruth Connors. Ruth had always been different, but now she was seeing Susie in her dreams and thinking about her constantly. Susie can see Ruth and watches her write poems about her and draw her. This is not all Susie can see. She watches her crush, Ray Singh, as he grieves her and goes through the process of answering the police. Susie watches all of this, like a movie, from her place among the dead. She meets a girl named Holly. They have similar Heavens because they both wanted to make it to High School, so that’s what their Heaven is. During the entire book, Susie watches her family change and move through life. No one ever forgets her or lets her go. For several years they do not touch her room or celebrate her. Her mom leaves and her dad has a heart attack. She watches all these things change right before her eyes, but can do nothing. Until one day when Ruth and Ray are at an old shack and Ruth has an experience. Ruth changes internally. She becomes Susie and Susie and Ray get to spend one last day together. This entire book was one character changing after another, so there was no specific change to share.

The Hunger Games: Guided Response: E.C.

Katniss is the main character of the Hunger Games. She is strong in many ways including, but not limited to; her mind, her body, and her will. She was not the one chosen to participate in the Hunger Games. Her little sister, Prim was the one who was chosen to be slaughtered on the battle field. Prim and Katniss are very close and Katniss would do anything to protect her. As the story goes on, we see more of Katniss’s protectiveness over others. She is worthy of praise because of this attribute.

During the Hunger Games, Katniss meets Rue, a young girl from District 4. Rue reminds Katniss of her little sister, Prim, so Katniss helps Rue. When Rue dies, Katniss decorates her body with flowers to show that she is not “another piece in [the Capitol’s] games”. Katniss decorating Rue showed courage. It showed that she is not afraid of the Capitol and she surviving the Games shows that she is very strong and worthy of praise.

Katniss also has a “lover” in the Hunger Games. Peeta, the baker’s son, professes his love for her at the opening ceremonies during an interview. Katniss does not know how Peeta really feels. She thinks it is all a game, but goes along with it. The more they are together, the more gifts they had gotten from Haymitch, their mentor. As the Games end, Katniss saves Peeta’s life by killing the last player before Peeta could bleed to death. This was a very heroic move on her part.

week 12, After

Amy Efaw, the author of After, chose the title for After for many reasons. One is because the book is set after Devon Davenport’s pregnancy. After her pregnancy, she has thrown a baby in a dumpster and realizes the effects of her actions. Her actions have led her to jail and a court date. During her time in jail, which takes place after the police find the baby in the dumpster but before the court date, Devon thinks of everything she has done and how her life could have been different if she had not met Connor, the baby’s father.

This book is also called after because of the way Devon thinks. She is thinking of her consequences after the baby was born. What would things have been like if she had known about her pregnancy? Would she have kept the baby still? She has all these thoughts going through her head that it is hard to think straight. As she sits in jail and thinks about That Night, things start to connect. She sees that she could have known that she was pregnant, but she may not have wanted to see it. She does realize that something was wrong with her, but she did not know until That Night. These consequences are one of the reasons the novel is called After, too.

I have chosen to read “After” for my second half of this semester. It was very hard for me to get into reading this novel. I went from reading “The Hunger Games” (great book by the way) to reading this. They are two totally different novels. “The Hunger Games” is written in first person and you know what the main character is thinking all the time. In “After”, we, as readers, do not know what Devon, the main character, is thinking until she says it. We do know her actions, though, and sometimes those give things away.

This book has affected me in ways that I would expect. I tend to “leech” to characters in the books I am reading. In this book, Devon is going through a mental struggle dealing with what she has done in the past and I feel like her pain is real, in a way. When I read I usually am about to go to sleep and that usually does not affect my sleeping patterns, but with this book I wake up more when I’m reading it. I think my mind starts working more and it makes me restless.

Why this book affects me like it does, I have no idea. All I can guess is that I have a very large imagination and I can pull characters out of books to make them real. Within this parameter, I can also conjure up any image the book gives.

I’ll have to close saying that I hope this book gets a little more interesting. My mind is usually used to jumping around from one thing to another and this book does do that, but in the most annoying way.

Micah changed...more than we expected

Right now I do not like this book. At first it was a great novel, but I did not expect to be reading a fantasy novel. I liked her before she was a “werewolf”. Now she is just another fictional character that has been badly put together. I personally think she is lying about this too. She has lied to us before and there is not way she can ACTUALLY be a werewolf. I don’t know, it is just so annoying to have a book change genres on you midway through. Does anyone agree?

Now to get to the actual assignment. Ha ha. Micah went from being a liar to a werewolf in the middle of our novel. I think this change has affected her life a lot since she was younger. I mean, imagine being locked in a cage for three days! I cannot go one day without a shower, so I feel for her when she said she felt gross when she got out. When she changes in the summer she mentions she likes it, but misses Zach. If she misses Zach so much, then why wouldn’t she tell him about it? I think she did. I do also stick to my theory that she killed him. She does mention that another werewolf killed him, but how would she know that unless she was there? I think this change (a very physical one) puts too much stress on her and when she lies she feels so much more comfortable.

Week 5

First I would like to start out by saying that this reading assignment is not like most. This assignment is very fun and relaxed. The last book I read for school, or was supposed to read, was A Tale of Two Cities. I refused to read any books throughout high school that a teacher passed out, not because it was boring, but because the teacher would rip the story apart word by word. It pained me to read something and then hate it just because every time I saw it after that class I would think of what the symbolism meant or the satire in it. This reading assignment I am actually enjoying. I can relate to the character because she is in high school and doesn’t fit in, like I didn’t (and still don’t, but never will). This is a novel rather than classic literature too. I would rather read a newer book than something from the 1900s. As I wrote in my first blog, I like to read mystery books; which this one is, and I like to read something interesting. I do understand that interesting is different to each person, but to me, interesting is the unknown and the known clashing. What we know is that Micah is a liar, but we do not know what she is lying about. We know that Zach is dead, but who killed him and how he died is a mystery. I cannot wait until we find everything out, but I want it to keep my turning the page to the very end.

Week 4, Liar

The title of the book Liar by Justine Larbalestier was significant because Micah, the main character in the story, is a compulsive liar from the start. She is trying to quit lying, but she cannot seem to shake the habit. I feel bad for Micah because she cannot stop lying. It’s like she needs to lie to make her life better. I think it’s too early to criticize or praise her; therefore, I am indifferent. I do know that at the end of this book I will still show sympathy for her because that’s how I treat all my book characters. There is one point in the book where I feel like I was “stabbed” by the book. That was when they were in the counseling circle and someone mentioned that Micah was not Zach’s girlfriend, but Sarah was. That’s when I stopped trusting the book and started trying to guess the lies before the truth was revealed. Because the main character lies, I do not know if what she says about other characters is true or not.

I think that the big shock in the middle of the book is that Micah murdered Zach (I have not read ahead yet, so please do not ruin it by telling me if I’m right or wrong). Not only because she hated him, but I think she wanted him to love only her and he would not so she murders him.

Week 3, How I Read

Hello, fellow bloggers! Who really likes to read? I don’t think I have ever met anyone who likes reading as an assignment. I know I don’t. But in my leisurely time, I read any novel that looks appealing to me. When I go to the bookstore or the library I always head straight to the fiction section. I hate to read for school, but reading for leisure is one of my favorite hobbies. I’ve read any book from mystery to suspense to romance. A few of my very favorite books are Love Walked In, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, and, the most recent, The Lovely Bones. As you can see, each book is different. Love Walked In is, obviously, a love story. The Girl Who Stopped Swimming is a mystery book with a bit of suspenseful twist at the end. The Lovely Bones is, as I assume everyone has seen in the commercial, a murder tale.

I usually read either before bed or at work when I’m waiting for members to show up. When I read, it’s not as fast as some may read, but if I’m interested enough, than the reading usually goes quite quickly. I have a book that I’m looking forward to reading called Eat, Pray, Love. It’s about a girl who is trying to heal herself emotionally. It is written by a Christian author, which is why I was shocked when my mom came to me saying that it was very inspirational and that she loved it (my mom not being as spiritual in the way she acts).

Until next time :)