Everybody always has there own opinion on a person, place, or thing. Terrell Owens perception is not always on the good side. Plenty of people have heard about T.O in the news for his antics and his constant trouble with his football teams. In this book “T.O” you see what Terrell Owens life was like when he was a child living in Alexander City, Alabama, what his life was like living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he explains what really happens behind the scenes with him and the Philadelphia Eagles during the 04-06 seasons. One of the problems Terrell Owens speaks about that he encountered during these seasons was the huge "dislike" of quarterback Donovan Mcnabb. What you herd on television about the dislike between T.O and Donovan Mcnabb was completely untrue. Terrell says that there never was dislike between the two and that the media just blew it completely out of proportion. The only thing T.O says he felt about Mcnabb was that he was not throwing him the ball as much as he should be and the media made it seem worse than what it was. This book "T.O" is extremely interesting and will keep you reading until the end. As you read this book not only do you find out what Terrell Owens is really like, but it will reveal the truth about what really happened with him and the Philadelphia Eagles during the 04-06 seasons. I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend that anybody who is interested in finding out about Terrell Owens and the truth behind the Eagles and him should read it too.
The Giver By:Lois Lowry Jonas is an eleven year old boy in his controlled community. His community is in a futuristic time of no pain. There is no poverty, hunger or crime. However there is no individualism or strong feelings as well. Everyone is the same with similar looks; except for Jonas. Jonas is brighter than the rest of his peers; he also has the ability to see things differently as well. He cannot explain the things at first except that they change. He also realizes he is different in that he has pale eyes while other people all have brown. Coming up on his twelfth year of age in December, the same time all the rest of the children in his community turn twelve, he is excited about the job he will be assigned. In his community people are assigned careers based on their interest. They are even assigned husbands wives and placed with children to raise as well. However, in the ceremony Jonas has been given the honorable assignment of a receiver. His job is to receive the memories of previous times that others in his community know nothing about. He has the ability to experience pleasurable times he knew nothing of, but he also must bear the experience of horrible things like war. Knowing as much as he does and not being able to tell others is important for Jonas. If he were to do so the complete operation of his community would be destroyed. Nevertheless Jonas finds out that his infant brother is about to be released (which many do not know means killed) he will not stand for it. He decides to take his brother and runaway from his community to elsewhere. Elsewhere is unknown to him but he is desperate to save the baby’s life. He runs away and faces hiding from search planes and almost freezing until the two get to a sled and ride it downhill. While experiencing an exhilarating ride the two begin to hear sounds and lights suggesting Christmas. Jonas begins to feel comforted that he has made the right choice and that there is someone waiting for them. I truly enjoyed this book. I feel that the ending had something to do with Jonas finding a place he will enjoy better. By the description of the felling he got from elsewhere, Jonas seems to have found a better environment for him and the child. Matthew Morris A-r-2
This is a tale of two friends who put their friendship on the line for money. Marcus and Eddie have always been the best of friends. They got the nickname of ‘Black and White” because Eddie is white and Marcus is black. They live in Long Island, NY and live in the Ravenswood Houses which are like the projects. They go to Long Island City High School where they play football and what they do best, basketball. They are untouchable and no one can stop them. Both of them are being scouted by many colleges who are begging for them to come together. Eddie and Marcus are seniors so they need money to pay their dues for prom, trips, and graduation. They saved all their money, and then some new shoes came out and everyone on the basketball team bought them. So, they got them too and were soon out of money. The both of them were brainstorming and couldn’t think of any quick way to get money. Eddie brought up the fact that his dad has a gun. After a long discussion, they decided to do stickups but not hurt anyone. All they wanted was enough money to get their high school dues paid. They completed two stickups and they went by very smoothly until the last one. They shot the person! Both of them ran as fast as they could. Things went by smooth for a couple of weeks and they had not heard anything about a robbery or a shooting. Then, one day they arrested Marcus for an armed robbery. Eddie didn’t know what to do. They came to his home and asked many questions because they knew that he was best friends with him. Marcus got out on bail and continued to go to school and got a lawyer. One day, the cops came to Eddie’s house and arrested him for the same charges. They continued to play basketball. Eddie kept denying that he did it. After a while, Marcus told Eddie that he was taking the plea which would mean that he would face eighteen months in jail. Eddie said that it was ridiculous and that he was not confessing anything. Eddie signed with Saint Johns College shortly afterwards and told them the charges would be dropped soon and that he would be able to play in the fall. Marcus was mad at Eddie because it seemed like he was the only one paying for their mistakes. They eventually forgave each other and continued to be friends. The day before Marcus was sent off, they played one-on-one basketball. Eddie said he was still not admitting to it and Marcus was still a little mad, but accepted it. He wanted to pay for his debts and maybe one day play for a small school after he gets out. Marcus is sent off and Eddie is now living with a guilty conscience and will never pay for his actions.
Some teens have various opinions to which who are their ideal role model. For myself, Tony Dungy fits well for my qualifications for an inspiring role model. After reading, “Quiet Strength,” I’ve been striving to be a better person for my community, school, and household. It goes in various places from Pennsylvania, Tampa, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis. With hard work he has won Super Bowl championships as a player as well as a Coach. In 1978 as a safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers he won the Super Bowl. Also in 2006 as the head coach for the Indianapolis Colts. But all of this success was not easy. There were countless bumps in the road for his path of glory. In December of 2005 his son, James Dungy, committed suicide in Tamp, Florida. This horrific news took a toll on Tony, but he states in his book that he could not have prevailed through without God. Tony Dungy is a definite religious Christian and has a religious tone is his book. But Dungy gets his point across without being preachy. Tony Dungy's life was shaped by his parents and he passed along those great gifts to his children, players and friends.
The Diving Bell and The Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
On December 8, 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, a well-known journalist and editor of the French magazine ELLE, suffered a massive stroke that forever changed his physical being and mental outlook. After weeks of lying comatose in a hospital bed, he awoke to a state of paralysis, know as Locked-In Syndrome, which rendered his body nearly useless except for the ability to blink his left eye and slightly turn his head. His only way of communicating was by someone reading off a series of letters in order from most commonly used, to least, and him blink when the desired letter is called. This process was repeated until words and sentences were formed and his thought or feeling was conveyed.
The book is quite simply his thoughts and feelings about the state of his body and how, mentally, he had to come to terms with and embrace the permanence of his condition. Within the short chapters, he expresses how he set his mind free to wander like a butterfly, while physically his body was trapped inside an invisible diving bell. He describes visits to far away lands, the preparation of his most favored delicacies and imagines all of the sensations that would accompany these wondrous mental ventures.
Bauby truly showed the extreme potential of human spirit and willingness to keep going. He did, however, have his down times. For instance, it really struck him that he would never again hold his children or play with them or talk to his mother and father over the phone, except with an interpreter. Often, he sat in bed looking out the window deep in thought and shed a silent tear.
After two years of living what life he could, Jean-Dominique Bauby passed away from pneumonia at Berck-sur-Mer in Northern France, just two days after his book was published. In his passing though, he gave a true representation of what it is to be free in mind and spirit.
I read a book called We Beat the Street. It was the best nonfiction book I have read and the third best overall book I read. In this story three men describe their childhood in Newark and show the obstacles they overcame to become what they are today. The title headline explains it all "How a friendship pact led to success". In this story these men had went through trials such as drug dealing and kids who liked to just hit a person because he had a different skin color. Dr. Rameck Hunt describes how in his life he had stabbed a crack head in the leg. To his luck the crack head never showed up in court. These men also overcame obstacles such as gangs trying to get them to drug deal or beat up a group of kids. They were in a beat up town in New Jersey called Newark that wasn't an excellent influence if a positive influence at all. This story shows how passion and friendship towards something can actually conclude in a wonderful result. These men went through school, had a hard time doing school and life, and ended up becoming doctors. These three overcame the street and "beat it up". Practically everyone but I can not say everyone exactly has heard the expression "If you set your mind to it then you can achieve it" and it takes no meaning to heart. If someone were to read this story and passionately try to understand what the authors are trying to explain in this autobiography then people can really understand what the true meaning of that expression is. This story is an excellent motivator towards your dreams and it actually acts as a support. Through this story tons of conflicts had occurred in these young men's lives but there is one that really caught my attention. Sampson Davis had to fit school and work into his daily life. He had to work to help his mother, sister, and him food in their belly. He actually made his family proud because he strived through it all and accomplished his goal. He was accepted into Pre Medical School and his grandmother and mother had told him to make them proud because they knew he always would. In the end he became a doctor and made his family proud beyond belief. He strived for a goal and he had beaten every obstacle in his way. He went through tough times just like the rest of the people on this planet but he was determined and set. Also, Rameck Hunt had trials of his own. He didn't just have mental trials but also trials in court. This boy had kept getting into trouble but luckily he had people who decided not to press charges. This boy had began to slack and started to lose focus but with the motivation of his teacher in Pre Medical School he eventually got back on track and now today he is a successful and hard working doctor. George Jenkins also had overcome obstacles such as drugs and destroying little kid's self-esteem. He had gone through a life lived in a town where he could do nothing but try and fit in. It was either fight or die. This boy chose to stick with school and eventually learn to be a dentist. He saw his dentist one day and was just motivated to become one. Today he is successful with is friends Dr. Sampson Davis and Dr. Rameck Hunt. All three men resolved their conflicts and are successful. They overcame obstacles and showed the true meaning to "If you set your mind to it then you can achieve it". Through this story people imagine beat up corners and people sitting there smoking or in exposed clothing waiting for a man to pull out a bill and give them what they want most. They also picture murder, rape, hippies, aggressive dogs, and such. These three men overcame these habitats and neighborhood to become doctors today. They also had trouble in school at some points in their lives. They would all take a test and maybe one of them wouldn't pass it the first time but then the second time pass it with flying colors. This friendship pact led to success and beyond. These men didn't just become doctors. They became wonderful doctors. This book was one of the greatest books ever written I believe. These three men are motivators and this book will affect lives of others. It is like the wave at a football game. One person starts doing it, then a couple people start waving, and then it eventually starts going around the whole stadium. This book may eventually change the way of the world and is a great impact. Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt overcame obstacles and are now a role model in my life. This book is awesome! If anyone hasn't read it then they should read it. If you have read it then study it and strive for your own goals.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a quick read and/or like blackjack in Vegas. It definitely hooks you from the start. This thriller fully explains the system of counting cards and how to profit from it.
The book is about Kevin Lewis, whose double life starts in the summer after his junior year at MIT. He gets invited to join a MIT Blackjack team operated by Mickey Rosa, a former assistant professor. Funded by unknown investors Kevin and his team spends the next six years take trips to large casinos around the country under fake names and IDs with loads of hidden cash, usually hidden under their clothing, bringing in a respectable return from their card counting system. The team experiences strippers, VIP suites, were relaxing with celebrities, front row seats to sold out events and much more. Kevin’s arrogance causes him to get in argument with the team leader and split, to make his own team. It’s all gravy until they get caught and take Kevin to the back room and give him a little talking to.
Many football players, such as myself, enjoy the feeling and anticipation before a football game. In the book, Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger took this real life scenarios of football players and transformed it into a "National Bestseller". When somebody says the words Friday Night Lights, you think of a football field with those big bright lights shining down. You think of the big plays thats going to happen under those lights. The adrenaline rushing through your body. The plebian of Odessa lives for football, and bringing home the championship. In Odessa, Texas, this is what young children dreamed of, being the next big Boobie Miles. Boobie Miles is the star of the Permian High, Panthers. Boobie encountered many various trials throughout his life, including breaking his right ankle. This brings many hardships and tribulations, since football is all that he has. Mike Winchell, another star of the Panthers, carries a lot of heavy thoughts constantly pondering through his mind. His mother is a extremely sickly woman who is steady pushing Mike to be the best of the best.Mike has to overcome this anxiety and stay focus. Not only is his mother counting on him, but all of Odessa. Overall, I enjoyed this book because not only is it true stories of people, but you can really compare it to football players whose lives depend on that college scout coming out to see you. This book is interesting, and this is coming from a person who is not much of a reader. I strongly recommend this book if you love to read. Friday Night Lights shows that if you want something you have to fight for it!
Born in a Hungarian ghetto, Elie was sent as a teen/child to the Nazi death camps. Many rumors fly around the small village of Transylvania where Elie lives. Then one day, out of nowhere, German soldiers arrive. In a matter of weeks the Germans had taken over the small town. People were restricted in where they could go and were forced into smaller and smaller areas of land. Elie watched as his friends and relatives were taken away, "deported" to a secret location. Then one day they came for him. Elie and his family were forced from their home, all possessions stripped from them. They were completely at the hands of the Germans. When Eliezer and his family and others was forced out of their homes and was "deported" they were all actually sent to ride a train to Birkenau, the reception center for Auschwitz with 80 other Jews and man it was a crowded car. When they were ordered to come off the train the men and women are separated, and Eliezer sees his mother and sisters vanishing in the distance. He holds onto his father and is determined not to lose him. A fellow prisoner tells Eliezer to say that he is eighteen (though he is really fifteen) and that his father is forty (though he is fifty). The prisoners who have been at Auschwitz for awhile are brutal and cruel to the new arrivals, and one of them tells them about the crematory. Some of the young men talk about revolting but are silenced by their elders. Then, everyone is forced to march past SS officer Dr. Mengele, who uses a baton to pick out who will remain alive and who will go to the crematory. Eliezer tells him that he is eighteen and a farmer. Eliezer and his father are placed in the same group, which they are informed is the one destined for the crematory. Eliezer watches in horror as a truck full of children drives up to a giant, fiery ditch and the children are put into the flames. At the barracks, veteran prisoners began to beat the new arrivals and told them to get undressed. The new prisoners threw their clothes into a huge pile. SS officers selected strong men who were taken to work in the crematories. The new arrivals were then taken to the barber, where all their body hair was shaved off. People began to greet friends and relatives and were filled with joy to see the people who were still alive. Eliezer tells a friend not to waste his energy crying, and he feels his fear vanishing and being replaced by "an inhuman weariness." Everyone feels numb and without any sort of emotion, and Eliezer describes them as "damned souls wandering the half-world." At five in the morning, the prisoners are then made to run naked to a different barracks where they are doused in petrol and hot water as disinfectant and then given clothes. At this point the prisoners have ceased to be men. Eliezer feels that the person he was has been destroyed and cannot believe that he has only been at the camp for a single night. When somebody stole two bowls of soup at dinner a small young child is accused but doesn't say anything when he is hanged in front of all the prisoners. Winter arrives, and it is bitterly cold. Eliezer's foot begins to swell because of the cold, and he has to get an operation to prevent it from being amputated. The hospital is much more bearable since there is no work and better food. His bedside neighbor, a Hungarian Jew, warns him that all the invalids will be killed with the next selection and that he should try to leave the hospital right away. Eliezer does not know whether to believe him or to suspect that he just wants Eliezer's hospital bed. After he awakes from his operation, Eliezer worries that his leg has been amputated but is afraid to ask the doctor. The doctor tells him to trust him and that he will soon be walking in a fortnight. Two days after his operation, Eliezer hears that the front is advancing to Buna, and that very day the camp is ordered evacuated. Hospital occupants will not be evacuated, however, and Eliezer worries that all invalids will be exterminated. He runs to meet his father outside, and his right foot leaves bloody marks in the snow. After some deliberation, Eliezer and his father decide to leave the hospital and be evacuated with the rest of the prisoners. Later Eliezer learns that the hospital occupants were liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation. On the last day of the journey, there is a bitter wind, and everyone gets up in order to try to keep warm. All the prisoners begin imitating the death cry of a fellow prisoner, and Meir Katz wonders out loud why the SS guards don't just shoot them all right away. Finally, they reach the camp, and only twelve people (of the original hundred) have the strength to leave the wagon. The others, including Meir Katz, remain on the train to die. They are at Buchenwald. Eliezer's father has dysentery and is becoming increasingly weak in his bunk. In a delirious fever, he tells Eliezer where he buried the gold and money. Eliezer manages to bring his father to see a doctor, but the doctor refuses to look at him. Another doctor comes into the block, but Eliezer's father refuses to get up again. This doctor shouts at the sick, calling them lazy, and Eliezer feels like killing him but is too weak. When Eliezer returns from getting bread, his father tells him that his bunkmates have been hitting him. Eliezer promises them extra bread and soup, but they simply laugh at him and then angrily tell him that his father is upsetting them because he can no longer go outside to relieve himself. The next day his father tells Eliezer that his neighbors stole his bread and hit him again. He begs piteously for water, and even though Eliezer knows it is bad for him, he gives him some. Soon in time Eliezer's father will die from being brutally beaten on the skull with a truncheon. This action shatters his skull and now has little time left to spend with his son Eliezer remains at Buchenwald until April 11. After his father's death, Eliezer became indifferent and emotionless, concerned only with eating. He is then transferred to the children's block. Soon came the American rank and forces the SS officers to leave. All the prisoners were free but all they could think about is food, clothes, and sex but none of them thought of revenge. Eliezer survives throughout everything but has no one. In this memoir, Elie explains the tragic incident that happened to over 6 million Jews during WW2.
Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis Warren Ellis is a world famous graphic novelist but, he journeys into the pictureless realm of fictional novels while writing “Crooked Little Vein”. Ellis tells this story in his usual dark but, charming way of storytelling. The book is an exploration into America’s sick and twisted underbelly. The slightly disturbing truth about this book is everything in it is inspired by real life trends and fetishes. Mike McGill is a simple, poor private investigator. He is a lonely man who either does not have the means for personal hygiene or simply he just does not care. He lives in his disgusting office with a mutant rat that is impermeable to all of Mike’s traps to kill him. The book, in fact, starts off with the rat urinating in his coffee. When Mike was the lowest on his luck he is surprised with a case from an unusual social figure, the Presidential Chief of Staff. The man pays him five hundred thousand dollars to track down a missing book that has been used as barter between prominent perverts in government and general society. The book has much political use, because it is magical. The book was written by Ben Franklin to be used as the “Second Constitution”, a secret constitution. This would be used when America’s culture had been so degraded that a magical book, bound by an anal-probing aliens skin and meteor fragments, could bring the citizens of America back to morals and take away all free will to do anything deemed immoral by the Christian Church. In one of Mike’s adventures at a MHP meeting, he meets a polyamorous Goth girl named, Trix. He immediately falls in love with her and comes up with a reason for her to follow him around as an assistant in finding the book. This works out great because not only does she know more about the disgusting fetishes of America but she also has relations with very important people. They set off from city to city looking for leads on this cursed book. In their excursion they meet crooked politicians, a Heroin-Addicted Chief of Staff, Godzilla enthusiasts, ostrich lovers, drug dealers, hermaphrodite prostitutes, mutilation crazed gay men and let us not for get the loveable necrophiles. This array of perverts lends to the comedy relief of the story but, the reader must have an open mind and no soul, in order to laugh. Finally Mike shows his true character, as if he has been hiding it, and tricks all the hierarchy of Los Angeles and the Presidential Chief of Staff. He sets everyone up while reaping all the rewards. He basically traps the men in an office building where an extremely illegal party is taking place, while police are fast approaching to seemingly catch the whole lot in an unexplainable situation. Mike then rides away with all the money he could ever want and the girl of his dreams. However his reputation of being “The Sh*t Magnet”, is again illustrated as Trix and he move into a flat together. The flat that they end up buying has been placed on the market due to the death of the previous owner. He was a dog trainer that had been beat to death with a corpse of a Chihuahua. After they move in a group of necrophiles break in to retrieve the bodies that they have stored in the walls. This concludes the most bizarre book I have ever indulged in. This book was an amazing piece of rambling art. Warren Ellis knows how to get a reader addicted to a book. The only way I can explain the uniqueness of the book is by comparing it to one of those creepy people you see walking around with green hair, a billion piercings, and tattoos that completely engulf their epidermis. These people are obviously deranged but you are still intrigued by the eccentricity of them. This book is like analyzing the synthetic deformations of a street dweller’s body. This shows how sick this book is and how interesting it is.
TERRA-COTTA SOLDIERS ARMY OF STONE Written By: Arlan Dean
You peer into the large hole in the ground at the life-sized statues. You think about Emperor Qin Shi Haungdi, who ruled China thousands of years ago. These statues are statues of the Ch'in army. The army that Emperor Qin Shi Haungdi used to rule China for many years.
Thousands of years B.C. Emperor Qin Shi Haungdi ruled the lands of China. He was the person who combined many states into one united China. Although the Emperor accomplished many tasks during his ruling, he was a hated man. He destroyed all books that did not follow his rules. He killed and enslaved all people who did not agree with him. Many of his people disagreed with his evil ways. Therefore most of Qin Shi Haungdi's army/workers were people who disagreed with him. But they were afraid to argue knowing that the end result would be death.
His men worked on an underground tomb for the Emperor for over 30 years. In this book Arlan Dean goes into great detail describing how the tomb was created. The architectural structure of this amazing tomb was state of the art back in Qin Shi Haungdi’s time. This tomb was filled with Terra-Cotta solders (Soldiers made from clay) which were said to protect the Emperor in his afterlife. There were thousands of these ancient soldiers buried with him.
I thought that this book was wonderful. I would recommend this book to everyone, because it draws you in like a hunter catching its prey until you don’t
The book is about Slavomir and his walk from a Siberian slave camp to India Our heroes (8 of them) walk through Siberia into the Gobi desert; over the Himilayas and finally into India. The story is amazing especially considering its non fiction. It has you on the edge of your seet wondering whats going to happen next. The group meets Happiness, tregedy and hardship and through they develope a very strong bond between eachother.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
The seventh Harry Potter book raps up the series perfectly. After Dumbledore’s death I did not know how Harry would deal with life, not having a strong and skilled crutch. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are sent in search of Horcruxes (evil items made by Voldemort to extend his life) by Dumbledore before he dies. With every Horcrux destroyed Voldemort (the evil wizard) becomes weaker. While Harry, Ron, and Hermione search for Voldemort’s Horcruxes they find out about the life of their old headmaster Dumbledore. The Ministry of Magic (the government of the wizarding world) is taken over by Voldemort and his gang if death eaters (evil wizards). Harry’s strategy becomes more complex when he learn of the Ministry take over, for the ministry monitors transportation systems like the Floo network and side by side apperation. The Ministry also runs the wizarding school Hogwarts, therefore Harry can not return for his seventh and final year. Also, the Ministry puts out a bounty on Harry’s head. The bounty is worth enough for someone to lavishly live out their days. In Harry’s wanted posters he is labeled “Undesirable Number One”. One of the Horcruxes ends up being in the Ministry of Magic building, which is state of the art with a bathroom entrance off of a normal side street. Employees actually travel through the toilets to enter the building. Defenses against intruders are also present in the Ministry of Magic, so Harry uses a potion to disguise his friends and himself as employees. They enter and barely escape with one Horcrux to destroy. The last Horcrux is Voldemort’s snake Nagani who is always with Voldemort. During the last big battle between the god and evil wizards on the Hogwarts ground Neville Longbottom is able to kill the snake and end the reign of terror caused by Voldemort. In the Epilogue the author tells the reader of Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s futures. Harry marries Jenny, Ron’s sister and has two children; Ron marries Hermione and has a son and a daughter. The last part tells the reader of the children boarding the Hogwarts Express heading off for their first years and own adventures at the school.
The story Chain Reaction By Darrell Scott, is a biography about is daughter Rachel Scott. The story takes place at Columbine High School where the horrible shootings took place from Dylan and Eric. The conflict was obviously that Dylan and Eric were furious and decided to go to school to shoot anybody. The resolution would be that something good did come out of this. Rachel Scott wanted to start a chain reaction and unfortunatly she had to die to start one. Her dad wrote this book to encourage others to start a chain reaction.
The Book Temeraire was full of adventure and priceless memories for two totally different people. Being set in and around the time of thee Napoleonic Wars in the Middle Eastern part of the world. One m an and on Dragon. The story starts off on the HMS Reliant which is a British navel ship. After winning a battle with a French ship Laurence’s men had found aboard a dragon egg. The egg hatches and now Laurence whole life is about to change, for better or for worse he does not yet know. After returning to port Laurence finds out that Temeraire is an Imperial dragon from china and not likely to be in the western half of the world. The two companions start their new journey to an Arial Covert in Great Brittan where they learn combat tactics and make new friends, but as soon as they get their they are sent out into their first real battle against the French. There Temeraire finds out that he has a special technique call the divine wind which is a sonic blast that enabled them to win the battle and return home. Once they return to the covert in Great Britten they find Chinese ambassadors wanting the return of Temeraire because he is not an imperil dragon he is a Celestial, the most rare dragon in the world. This conflict sets up the story for the next book. Also the Temeraire series is the best I have ever read. I have read all of the series that are out which is 4 books. I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes fantasy.
The book, "Needles", by Andie Dominick is a deep and emotional look. This truly shows you the different trials and tribulations with people who are diabetic. It truly shows you the full magnitude that the disease has on a person's life. Andie told her story tell from beginning to end and through it all she struggles with it. For example, Andie was bullied by a boy named Shannon from her elementary school just because of their illness. She overcame that though from the aid of her sister who also had diabetes. The author makes a good description of her home and the people in Iowa from her childhood right down to her midlife and how her setting and people reacted to what she was going through. Andie goes through much physical pain like having insulin reaction and having to endure many different emotions. She feels happy when her first real boyfriend , Jeff, and at other times she gets scared and nervous like when she finds she is pregnant at 17 years old. She also slumps to an all time low when she gets thoughts of suicide because she beginning to grow blind. The thing that truly saves her is her here is when she meets the man that she will finally come to marry, Doug. Doug plays a vital role as a supporter as he does when Andie goes to get sterilized (meaning she can’t have children). It seems as though Andie grew more and more depressed when her sister, Denise died. She was like this all the way until she meets Doug and turned her life around. This story truly gives you an outlook on the life of a diabetic and the different situations and events they go through because of their restrictions it's what life for a diabetic and shows you the effects of it and how it affects everyone around them.
A Long Way Gone:Memiors of a Boy Soldier By: Ishmael Beah
Five-Star Scale: 3.5
Everybody knows about the hardships and struggles of war. But not everybody experiences it themselves and lives to tell about it. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is about the young Ishmael Beah and his long trek with his surviving friends to reunite with their lost families.
The war was in the country of Sierra Leone which was being fought between the RUF (rebels) and the SLA (Sierra Leone Army). This is not to say that each didn’t recruit as many regular civilians into their part as they could by attacking villages and forcing them into training. For this is exactly how they took Ishmael.
The story starts out in a calm setting of Ishmael walking to Mattru Jong from his home village of Mogbwemo with his friends to prepare for a rap show performance in January, 1993. He was twelve when war started to take over.
On their visit, people were hearing rumors of the rebels attacking Ishmael and his companions’ village. They worriedly ran back to Magbwemo in disbelief hoping to prove the rumors wrong. On their way back, they sought many people from their village bleeding, telling them to turn back and not go any further. Ignoring them, when they arrived, they found the whole village destroyed, burnt and surrounded by dead bodies. Thankful but still astounded, they were slightly relieved to find none of the dead bodies to be of their family members. This was the start of their long journey to find their brothers and sisters and parents.
After many months had slowly eased by, no one spotted any site of their families. They moved from village to village hoping to outrun the rebels and not get forced into fighting on their side. Ishmael lost track of everyone he once loved and began to make new acquaintances at each site he took refuge in. He finally settled in an SLA barrack where he was provided with food and water and other supplies to help him survive. Ishmael and other civilians who found their way to this site all witnessed its soldiers move off into battle and return less than half in quantity. At this point, the chief in command made each man able prepare to fight. Ishmael was taught how to load a gun, eat anything quickly and fewer than one minute time, aim and shoot a gun, and was trained to be in good physical shape to fight. Ishmael was now thirteen being brainwashed and dragged into battles killing any rebel he found in revenge of his lost family.
It was a daily routine of finding where the rebels’ stationed, killing all, and taking over their supplies when Ishmael was taken away by UNICEF. He was put into a rehabilitation center in hopes of recovering from his death-taken mind.
Ishmael, now twenty-eight years old, lives in New York City, a part of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Division Advisory Committee, graduated with a B.A. in political science from Oberlin College, and now telling his story to millions of people in an effort to help the boy-soldier crisis.
Imagine as a computer scientist giving your last lecture. Just picture not being there to be able to raise your three sons. A death of a husband would be more than hard to take for a wife and kids. I think personally I wouldn't be able to deal with such a loss. Randy Pausch on the other hand after being told he has only five months to live decides to embrace life and grab it by the horns. The main character(Randy) decides laying up on bed and crying all day wont do him any good. Randy decides not to feel bad for himself,but to live out his childhood dreams. Randy then pursues a life about giving lectures about living and accepting death as it is. For example, Randy shows many people that he is in shape, by doing push-ups and other physical activities. Also, Randy decides to tape his life and all the important so he will so that his children would actually be able to know what he looks like and who their father really was. Overall, The Last Lecture was a extremely emotional book that shows that the people in this world should not be afraid of dying, rather live life to the fullest and do all you can do. Randy Pausch says, "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." This book influences people to not to look forward to death, but try your best to avoid it.
I found this book to be both enthralling and moving. The making of the Oxford English Dictionary by a completely insane madman, the story is set in the 1800. After committing a murder and pleading insanity, Dr.Minor is sentenced to an asylum. Then contacting Dr.Murry and asking to assist in making the OED. Troy Moon
I couldn’t tell what “The Perfect Storm” by Sebastian Junger, was exactly supposed to be. The story is a biography of all of the crew on the Andrea Gail, a history book on the town of Gloucester (including politics), a handbook on the art of commercial fishing, a meteorology article on the driving forces of storms, and a medical pamphlet on drowning, and real-life accounts of storm survivors, all shredded to pieces and randomly reassembled into a neat little stack. You practically need a dictionary at hand to understand the jargon (“Having determined his Great Circle route and plugged the heading into the autopilot, Tyne then goes over to the chart drawer and pulls out a ten-dollar nautical chart called INT 109. He lines up a course of 250 degrees to his waypoint on the Tail and then walks his way down the map with a set of hinged parallel rules. He rechecks the bearing at the compass rose at the bottom and then adjusts by twenty degrees for the local magnetic variation”). Most of the information presented is completely irrelevant to the main conflict of the crew of the Andrea Gail and the storm. That conflict, sadly has painfully little time in the spotlight. No one needs to know the history of the rise and fall of the swordfish population and the government’s response in order to understand how the crew battled the storm of the century. The resolution to the conflict is sketchy and extremely vague. It also doesn’t help that it is placed within a jumble of real-life accounts of survivors of storms at sea, and, strangely, the training process of rescue swimmers. Finally, Junger ends up inserting a small passage of his own fiction to compensate for the lack of information, ending in the drowning of all the crew members (strangely, this happens with about a fourth of the book left to go). It is understandable, however (especially considering his Foreword comments) that the author did not wish to recreate a completely unknown event in a nonfiction work. However, it could still have been organized much, much, better. There isn’t much of a plot to this book, or if there is, it is practically a labyrinth of different plot lines. The main story of the crew of the Andrea Gail and their attempt at survival, if I were to hazard a guess, was less than fifty percent of the book, and evenly dispersed within it. The plot manages to hold together while the crew goes about the business of preparing for a three month trip swordfishing, but as soon as they leave port, you get a history lesson on Gloucester. He jumps back to the story, but for only short periods before going on an irrelevant rant again. Later, the plot completely evaporates when the story becomes more of a set of recollections from people who survived the storm. This book jumps from topic to topic so quickly, you need to constantly flip back and forth to keep up with everything that is going on. The main setting is, I presume, supposed to be Gloucester and the Grand Banks around 1991, but it might have well have been the entire east coast, scattered within over a hundred years. The setting fares about as well as the plot, promptly evaporating somewhere within the first chapter. All in all, I could never decide what kind of book this was supposed to be. I concluded that the editor must have been sleeping. Or was fired. There is no conceivable way a book this disorganized and with such an irrelevancy content could get to a publisher. The idea was great, the information was great, but getting it all to work together failed miserably.
This was one of the most amazing books, I have ever read in my whole life. This is a fiction book with many twist and turns that the character has to overcome, so that he can defeat the opponent. In the beginning of the book there was nothing for Harry Dresden the only professional wizard for hire to do in midtown Chicago, but that will soon all change, when a mysterious women comes and asks for his help, an awful murder where the victims had their hearts exploded out of their chests, and John Marcone the mob boss of Chicago wants him to keep him into looking at these murders. Harry will encounter big bad demons that can shoot acid out and bullets do not hurt him. Brown scorpions that were once little talismans turn into giant scorpions that are as big as a cow. He will have to talk to his pal Bob( a hundred year old spirit trapped in a skull that knows a lot about the magic world) to keep potions and information, and he will call on fairies for better information from the Neverness. He will talk to a high powered vampire that almost kills him for threating her. The most intense moment for Harry was when he was battling a bad wizard, but Harry conquered him and saved everyone's life including his own. So his life went back to normal work of doing nothing.
In Dean Koontz’s book Odd Thomas, the town of Pico Mundo, California is far from normal. Sure on the outskirts it may look like your basic haven for tourists and laid back locals, but one citizen by the name of Odd Thomas will completely change this place for quite some time. Odd has a special ‘gift’. He can sense bodachs, or the bringers of bad fortune. These shadowy figures lurk in hiding until disaster is about to strike, and then they flock by the dozens. However with the arrival of a new guest to Pico Mundo, Odd sees bodachs everywhere—hundreds of them at that. What omen does this mysterious man bring with him? And when will it happen? When faced with the paralyzing horror that this secretive being holds plans to bomb the local mall, Odd Thomas goes into gear to prevent it from happening. Although the cost of saving dozens of strangers is the price of his loved one, the crime is solved and once again the town of Pico Mundo may rest at peace.
In the book And Then There Were None, the setting is a very important part of the story It takes place on Indian Island. When the story takes place on the island it also adds to the suspense. On the island there are no telephones or any other way to contact anyone for help, and even if a person wanted to help the killer said not to help them in anyway. A person named Fred Narracot is not coming because the killer has told him not to come. If the guests on the island heliographed for help, people on shore have been told to ignore the signals.
The suspense is that the guests have been invited to the island and there is no way of contacting anyone on shore. There is a killer among the people. Someone named U.N.Owen is the killer. There is also no telephone on the island. No one can help the guests, they are all in danger. The author, Agatha Christie makes it look like anyone could be the killer. A guest named Phillip Lombard brings a revolver to the house, and a person named Emily Brent was gone the morning someone was killed. I also liked the author's style. I think I will read some more of her books. I really liked this book. At the end of each chapter, I was always at the edge of my seat thinking about what would happen next. I would call this book a very exciting page turner. I would suggest people to read this book.
Weasel By: Cynthia DeFelice Eleven year old Nathan and nine year old Molly (his sister) are all alone in a small cabin in the middle of the wilderness next to the warm crisp fireplace as the firewood slowly begins to fade away. A few years back their mother had died due to a very bad fever. Their father had gone hunting for food and has not returned for six days. Nathan and Molly are alone and scared. All of a sudden they hear knocks on their door. They are terrified and don’t know what to do. Nathan hopping its his father, bravely opens the door and finds a man standing there, he is sure it’s not his father. The man stood a distance from the cabin not knowing what to expect. Molly comes up and asks this poor guy what does he want, what does he need from them. The man just looks at them and stares. A few minutes later the man reaches into his leather pouch and pulls out their mother’s locket necklace that their father carries with him all the time. They let him in, thinking he has information regarding their father. His name is Ezra and he is a Shawnee Indian who helps Nathan and Molly find their father. Ezra tells them the whole story about this serial killer named Weasel. This killer killed all their villages’ animals, crops, and most of the people. Ezra’s tongue has been cut off by Weasel. A hunter who murders innocent people for their beliefs. That’s when Nathan, Molly and Pa get involved with Weasel. In the woods, Weasel set a trap almost undetectable. Pa when hunting, tripped and stumbled into the trap. Now Pa has lost his right leg. But when Weasel catches on to Nathan he accidently shoots himself in the ankle. Weasel is now too weak to hunt for food and dies of hunger. The family and the rest of the village is safe and secure.
Troy Croft Brandon Carpenter Chris Dampier Rotation 1B
Book Review for ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker The first part of the book deals with solicitor Jonathan Harker sent from London to meet Count Dracula in the Count's castle in Transylvania, Romania. Although ominous signs abound, such as the Counts ability to control a whole pack of wolves into doing whatever he wants them to do, Harker is at first happily naive of the danger he is in. That of course changes when he realizes he is indeed a prisoner within the castle, and while we think the worst is over as Jonathan barely escapes the castle with his life, in fact the real horrible events are just beginning as the Count makes his way to London and starts feeding on Jonathan's wife, Mina's best friend Lucy, and then Mina herself. The opening chapters of Dracula are gripping, but the narrative loses steam once the Count arrives in England. Too many pages are devoted to the case of Renfield, one of the residents in Dr. Seward's asylum, and by the time Lucy's fourth blood transfusion is described, we began to lose patience with the story in anticipation of the final confrontation between the vampire hunters and Dracula. The narrative is delivered through the collective diary entries and letters of the main characters who ultimately band together to overcome Dracula. This technique allowed us to feel the terror and come to realizations as the main characters do. The pace of the book is fast and furious as Harker and his companions race to find and destroy the Count before Mina completely transforms into a vampire and loses her soul forever. Unfortunately things don’t go completely according to planned; though Dracula is killed by Morris who “plunges” a knife into his heart right after Harker slashes Dracula’s throat.
The acclaimed crime writer, Gil Reavil, wrote this non-fictional book. This book was based on real experiences he came across while researching the grim reality of bio-remediation for an article in his magazine, Maxim. The bio-remediation company that he did his research on was Aftermath Inc. Although the company was spread nationally, he mainly did his research near his home in New York. Thus being said, he followed and worked with them through out the north east states. Through out the story, he describes all the clean-up jobs with gruesome detail. On his first day on the job, his impetus was to throw up and turn away from the carnage. The carnage was a result of a 3 month old, decaying corpse left there alone amongst homely clutter. He worked with two experienced men in the field of bio-remediation, over the course of his research and numerous bio-remediation jobs, he became more efficient, and the impetus to turn away and retch was subdued. All these deaths were made by all reasons ranging from human brutality to untimely accidents. The more exposed he was to this over the course of 5 months, the more aloof he was to the death he saw almost everyday. He came across a clean up job that vexed him. A mother killed her four children before killing herself inside their middle class suburban home. This left him to worry about his own children back home and to protect them from harm. Thus inferring that he is a family man and takes that punctilious responsibility. After the majority of his volunteer jobs, he infiltrated the history of the founders of Aftermath. The two men responsible with the starting of this niche business were Chris and Tim, two childhood friends with very different views towards a number of things, interests, religion, cars and their job. Gil observed that there were more than the field workers who clean up the decay and blood. Or the two headmen who run the growing corporation. Women contacted police, sheriffs and the morgue requesting bio-remediational jobs. This was because they found the actual clean-up jobs were too gruesome to handle. Near the end, Chris and Tim held a Christmas party with all the employees of Aftermath Inc. There, all, even Gil were paid Christmas bonuses. When he left on the way home, he was left with a yearning to work with them again. He still keeps up with the corporation’s growth and changes. This shows even more, how much he misses the clean-ups that he did beside the workforce who cleans up the dead and decaying. This novel overall was entertaining to me only in parts that described the carnage and the crime committed. The other parts were dull and mortifyingly boring. The book was non-the-less an excellent provider of insight into the bio-remediational fields of work. The methods and the measures they took to secure the area of any contamination was enticing to say the least. It also reveals how human malice can create so many deaths around us. Gil Reavil gives a good insight at a career that’s not very well known and reveals it to the masses.
Romiette Renee Campbell has lived her entire life in Cincinnati. Romietteis a beautiful brown skin girl and lives with her parents, who are both have promising careers her father as a news reporter on television and her mother as a store owner. Romiette has never found having a boyfriend important like most girls her age do.
Julio has just moved to Cincinnati from Texas,and he hates everything about the Cincinnati. All Julio can think about is getting back home to Texas. Julio parents wanted to move to Cincinnati to get away from the gangs in Texas. But, little do they know their is a gang in Cincinnati that will cause a terrible exprience for both Romiette and Julio. When Romi and Julio talk online enough to realize they are going to the same school, they decide to meet for lunch one day. The two of them really hit it off; there is a definite spark between them that makes them want to spend all of their free time together. The Devildog gang doesn't like it, though. They don't want one of the pretty black girls at their school associating with a Hispanic boy. They threaten Romi and Julio and try to make them stop seeing each other. Romi and Julio don't know what they can do, but then they come up with a plan to secretly videotape the threats and bring that tape to the news, to expose this gang. When they put the plot into action, though, things go terribly wrong and Romi and Julio's lives are in danger.
BOOK REVIEW OF CROSSING THE WIRE BY MICHAEL POLIDORI
Will Hobbs book “CROSSING THE WIRE” has done a terrific job of bringing the reader into the story it makes you feel you are the boy who has to cross the border so he can earn the money in America to support his family. The problem is there is an abundance of obstacles and troubles the boy must go through before he can reach America.
The exposition of the story is there is a boy named Victor Flores (main character who lives in a tiny poor village in Los Arboles Mexico with his mom, brother, and sister whose names are Mama, Chuy, and Graciela. His dad died in accident while working a construction job in South Carolina the building collapsed. Victor has a best friend named Rico Rivera who can afford to go to school. He has given victor the nickname of turtle for two reason he runs slow and does not make risky decisions. Rico’s dad is the one who runs the village. One night Rico decides to leave the village to work with his brother up in Tuscon taking care of swimming pools. His brother has already gave him the money, he sneaks out the house and leaves one afternoon telling Victor to tell his parents that he left the night before.
The rising action is when Rico’s dad tells him that the Americans refuse to stop selling there cheap corn in Mexico. What this said to Victor is that his family was not going to make enough money of the corn to survive that year. That night he goes home tells his mom the horrible news and him and his mom come to the conclusion that he must go to El Norte (in the states) to earn enough money to send back to his mom so his family will be able to survive. The next morning he goes up to El Cristo Rey to pray to the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. While there a man gives him some bus money. During the afternoon he went to the bus station in Silao and got a ticket for Nogales. The first class bus ride was going good until the police pulled the bus over to check if they were from Mexico, Victor did not have any idea so at first he had to lay on the ground. He escaped and made a run for it from the police being distracted from some Mexicans hiding in a truck.
The climax is when he has to cross the border now with no bus ride or coyote money. The first person he meets in his journey is Julio from Honduras. Julio is trying to cross the border to the only difference is that he has more experience than Victor and knows a few ways of how to get there. They met by while in the train yard Victor then picked out a train jumped on a ladder and dropped in the train through a gap on the top. They lived in Nogales for a while then one night a giant storm began in the middle of the night so him and Julio ran for the tunnel called Los Vampiros which led across the border. The only problem was the gates on the other side were only sometimes open which is why they chose to go during when the tunnel is floodes because that is when they most likely open the gates. Victor decided not to take that chance, Julio did and made it. Who Victor met next on his journey is Miguel. He meets him when Miguel tells the bus driver to stop near the border and Victor sneaks off when the bus driver is not looking. They walk through the scorching hot desert for a few days with only a few breaks. While crossing they learn about each other become friends and Miguel teaches him how to use a map. Finally they enter the Chirichua mountains by. While crossing the mountains they are spotted border patrol since Miguel is injured he is caught and Victor gets away. Before Miguel was caught he handed Victor his map, knife, and food.
The falling action is when he meets the last and most important person Rico Victors long lost friend. Victor eventually gets out of the mountains gets caught by the border patrol and gets deported to Nogales where he met Rico in a soup kitchen. They hang out for a few days then plan how to get to the states. There plan is to hike to the town of Sells then get a ride from an Indian to Tuscon which is only 30 miles away. What really happens is they get to Sells and figure out there is border patrol in the way. So Rico makes a deal with a drug dealer that they would be mules and carry the drugs across the desert. The leaders of the pack were Morales and jarra. After being tortured walking through the scorching hot desert for a few day with only a few breaks and carrying fifty pound bags on there back they finally escape from the leaders of the pack. They went to Baboquivari canyon where they were running from Jarra. Met a border patrol trooper helped him get away in a helicopter. Next they escaped from Jarra and went to a small ranch house.
The conclusion is when they meet a guy at the small ranch housed whose name is Hansen who drives them to Tuscon. A terrible thing happens there they get dropped of at Rico’s brothers house and learn from the neighbors that him and his family left three nights ago because he would have been arrested and his family would have been deported because he stole cars. In the end Victor ended up working in an asparagus farm in Dayton Washington and would rotate to different farms. Rico went back to school in the village from where the story began.
Joseph is a writer thats work is a reflection of morals. He is caught between the urge to plunge depply into the need to shape the human evnts of today. His greatest work was written between 1900 and the1914. The very first novel he ever wrote was Almayer's Folly. He once had trouble because his mom was dead and his dad was sent to exile. Then he finally started to write again. His characters are unique and real, and the stories are real world, challenging situations that are unpredictable and yet follow the laws of human nature. This book takes place in poland. In 1857 Conrad was born. 1862 his father is sentenced to exile. Also his mom dies in 1865. conrad had a hard life because of his dad going to exile his mom dieing. Then he solved his problem by writing. in this book he talks about the other books Condrad wrote including the Heart of darkness, Nostromo, and others.in 1868 his dad is able to feturn home from exile and he goes to Galicia and Conrad joins him. Conrad works on a french ship from 1874-78.
The book goes back to a journey that began in a small town called Russell, Kansas where bob dole was raised. He was a hard working and very athletic he wanted to grow up and become a doctor. There were 99 people in his graduating class so you know that it was a small town. When he was wounded the community or town that he lived in raised money to pay for all his hospital bills because he had no money. He lost a kidney, the use of his right arm and most of the feeling in his left arm. He was hoping that the doctor would be able to help him and put him together again but he had to realize that he was not going to be put together again. Bob Dole arrived in Washington as a freshman Congressman in 1961, and later served 27 years in the Senate. He ran as his party's candidate for Vice President in 1976.
Chinese Handcuffs was by far one of the best books I have ever read. Dillon Hemingway is a very complex character. He is just getting over his brothers suicide, when all of a sudden his life seems to just keep going downhill. My favorite event in this book is when Dillon has to chase Jennifer through town when she is at her lowest point in her life and wants to commit suicide. It shows just how much he cares and will do anything to save her. He pretty much breaks his ankle and loses a tooth to save her. The main conflict in this book is Dillon trying to get over his brothers death, and trying to help Jennifer overcome her being sexually abused by both her fathers. He overcomes his conflict throughout the story by writing letters to his dead brother and overcomes his conflict of helping Jennifer by catching her father in the act and making him go to jail.
Chinese Handcuffs was by far one of the best books I have ever read. Dillon Hemingway is a very complex character. He is just getting over his brothers suicide, when all of a sudden his life seems to just keep going downhill. My favorite event in this book is when Dillon has to chase Jennifer through town when she is at her lowest point in her life and wants to commit suicide. It shows just how much he cares and will do anything to save her. He pretty much breaks his ankle and loses a tooth to save her. The main conflict in this book is Dillon trying to get over his brothers death, and trying to help Jennifer overcome her being sexually abused by both her fathers. He overcomes his conflict throughout the story by writing letters to his dead brother and overcomes his conflict of helping Jennifer by catching her father in the act and making him go to jail.
The book "Angels and Demons," by Dan Brown takes place primarily in Vatican City during the election of the next Pope, in present day. The overall plot is a mad search for the four missing cardinals and anti-matter (a highly explosive chemical thought to be the link between God and science) The main characters are Dr. Langdon, a symboligist at Harvard, Vittoria Vetra, a physicist at CERN (the worlds largest particle physics laboratory), Carlo Ventresca the Camerlengo of Vatican City, Commander Olivetti, leader of the Swiss Guard, and Maximilian Kohler, the director of CERN. The main conflicts are the murder of Vittoria's father, the kidnapping and murder of the Preferiti, and the theft and scramble to find the anti-matter before the Vatican is destroyed. In the end, the so called Illuminati threat turns out to be fodder. In reality, it was the Camerlengo planning the destruction of the Holy City. Carlo Ventresca had killed the Pope (who was in fact his biological father) and hired the Hassassin to kill Leonardo Vetra, the Four Preferiti and steal the anti-matter. Langdon is given the Illuminati Diamond as a reward for his works...THE END - Carl Craig
Lucky, a compelling memoir of Alice Sebold, the writer and main character of the novel, as she goes throughout her life being a victim of rape at the age of 18 as a college freshman at Syracuse University located in Philadelphia. Perhaps the beginning of the memoir is what pulled me in to continue on with each page. The story commences when her actual rape is occurring. Alice goes into detail that she was walking back to Syracuse University under a dark bridge in the middle of a forested park area, books in hand, when young African American man made a brutal attack on her. Clothes were forced to be ripped off and then he had his way with her. What seemed like minutes, felt like hours to Alice. To Alice’s dismay she was actually a virgin at this point in her life and had absolutely no idea what to do in order to rid of this atrocious man. Although, she did what she was told to do, and after the man was done he as ironically apologetic about what he had just done to her. He even offered to help her in any way possible! How in the world can you BRUTALLY RAPE someone and then apologize and offer your assistance?! The memoir persists on with Alice having to deal with the fact the she is the same person on the inside, but in reality not so much. After the rape incident she, of course, is taken to the hospital, cleaned up, and in the following day’s leaves the Syracuse campus to journey home to her parents for rehabilitation. On the way they pick up her sister, who is attending Philadelphia University. Alice Sebold’s memoir then goes into a series of internal withdrawals, where the clothes she wear changes from nice, everyday attire, to merely night gowns. Her confidence lacking entirely, to the point where she has various emotional breakdowns due to thoughts of “good boys” not liking her if they found out she was raped. Alice considers herself dirty, unattractive, and unloved. The remainder of the memoir is Alice attempting to deal with herself as a person as well as find out who the rapist was. Contemplation of returning to Syracuse University is imminent. She does eventually go back, but it’s probably one of the hardest and scariest things, besides actually GETTING IN, that Alice has ever followed through with. At this point Alice is still dwelling in her parents’ home, during the summer, May 8 1981. Towards the end of the memoir, nearly another year has gone by, Alice is doing relatively well back at Syracuse, her baby, as she is pregnant from the rapist, is getting bigger, and kicking inside Alice’s stomach and what not. At this point the climax is beginning to arise. Alice had set up a trial to determine who her rapist was. Mastine, a lawyer, began questioning her of what had happened, how old she was, where she was when it happened, etc. Alice stated, when asked, that her rapist was actually in the courtroom. Come to find out his name is Gregory Madison, which Alice was unable to identify at the time, as Madison was able to enlist a lookalike friend to frighten and intimidate Alice. Luckily Madison was finally convicted due to the evidence being against him and was remanded to jail for life. Following the conviction of her rapist and graduation at Syracuse, Sebold went to the University of Houston in Texas for graduate school. Then she moved to Manhattan and lived there for ten years. Alice held several jobs as a waitress and tried to pursue her writing career. She then wanted to write her story through poetry, but that, and attempts at writing a novel, did not come to fruition. Alice used heroin recreationally for two years, though claims she never became addicted. Sebold recounted her substance abuse to students at an Evening of Fiction workshop by saying that, "I did a lot of things that I am not particularly proud of and that I can’t believe that I did." Following this she left the city and moved to Southern California, where she became a caretaker of an arts colony, earning $386 a month and living in a cabin in the woods without electricity. She would write by propane candlelight, and in 1995, Sebold applied to graduate school at University of California, Irvine (UCI). Ms. Sebold is now the proud writer of Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon, and continues perusing her writing career thusly.
The book Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir of the events that he endured during the Holocaust. It all begins in a town of Sighet, Transylvania. When Elie was a teenager he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to Auschwitz concentration camps. His mother and his three sisters were separated from Elie and his dad. That was the last time the ever saw them. The story takes you all the way into Elie journey through the many concentration camps and slowly becoming weaker. He explains the cruel punishment that Elie and his father received along with the injuries they endured.
Everyone has a constant question in their head, driving them, pushing them, provoking their thoughts. The story Anthem is about a man named Equality 7-2521 and a question inside his head, a question causing him to break all laws of his society. Equality 7-2521 was born during the time of the Great Rebirth. A futuristic time with rural beliefs (renaissance). During this time, the world is run by societies that determine your job, mate and death. Also in the Great Rebirth there was the almighty WE. The WE instated that all men were equal and all were part of one whole. No man had self and all men spoke as one. Equality, questioned his societies and their beliefs. Equality was different from his fellow brother’s. He liked to think and question his surroundings. As a child Equality saw a man burned at the stake for he had spoke n the forbidden word. Since that day Equality believes it was his destiny to discover the word. While growing up Equality hoped that the council would send him to the House of the Scholars. So he could learn and make new discoveries to help benefit his society. Unfortunately he was sent to the house of the Street Sweepers. Equality saw this as punishment for thinking so much, but it still did not stop his inquiring. One day, while cleaning the streets, Equality stumbled upon a hole. Curious, Equality explored the hole to find that it was left from the times of Unmentionables. Intrigued by his discovery Equality kept his hole a secret and he returned to it. While inside his hole Equality discovered materials and tools inside. He would perform experiments and trials. One day he discovered electricity. Enlightened by his new discovery, Equality created a light bulb of sorts, to contain the light. Alas, the council turned him down and threatened to destroy his creation of light. So, in a blind rage he broke a window and dashed into the forest. Once in the forest Equality came to the conclusion that he must never return to his society. Here Equality experiences one of his first self emotions, greed and selfishness. If nobody wanted to see his invention he would never let anyone destroy it no matter what the world council said. In the forest Equality had to provide for himself, and he liked it. One day while exploring the wilderness Equality stumbled upon a structure of sorts. It had rooms and facilities. Equality claimed it as his new home. Inside he found scriptures. These scriptures had words on it that he did not understand. That’s when Equality knew he had discovered the forbidden words I, me, self, him, her and many more. At that moment Equality ordained that he would bring his fellow brothers back here and teach the m the sacred way of “ego”.
Anthem was a great book that caused me to think and ponder on the words ego and self. This book gave a phenomenal description of what individualism is, man vs. society and man vs. self. A clear 8 out of 10.
Private Thomas Peaceful stands watch over the empty battlefield in World War 1. As he watches his mind is filled with memories on how life use to be as a child. Thomas was brought up by his mother but his brother was his overall protector. He and his brother were best friends and did everything together. Then came Molly who was Charlie’s first love. Life was very good until World War 1 broke out. Everything changes, to the attitude of the owner of Charlie's house, which became a madman. Everything was very chaotic. One day the owner, the Colonel came to Charlie's house to send his brother to war. Everyone was heart broken but Charlie would not let his brother go alone. Lying about his age Charlie and his brother went to a war that they have no clue what they were about to witness. From then on war changed Charlie and his brother into new beings. Watching people get killed to close incidents on their own. Just as Charlie thinks that the war is over, it's horrific consequences to him and his brother will change his life forever.
This is a true story of how Don Piper's life was taken away from him a brought back to a whole new outcome on life and how everyone see's it as. Don Piper is a Christian Pastor who was on his way home from a pastor's convention when suddenly his life was taken from him from a head on collision. He was announced dead the second the peramedics arrived. When approximately 90 minutes later he was alive again with a pumping pulse. He crashed on a bridge, it was raining with debris from the crushed vehicles scattered everywhere like a hurricane had struck. His body was so terribly dismanciled that the peramedics had to cover his body with a tarp to keep from near by viewers being able to see the discrace. When Don was dead for 90 minutes, he later tells us in his story, that he saw heaven. When he entered he was greeted by what seemed like hundreds of people that had been inspirations in his life, they were all smiling and so happy that he has come home. He heard people singing, but not like any singing on earth, it was like a hundred different songs playing at once but harmonizing to create one beautiful song. He experienced what he considered just floating towards the gates. One thing he does say repeatedly is that he never did see God, he believes that if he had seen him that he would never had wanted to return to earth, he would have stayed in heaven. It was like God was "teasing" him with heaven. Once Don returns to earth he has to go through what seemed like thousands of surgeries because his body was so torn up from the crash, the doctor's didn't believe that he was going to make it through all of the surgeries. But, Don also believed that God showed him heaven for a reason, to be a witness to those around him plus more. Which in deed, he did. He shared his story with the world and he still continues to share his story, through his books and through his preaching. He is a husband, a father, a brother, a friend, and more. This story's conflict was the decision between life and death. The resolution, God gave him the strength and desire to live.
Robby Kuhn Mrs. Schultz-Nourse AP English 3 23 May 2008 A Literary Review of Oliver Twist “Please, sir, I want some more.” With this line, early in the story, Charles Dickens begins perhaps his most famous novel, the tale of Oliver Twist. This compelling story takes place in 1830’s London, in the village of Pentonville outside of London, and in an unnamed town 70 miles to the north. As an orphan raised by the state, young Oliver Twist is banished from the orphanage. Following an unsuccessful attempt to indenture him to a chimney sweep, Oliver is apprenticed to an undertaker. Unable to endure the constant harangue of the undertaker’s wife, he runs away to London. In the Spittlefields neighborhood of East London, Oliver is taken in by a gang of pickpockets led by an old man named Fagin. The young boys received lodging as remuneration for their work as pickpockets and thieves. A major conflict in the story is the internal struggle between Oliver and his emotions. He struggles to overcome his upbringing and the criminal activities he abhors. Oliver tries to find his way out of the noxious environment of East London. His unknown family background remains a cryptic theme. After being falsely accused of pick pocketing, Oliver is taken in by the wealthy Mr. Brownlow in the village of Pentonville. The placid atmosphere in Brownlow’s mansion is in marked contrast from the turbulent times in Spittlefields. When Oliver is kidnapped by Bill Sikes and taken back to Fagin’s hideout, Bill’s girlfriend Nancy contacts Mr. Brownlow. Nancy meets Brownlow on the steps below London Bridge to tell him where Oliver is being held. When Bill finds out about the meeting, he murders Nancy with blows from his blunderbuss as she cowers in the corner of her room. The police arrest Fagin, and Bill’s knotty escape is hampered when he accidentally hangs himself. With the criminals vanquished, Oliver returns with Mr. Brownlow to Pentonville. Oliver has been able to overcome his early upbringing and criminal environment. Mr. Brownlow is able to unravel the mystery of Oliver’s family history, and the family starts a new chapter in the story of Oliver Twist.
Katie McKinney 28th May, 2008 4th Nine week Book review Cage of Stars Jacquelyn Mitchard * * * / 5 Veronica (Ronnie) Swan is playing hide-and-seek innocently in the backyard with her two younger sisters. Life in their close-knit Mormon community in Utah previously posed no threats. Ronnie is waiting in the she for the girls to come find her, but she realizes she has been waiting too long. When she emerges from the shed, she seen a sight on the picnic table she never could have imagined in her wildest nightmare; her two beautiful, angelically blonde younger sisters, left to die in pool of each others’ blood. She instantly feels guilt, because she chose to cower in the shed rather than keep adequate watch over her sisters. A schizophrenic killer, Scott Early, is identified as the killer. Although her parents find the strength to forgive the deranged killer, Scott Early, Veronica cannot do the same. As an adolescent, she simply cannot cope with the pain, nor forget that scene that unfolded in her backyard that afternoon. She doesn’t understand why it happened how it did, or why it happened at all. She doesn’t understand why her parents were able to forgive him; how they were able to forgive him. Years later, still coping with the murder of her sisters, she sets out to avenge her sisters’ death and make peace with her feelings of grief and anger. She soon finds that revenge will not appease her desire for closure, only searching within herself can ease her pain. How to attain this, she is not sure. Ronnie must think far beyond her years to develop just a little bit of the strength that her parents did, and learn how to deal with the pain she has been feeling for so long. Ronnie begins the journey as a confused and pained twelve-year-old struggling to find her way, even without the death of he two beloved sisters. She ends the journey a mature, mentally and emotionally enhanced, justified young woman, who has found her light and her purpose amidst a world of turmoil.
Everyone is familiar with the old, famous, story of Romeo and Juliet. Sharon Draper's more modern book, Romiette and Julio, has a similar theme. Romiette is a 16 year old, African-American high school junior living in Cincinnati Ohio. She meets and begins to talk to a 16 year old Mexican, boy named Julio on an online chat room. There is an instant attraction. The two soon realize that they attend the same school. Julio is the new guy in town and has a hard time adjusting. Throughout the book Romiette and Julio spend more time with each other and eventually fall in love. This becomes a huge problem because Romiette is black and Julio is Mexican. An infamous gang from their school called the Devildogs, do not approve of their interracial relationship at all and because of this they cause constant trouble for the innocent couple. Throughout the book the Devildogs continue to threaten to “teach them a lesson” and end up kidnapping Romiette and Julio. The Devildogs throw Romiette and Julio onto a boat in the middle of Lawn Woods Lake and leave them there to die. They beat Julio with a gun barrel and knock him unconscious. After Julio gains some consciousness back, a huge storm comes and thrashes the boat around. Him and Romiette are both thrown out of the boat. They find shelter underneath a huge tree truck and wait there in the freezing cold for someone to rescue them. When a search team is sent out to find the couple, Romiette’s father sees one of her shoes drifting in the water. He immediately recognizes it and begins searching the area. He finds Romiette and Julio both barely conscious and rescues them both and they are brought to safety. This book was extremely entertaining and I loved every minute of it.
No Country for Old Men is set in the year of 1980 along the Texas-Mexico border. The book has three main characters and switches back and forth between their parts of the story. The first main character is Anton Chigurh, a hitman hired by a drug buyer to get the money back from a drug deal gone wrong. The second character, Llewelyn Moss, is a man that just happens to get himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The third character, Sheriff Bell, is the sheriff who is in charge of the investigation of the trail of murders throughout the book.
In the beginning, Moss comes across the scene of a drug deal gone bad and finds a case of two million dollars. He decides to take it home with him and from there, times go downhill for him. Soon after he has a gang of Mexicans and Chigurh both chasing him down for the money. The chase is followed by Sheriff Bell trying to figure out what is going on as the events unfold. The hunt for the money grows more intense as more people are pulled in and the body count continues to rise. At least twelve people are killed by Chigurh alone. The climax hits as Moss looks like he is about to escape with the money, but he is caught and killed by the Mexicans in a hotel. Bell and the police search the hotel but find no trace of the money. Later on, Chigurh comes and takes the money out of the hotel. As he is driving down the street with the money, he is hit by another car, breaking his arm. He climbs out of the car with the money, makes a makeshift sling, and continues on his way. The ends with Bell in retirement reflecting back.
There are several conflicts in this book. The first is an internal conflict inside of Moss. He wants the money for himself, but is trying to do everything he can to prevent the need to kill someone else. His kindness is rewarded with his own death. The other main conflict is between Chigurh and Moss. They both are the two most strong-hearted about walking away with the two million dollars. Moss represents a "kind", conscientious person and Chigurh represents pure evil. He is portrayed as a human "terminator" of sorts and will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. He can't be stopped, only slowed down as evidenced by the car crash and broken arm. The resolution of this conflicts ends with Moss being killed, but not by Chigurh's own hands. This shows that sometimes evil does prevail.
Brandon Raczkowski Black and White By:Paul Volponi
Marcs and Eddie are the stars of Long Island City High School's basketball team. Marcs is black and Eddie is white, but they got past all that "racial crap" and have been best friends for years. Marcs and Eddie are going make it to the NBA. Everyone knows it. They have scouts coming to their games to see them play. Both know it will only be a matter of time before they get their big scholarships and then they can go to the pros. The problem is both boys are from the inner city and have little money. They could work but that would interfere with their practices and games. So, they decide to make some quick cash.
Derek Miller 5/5 Stars Bringing Down the House – Ben Mezrich You Could see the Movie Or You Could Experience it for Yourself
From the moment I picked this book I was drawn into its intense action and enthralling scenarios. Ben Mezrich vividly describes the sights and sounds along with emotions that go with highs takes gambler. It let me live vicariously through the lives of the MIT students, turned high rollers. Bringing Down the House also gave me a better taste of what really goes on in Casinos. I especially appreciated the colorful description of the “comps” and special treatment that was received. This book not only had a high flying, high-class side, it also intertwined the two-sided life that Kevin was living. In the beginning of chapter two he narrates the experience of his first flight to Las Vegas strapped with cash and drenched in apprehension. The rush that Kelvin felt reached out and pulled you along for the ride. Next it takes you to a stunningly realistic description of his life before Vegas. The language the author uses vividly describes his dingy apartment and lifestyle at MIT. As he describes each of the casinos you feel as if you are stepping onto the gambling floors. The smells and sounds of casinos envelope and mesmerize you. Apprehension and suspense grow as the book progresses leading up to and beyond the spilt of the team. Kevin and his two cohorts, Martinez and Fisher, the other BPs break away from the originator of the group Micky. Martinez and fisher throw caution to the wind and keep raising the risks until Kevin feels that he must break away or lose everything. Eventually he forms his own team and prospers, but all good things must come to an end and with increasing security and technology he eventually became blacklisted at virtually all major casinos around the world.
Catch-22 revolves around 28 year old John Yossarian who is posted at Pianosa, an island off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea, during the latter half of WWII. John is continuously paranoid throughout the novel that everybody in the war is trying to kill him. His crew and friends try to persuade him that this is not true, that no one is targeting him specifically, but he quickly dismisses their claims and spends his time looking out for himself. But as the war progresses, military command repeatedly raises the amount of required missions that a soldier must fly before he goes home. When the book begins, the number is 25, but by the time we reach the end the number has been raised to 80. Before long all of Yossarian's friends have died, been removed, or disappeared all together. Yossarian makes a very memorable statement when he witnesses the death of one of his friends: “Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.” It is at this key moment that Yossarian reaches an epiphany; that without the soul, without life, man is garbage. It is after this that Yossarian refuses to fly any more missions and soon the final conflict presents itself. Yossarian is eventually forced to make a decision that will either put him in danger, or put the remainder of his friends in danger. He has spent the entire war avoiding dangerous situations to keep himself alive, but his conscience will not allow him to put his friends in the line of fire. The Catch-22 presented by this event is that life is not worth living without a moral concern for the well being of others. So instead of accepting or rejecting the issue, Yossarian flees and runs away to Switzerland where he has heard one of his friends, thought to be dead, has washed up. I enjoyed this book, but I also found it difficult to read and follow. The scenes of the novel would incessantly shift between flashbacks and the present. The vocabulary and Heller’s use of the English language is dated and was somewhat cryptic to me at times; having me pause in the middle of a page and ponder to myself exactly what he is trying to tell me. Overall, I enjoyed the story and the process of reading it.
62 comments:
it works woo hoo
Everybody always has there own opinion on a person, place, or thing. Terrell Owens perception is not always on the good side. Plenty of people have heard about T.O in the news for his antics and his constant trouble with his football teams. In this book “T.O” you see what Terrell Owens life was like when he was a child living in Alexander City, Alabama, what his life was like living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he explains what really happens behind the scenes with him and the Philadelphia Eagles during the 04-06 seasons.
One of the problems Terrell Owens speaks about that he encountered during these seasons was the huge "dislike" of quarterback Donovan Mcnabb. What you herd on television about the dislike between T.O and Donovan Mcnabb was completely untrue. Terrell says that there never was dislike between the two and that the media just blew it completely out of proportion. The only thing T.O says he felt about Mcnabb was that he was not throwing him the ball as much as he should be and the media made it seem worse than what it was.
This book "T.O" is extremely interesting and will keep you reading until the end. As you read this book not only do you find out what Terrell Owens is really like, but it will reveal the truth about what really happened with him and the Philadelphia Eagles during the 04-06 seasons. I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend that anybody who is interested in finding out about Terrell Owens and the truth behind the Eagles and him should read it too.
The Giver By:Lois Lowry
Jonas is an eleven year old boy in his controlled community. His community is in a futuristic time of no pain. There is no poverty, hunger or crime. However there is no individualism or strong feelings as well. Everyone is the same with similar looks; except for Jonas. Jonas is brighter than the rest of his peers; he also has the ability to see things differently as well. He cannot explain the things at first except that they change. He also realizes he is different in that he has pale eyes while other people all have brown.
Coming up on his twelfth year of age in December, the same time all the rest of the children in his community turn twelve, he is excited about the job he will be assigned. In his community people are assigned careers based on their interest. They are even assigned husbands wives and placed with children to raise as well. However, in the ceremony Jonas has been given the honorable assignment of a receiver. His job is to receive the memories of previous times that others in his community know nothing about. He has the ability to experience pleasurable times he knew nothing of, but he also must bear the experience of horrible things like war.
Knowing as much as he does and not being able to tell others is important for Jonas. If he were to do so the complete operation of his community would be destroyed. Nevertheless Jonas finds out that his infant brother is about to be released (which many do not know means killed) he will not stand for it. He decides to take his brother and runaway from his community to elsewhere. Elsewhere is unknown to him but he is desperate to save the baby’s life. He runs away and faces hiding from search planes and almost freezing until the two get to a sled and ride it downhill. While experiencing an exhilarating ride the two begin to hear sounds and lights suggesting Christmas. Jonas begins to feel comforted that he has made the right choice and that there is someone waiting for them.
I truly enjoyed this book. I feel that the ending had something to do with Jonas finding a place he will enjoy better. By the description of the felling he got from elsewhere, Jonas seems to have found a better environment for him and the child.
Matthew Morris
A-r-2
Black and White By: Paul Volponi
This is a tale of two friends who put their friendship on the line for money. Marcus and Eddie have always been the best of friends. They got the nickname of ‘Black and White” because Eddie is white and Marcus is black. They live in Long Island, NY and live in the Ravenswood Houses which are like the projects. They go to Long Island City High School where they play football and what they do best, basketball. They are untouchable and no one can stop them. Both of them are being scouted by many colleges who are begging for them to come together.
Eddie and Marcus are seniors so they need money to pay their dues for prom, trips, and graduation. They saved all their money, and then some new shoes came out and everyone on the basketball team bought them. So, they got them too and were soon out of money. The both of them were brainstorming and couldn’t think of any quick way to get money. Eddie brought up the fact that his dad has a gun. After a long discussion, they decided to do stickups but not hurt anyone. All they wanted was enough money to get their high school dues paid. They completed two stickups and they went by very smoothly until the last one.
They shot the person! Both of them ran as fast as they could. Things went by smooth for a couple of weeks and they had not heard anything about a robbery or a shooting. Then, one day they arrested Marcus for an armed robbery. Eddie didn’t know what to do. They came to his home and asked many questions because they knew that he was best friends with him. Marcus got out on bail and continued to go to school and got a lawyer. One day, the cops came to Eddie’s house and arrested him for the same charges.
They continued to play basketball. Eddie kept denying that he did it. After a while, Marcus told Eddie that he was taking the plea which would mean that he would face eighteen months in jail. Eddie said that it was ridiculous and that he was not confessing anything. Eddie signed with Saint Johns College shortly afterwards and told them the charges would be dropped soon and that he would be able to play in the fall. Marcus was mad at Eddie because it seemed like he was the only one paying for their mistakes.
They eventually forgave each other and continued to be friends. The day before Marcus was sent off, they played one-on-one basketball. Eddie said he was still not admitting to it and Marcus was still a little mad, but accepted it. He wanted to pay for his debts and maybe one day play for a small school after he gets out. Marcus is sent off and Eddie is now living with a guilty conscience and will never pay for his actions.
David Khonsary
2B
Quiet Strength by: Tony Dungy
Some teens have various opinions to which who are their ideal role model. For myself, Tony Dungy fits well for my qualifications for an inspiring role model. After reading, “Quiet Strength,” I’ve been striving to be a better person for my community, school, and household.
It goes in various places from Pennsylvania, Tampa, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis. With hard work he has won Super Bowl championships as a player as well as a Coach. In 1978 as a safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers he won the Super Bowl. Also in 2006 as the head coach for the Indianapolis Colts. But all of this success was not easy. There were countless bumps in the road for his path of glory. In December of 2005 his son, James Dungy, committed suicide in Tamp, Florida. This horrific news took a toll on Tony, but he states in his book that he could not have prevailed through without God. Tony Dungy is a definite religious Christian and has a religious tone is his book. But Dungy gets his point across without being preachy. Tony Dungy's life was shaped by his parents and he passed along those great gifts to his children, players and friends.
The Diving Bell and The Butterfly
by Jean-Dominique Bauby
On December 8, 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, a well-known journalist and editor of the French magazine ELLE, suffered a massive stroke that forever changed his physical being and mental outlook. After weeks of lying comatose in a hospital bed, he awoke to a state of paralysis, know as Locked-In Syndrome, which rendered his body nearly useless except for the ability to blink his left eye and slightly turn his head. His only way of communicating was by someone reading off a series of letters in order from most commonly used, to least, and him blink when the desired letter is called. This process was repeated until words and sentences were formed and his thought or feeling was conveyed.
The book is quite simply his thoughts and feelings about the state of his body and how, mentally, he had to come to terms with and embrace the permanence of his condition. Within the short chapters, he expresses how he set his mind free to wander like a butterfly, while physically his body was trapped inside an invisible diving bell. He describes visits to far away lands, the preparation of his most favored delicacies and imagines all of the sensations that would accompany these wondrous mental ventures.
Bauby truly showed the extreme potential of human spirit and willingness to keep going. He did, however, have his down times. For instance, it really struck him that he would never again hold his children or play with them or talk to his mother and father over the phone, except with an interpreter. Often, he sat in bed looking out the window deep in thought and shed a silent tear.
After two years of living what life he could, Jean-Dominique Bauby passed away from pneumonia at Berck-sur-Mer in Northern France, just two days after his book was published. In his passing though, he gave a true representation of what it is to be free in mind and spirit.
I read a book called We Beat the Street. It was the best nonfiction book I have read and the third best overall book I read. In this story three men describe their childhood in Newark and show the obstacles they overcame to become what they are today. The title headline explains it all "How a friendship pact led to success". In this story these men had went through trials such as drug dealing and kids who liked to just hit a person because he had a different skin color. Dr. Rameck Hunt describes how in his life he had stabbed a crack head in the leg. To his luck the crack head never showed up in court. These men also overcame obstacles such as gangs trying to get them to drug deal or beat up a group of kids. They were in a beat up town in New Jersey called Newark that wasn't an excellent influence if a positive influence at all. This story shows how passion and friendship towards something can actually conclude in a wonderful result. These men went through school, had a hard time doing school and life, and ended up becoming doctors. These three overcame the street and "beat it up". Practically everyone but I can not say everyone exactly has heard the expression "If you set your mind to it then you can achieve it" and it takes no meaning to heart. If someone were to read this story and passionately try to understand what the authors are trying to explain in this autobiography then people can really understand what the true meaning of that expression is. This story is an excellent motivator towards your dreams and it actually acts as a support. Through this story tons of conflicts had occurred in these young men's lives but there is one that really caught my attention. Sampson Davis had to fit school and work into his daily life. He had to work to help his mother, sister, and him food in their belly. He actually made his family proud because he strived through it all and accomplished his goal. He was accepted into Pre Medical School and his grandmother and mother had told him to make them proud because they knew he always would. In the end he became a doctor and made his family proud beyond belief. He strived for a goal and he had beaten every obstacle in his way. He went through tough times just like the rest of the people on this planet but he was determined and set. Also, Rameck Hunt had trials of his own. He didn't just have mental trials but also trials in court. This boy had kept getting into trouble but luckily he had people who decided not to press charges. This boy had began to slack and started to lose focus but with the motivation of his teacher in Pre Medical School he eventually got back on track and now today he is a successful and hard working doctor. George Jenkins also had overcome obstacles such as drugs and destroying little kid's self-esteem. He had gone through a life lived in a town where he could do nothing but try and fit in. It was either fight or die. This boy chose to stick with school and eventually learn to be a dentist. He saw his dentist one day and was just motivated to become one. Today he is successful with is friends Dr. Sampson Davis and Dr. Rameck Hunt. All three men resolved their conflicts and are successful. They overcame obstacles and showed the true meaning to "If you set your mind to it then you can achieve it". Through this story people imagine beat up corners and people sitting there smoking or in exposed clothing waiting for a man to pull out a bill and give them what they want most. They also picture murder, rape, hippies, aggressive dogs, and such. These three men overcame these habitats and neighborhood to become doctors today. They also had trouble in school at some points in their lives. They would all take a test and maybe one of them wouldn't pass it the first time but then the second time pass it with flying colors. This friendship pact led to success and beyond. These men didn't just become doctors. They became wonderful doctors. This book was one of the greatest books ever written I believe. These three men are motivators and this book will affect lives of others. It is like the wave at a football game. One person starts doing it, then a couple people start waving, and then it eventually starts going around the whole stadium. This book may eventually change the way of the world and is a great impact. Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt overcame obstacles and are now a role model in my life. This book is awesome! If anyone hasn't read it then they should read it. If you have read it then study it and strive for your own goals.
By: Brandon Gurczynski
Thank you for reading my point of view.
Bringing Down the House: by Ben Mezrich
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a quick read and/or like blackjack in Vegas. It definitely hooks you from the start. This thriller fully explains the system of counting cards and how to profit from it.
The book is about Kevin Lewis, whose double life starts in the summer after his junior year at MIT. He gets invited to join a MIT Blackjack team operated by Mickey Rosa, a former assistant professor. Funded by unknown investors Kevin and his team spends the next six years take trips to large casinos around the country under fake names and IDs with loads of hidden cash, usually hidden under their clothing, bringing in a respectable return from their card counting system. The team experiences strippers, VIP suites, were relaxing with celebrities, front row seats to sold out events and much more. Kevin’s arrogance causes him to get in argument with the team leader and split, to make his own team. It’s all gravy until they get caught and take Kevin to the back room and give him a little talking to.
P.S. Modern Time
A definite 4.5 out of 5 stars, I enjoyed it!
Trevor Baggs
Many football players, such as myself, enjoy the feeling and anticipation before a football game. In the book, Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger took this real life scenarios of football players and transformed it into a "National Bestseller".
When somebody says the words Friday Night Lights, you think of a football field with those big bright lights shining down. You think of the big plays thats going to happen under those lights. The adrenaline rushing through your body. The plebian of Odessa lives for football, and bringing home the championship. In Odessa, Texas, this is what young children dreamed of, being the next big Boobie Miles. Boobie Miles is the star of the Permian High, Panthers. Boobie encountered many various trials throughout his life, including breaking his right ankle. This brings many hardships and tribulations, since football is all that he has.
Mike Winchell, another star of the Panthers, carries a lot of heavy thoughts constantly pondering through his mind. His mother is a extremely sickly woman who is steady pushing Mike to be the best of the best.Mike has to overcome this anxiety and stay focus. Not only is his mother counting on him, but all of Odessa.
Overall, I enjoyed this book because not only is it true stories of people, but you can really compare it to football players whose lives depend on that college scout coming out to see you. This book is interesting, and this is coming from a person who is not much of a reader. I strongly recommend this book if you love to read. Friday Night Lights shows that if you want something you have to fight for it!
Night: Eliezer Wiesel
Born in a Hungarian ghetto, Elie was sent as a teen/child to the Nazi death camps.
Many rumors fly around the small village of Transylvania where Elie lives. Then one day, out of nowhere, German soldiers arrive. In a matter of weeks the Germans had taken over the small town. People were restricted in where they could go and were forced into smaller and smaller areas of land. Elie watched as his friends and relatives were taken away, "deported" to a secret location. Then one day they came for him. Elie and his family were forced from their home, all possessions stripped from them. They were completely at the hands of the Germans. When Eliezer and his family and others was forced out of their homes and was "deported" they were all actually sent to ride a train to Birkenau, the reception center for Auschwitz with 80 other Jews and man it was a crowded car. When they were ordered to come off the train the men and women are separated, and Eliezer sees his mother and sisters vanishing in the distance. He holds onto his father and is determined not to lose him. A fellow prisoner tells Eliezer to say that he is eighteen (though he is really fifteen) and that his father is forty (though he is fifty). The prisoners who have been at Auschwitz for awhile are brutal and cruel to the new arrivals, and one of them tells them about the crematory. Some of the young men talk about revolting but are silenced by their elders. Then, everyone is forced to march past SS officer Dr. Mengele, who uses a baton to pick out who will remain alive and who will go to the crematory. Eliezer tells him that he is eighteen and a farmer. Eliezer and his father are placed in the same group, which they are informed is the one destined for the crematory. Eliezer watches in horror as a truck full of children drives up to a giant, fiery ditch and the children are put into the flames. At the barracks, veteran prisoners began to beat the new arrivals and told them to get undressed. The new prisoners threw their clothes into a huge pile. SS officers selected strong men who were taken to work in the crematories. The new arrivals were then taken to the barber, where all their body hair was shaved off. People began to greet friends and relatives and were filled with joy to see the people who were still alive. Eliezer tells a friend not to waste his energy crying, and he feels his fear vanishing and being replaced by "an inhuman weariness." Everyone feels numb and without any sort of emotion, and Eliezer describes them as "damned souls wandering the half-world." At five in the morning, the prisoners are then made to run naked to a different barracks where they are doused in petrol and hot water as disinfectant and then given clothes. At this point the prisoners have ceased to be men. Eliezer feels that the person he was has been destroyed and cannot believe that he has only been at the camp for a single night. When somebody stole two bowls of soup at dinner a small young child is accused but doesn't say anything when he is hanged in front of all the prisoners. Winter arrives, and it is bitterly cold. Eliezer's foot begins to swell because of the cold, and he has to get an operation to prevent it from being amputated. The hospital is much more bearable since there is no work and better food. His bedside neighbor, a Hungarian Jew, warns him that all the invalids will be killed with the next selection and that he should try to leave the hospital right away. Eliezer does not know whether to believe him or to suspect that he just wants Eliezer's hospital bed. After he awakes from his operation, Eliezer worries that his leg has been amputated but is afraid to ask the doctor. The doctor tells him to trust him and that he will soon be walking in a fortnight. Two days after his operation, Eliezer hears that the front is advancing to Buna, and that very day the camp is ordered evacuated. Hospital occupants will not be evacuated, however, and Eliezer worries that all invalids will be exterminated. He runs to meet his father outside, and his right foot leaves bloody marks in the snow. After some deliberation, Eliezer and his father decide to leave the hospital and be evacuated with the rest of the prisoners. Later Eliezer learns that the hospital occupants were liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation. On the last day of the journey, there is a bitter wind, and everyone gets up in order to try to keep warm. All the prisoners begin imitating the death cry of a fellow prisoner, and Meir Katz wonders out loud why the SS guards don't just shoot them all right away. Finally, they reach the camp, and only twelve people (of the original hundred) have the strength to leave the wagon. The others, including Meir Katz, remain on the train to die. They are at Buchenwald. Eliezer's father has dysentery and is becoming increasingly weak in his bunk. In a delirious fever, he tells Eliezer where he buried the gold and money. Eliezer manages to bring his father to see a doctor, but the doctor refuses to look at him. Another doctor comes into the block, but Eliezer's father refuses to get up again. This doctor shouts at the sick, calling them lazy, and Eliezer feels like killing him but is too weak. When Eliezer returns from getting bread, his father tells him that his bunkmates have been hitting him. Eliezer promises them extra bread and soup, but they simply laugh at him and then angrily tell him that his father is upsetting them because he can no longer go outside to relieve himself. The next day his father tells Eliezer that his neighbors stole his bread and hit him again. He begs piteously for water, and even though Eliezer knows it is bad for him, he gives him some. Soon in time Eliezer's father will die from being brutally beaten on the skull with a truncheon. This action shatters his skull and now has little time left to spend with his son Eliezer remains at Buchenwald until April 11. After his father's death, Eliezer became indifferent and emotionless, concerned only with eating. He is then transferred to the children's block. Soon came the American rank and forces the SS officers to leave. All the prisoners were free but all they could think about is food, clothes, and sex but none of them thought of revenge. Eliezer survives throughout everything but has no one. In this memoir, Elie explains the tragic incident that happened to over 6 million Jews during WW2.
Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
Warren Ellis is a world famous graphic novelist but, he journeys into the pictureless realm of fictional novels while writing “Crooked Little Vein”. Ellis tells this story in his usual dark but, charming way of storytelling. The book is an exploration into America’s sick and twisted underbelly. The slightly disturbing truth about this book is everything in it is inspired by real life trends and fetishes.
Mike McGill is a simple, poor private investigator. He is a lonely man who either does not have the means for personal hygiene or simply he just does not care. He lives in his disgusting office with a mutant rat that is impermeable to all of Mike’s traps to kill him. The book, in fact, starts off with the rat urinating in his coffee.
When Mike was the lowest on his luck he is surprised with a case from an unusual social figure, the Presidential Chief of Staff. The man pays him five hundred thousand dollars to track down a missing book that has been used as barter between prominent perverts in government and general society. The book has much political use, because it is magical.
The book was written by Ben Franklin to be used as the “Second Constitution”, a secret constitution. This would be used when America’s culture had been so degraded that a magical book, bound by an anal-probing aliens skin and meteor fragments, could bring the citizens of America back to morals and take away all free will to do anything deemed immoral by the Christian Church.
In one of Mike’s adventures at a MHP meeting, he meets a polyamorous Goth girl named, Trix. He immediately falls in love with her and comes up with a reason for her to follow him around as an assistant in finding the book. This works out great because not only does she know more about the disgusting fetishes of America but she also has relations with very important people.
They set off from city to city looking for leads on this cursed book. In their excursion they meet crooked politicians, a Heroin-Addicted Chief of Staff, Godzilla enthusiasts, ostrich lovers, drug dealers, hermaphrodite prostitutes, mutilation crazed gay men and let us not for get the loveable necrophiles. This array of perverts lends to the comedy relief of the story but, the reader must have an open mind and no soul, in order to laugh.
Finally Mike shows his true character, as if he has been hiding it, and tricks all the hierarchy of Los Angeles and the Presidential Chief of Staff. He sets everyone up while reaping all the rewards. He basically traps the men in an office building where an extremely illegal party is taking place, while police are fast approaching to seemingly catch the whole lot in an unexplainable situation.
Mike then rides away with all the money he could ever want and the girl of his dreams. However his reputation of being “The Sh*t Magnet”, is again illustrated as Trix and he move into a flat together. The flat that they end up buying has been placed on the market due to the death of the previous owner. He was a dog trainer that had been beat to death with a corpse of a Chihuahua. After they move in a group of necrophiles break in to retrieve the bodies that they have stored in the walls. This concludes the most bizarre book I have ever indulged in.
This book was an amazing piece of rambling art. Warren Ellis knows how to get a reader addicted to a book. The only way I can explain the uniqueness of the book is by comparing it to one of those creepy people you see walking around with green hair, a billion piercings, and tattoos that completely engulf their epidermis. These people are obviously deranged but you are still intrigued by the eccentricity of them. This book is like analyzing the synthetic deformations of a street dweller’s body. This shows how sick this book is and how interesting it is.
TERRA-COTTA SOLDIERS ARMY OF STONE
Written By: Arlan Dean
You peer into the large hole in the ground at the life-sized statues. You think about Emperor Qin Shi Haungdi, who ruled China thousands of years ago. These statues are statues of the Ch'in army. The army that Emperor Qin Shi Haungdi used to rule China for many years.
Thousands of years B.C. Emperor Qin Shi Haungdi ruled the lands of China. He was the person who combined many states into one united China. Although the Emperor accomplished many tasks during his ruling, he was a hated man. He destroyed all books that did not follow his rules. He killed and enslaved all people who did not agree with him. Many of his people disagreed with his evil ways. Therefore most of Qin Shi Haungdi's army/workers were people who disagreed with him. But they were afraid to argue knowing that the end result would be death.
His men worked on an underground tomb for the Emperor for over 30 years. In this book Arlan Dean goes into great detail describing how the tomb was created. The architectural structure of this amazing tomb was state of the art back in Qin Shi Haungdi’s time. This tomb was filled with Terra-Cotta solders (Soldiers made from clay) which were said to protect the Emperor in his afterlife. There were thousands of these ancient soldiers buried with him.
I thought that this book was wonderful. I would recommend this book to everyone, because it draws you in like a hunter catching its prey until you don’t
CONT.
want to stop reading!
The Long Walk
By Slavomir Rawicz
The book is about Slavomir and his walk from a Siberian slave camp to India Our heroes (8 of them) walk through Siberia into the Gobi desert; over the Himilayas and finally into India. The story is amazing especially considering its non fiction. It has you on the edge of your seet wondering whats going to happen next. The group meets Happiness, tregedy and hardship and through they develope a very strong bond between eachother.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J.K. Rowling
The seventh Harry Potter book raps up the series perfectly. After Dumbledore’s death I did not know how Harry would deal with life, not having a strong and skilled crutch.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are sent in search of Horcruxes (evil items made by Voldemort to extend his life) by Dumbledore before he dies. With every Horcrux destroyed Voldemort (the evil wizard) becomes weaker.
While Harry, Ron, and Hermione search for Voldemort’s Horcruxes they find out about the life of their old headmaster Dumbledore. The Ministry of Magic (the government of the wizarding world) is taken over by Voldemort and his gang if death eaters (evil wizards). Harry’s strategy becomes more complex when he learn of the Ministry take over, for the ministry monitors transportation systems like the Floo network and side by side apperation. The Ministry also runs the wizarding school Hogwarts, therefore Harry can not return for his seventh and final year. Also, the Ministry puts out a bounty on Harry’s head. The bounty is worth enough for someone to lavishly live out their days. In Harry’s wanted posters he is labeled “Undesirable Number One”.
One of the Horcruxes ends up being in the Ministry of Magic building, which is state of the art with a bathroom entrance off of a normal side street. Employees actually travel through the toilets to enter the building. Defenses against intruders are also present in the Ministry of Magic, so Harry uses a potion to disguise his friends and himself as employees. They enter and barely escape with one Horcrux to destroy.
The last Horcrux is Voldemort’s snake Nagani who is always with Voldemort. During the last big battle between the god and evil wizards on the Hogwarts ground Neville Longbottom is able to kill the snake and end the reign of terror caused by Voldemort.
In the Epilogue the author tells the reader of Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s futures. Harry marries Jenny, Ron’s sister and has two children; Ron marries Hermione and has a son and a daughter. The last part tells the reader of the children boarding the Hogwarts Express heading off for their first years and own adventures at the school.
Adam Fish
5-21-2008
R.2A
The story Chain Reaction By Darrell Scott, is a biography about is daughter Rachel Scott. The story takes place at Columbine High School where the horrible shootings took place from Dylan and Eric. The conflict was obviously that Dylan and Eric were furious and decided to go to school to shoot anybody. The resolution would be that something good did come out of this. Rachel Scott wanted to start a chain reaction and unfortunatly she had to die to start one. Her dad wrote this book to encourage others to start a chain reaction.
The Book Temeraire was full of adventure and priceless memories for two totally different people. Being set in and around the time of thee Napoleonic Wars in the Middle Eastern part of the world. One m an and on Dragon. The story starts off on the HMS Reliant which is a British navel ship. After winning a battle with a French ship Laurence’s men had found aboard a dragon egg. The egg hatches and now Laurence whole life is about to change, for better or for worse he does not yet know. After returning to port Laurence finds out that Temeraire is an Imperial dragon from china and not likely to be in the western half of the world. The two companions start their new journey to an Arial Covert in Great Brittan where they learn combat tactics and make new friends, but as soon as they get their they are sent out into their first real battle against the French. There Temeraire finds out that he has a special technique call the divine wind which is a sonic blast that enabled them to win the battle and return home. Once they return to the covert in Great Britten they find Chinese ambassadors wanting the return of Temeraire because he is not an imperil dragon he is a Celestial, the most rare dragon in the world. This conflict sets up the story for the next book. Also the Temeraire series is the best I have ever read. I have read all of the series that are out which is 4 books. I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes fantasy.
The book, "Needles", by Andie Dominick is a deep and emotional look. This truly shows you the different trials and tribulations with people who are diabetic. It truly shows you the full magnitude that the disease has on a person's life. Andie told her story tell from beginning to end and through it all she struggles with it. For example, Andie was bullied by a boy named Shannon from her elementary school just because of their illness. She overcame that though from the aid of her sister who also had diabetes. The author makes a good description of her home and the people in Iowa from her childhood right down to her midlife and how her setting and people reacted to what she was going through. Andie goes through much physical pain like having insulin reaction and having to endure many different emotions. She feels happy when her first real boyfriend , Jeff, and at other times she gets scared and nervous like when she finds she is pregnant at 17 years old. She also slumps to an all time low when she gets thoughts of suicide because she beginning to grow blind. The thing that truly saves her is her here is when she meets the man that she will finally come to marry, Doug. Doug plays a vital role as a supporter as he does when Andie goes to get sterilized (meaning she can’t have children). It seems as though Andie grew more and more depressed when her sister, Denise died. She was like this all the way until she meets Doug and turned her life around. This story truly gives you an outlook on the life of a diabetic and the different situations and events they go through because of their restrictions it's what life for a diabetic and shows you the effects of it and how it affects everyone around them.
Everyone should read this book I believe
A Long Way Gone: Memiors of a Boy Soldier
By: Ishmael Beah
Five-Star Scale: 3.5
Everybody knows about the hardships and struggles of war. But not everybody experiences it themselves and lives to tell about it. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is about the young Ishmael Beah and his long trek with his surviving friends to reunite with their lost families.
The war was in the country of Sierra Leone which was being fought between the RUF (rebels) and the SLA (Sierra Leone Army). This is not to say that each didn’t recruit as many regular civilians into their part as they could by attacking villages and forcing them into training. For this is exactly how they took Ishmael.
The story starts out in a calm setting of Ishmael walking to Mattru Jong from his home village of Mogbwemo with his friends to prepare for a rap show performance in January, 1993. He was twelve when war started to take over.
On their visit, people were hearing rumors of the rebels attacking Ishmael and his companions’ village. They worriedly ran back to Magbwemo in disbelief hoping to prove the rumors wrong. On their way back, they sought many people from their village bleeding, telling them to turn back and not go any further. Ignoring them, when they arrived, they found the whole village destroyed, burnt and surrounded by dead bodies. Thankful but still astounded, they were slightly relieved to find none of the dead bodies to be of their family members. This was the start of their long journey to find their brothers and sisters and parents.
After many months had slowly eased by, no one spotted any site of their families. They moved from village to village hoping to outrun the rebels and not get forced into fighting on their side. Ishmael lost track of everyone he once loved and began to make new acquaintances at each site he took refuge in. He finally settled in an SLA barrack where he was provided with food and water and other supplies to help him survive. Ishmael and other civilians who found their way to this site all witnessed its soldiers move off into battle and return less than half in quantity. At this point, the chief in command made each man able prepare to fight. Ishmael was taught how to load a gun, eat anything quickly and fewer than one minute time, aim and shoot a gun, and was trained to be in good physical shape to fight. Ishmael was now thirteen being brainwashed and dragged into battles killing any rebel he found in revenge of his lost family.
It was a daily routine of finding where the rebels’ stationed, killing all, and taking over their supplies when Ishmael was taken away by UNICEF. He was put into a rehabilitation center in hopes of recovering from his death-taken mind.
Ishmael, now twenty-eight years old, lives in New York City, a part of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Division Advisory Committee, graduated with a B.A. in political science from Oberlin College, and now telling his story to millions of people in an effort to help the boy-soldier crisis.
Imagine as a computer scientist giving your last lecture. Just picture not being there to be able to raise your three sons. A death of a husband would be more than hard to take for a wife and kids. I think personally I wouldn't be able to deal with such a loss. Randy Pausch on the other hand after being told he has only five months to live decides to embrace life and grab it by the horns. The main character(Randy) decides laying up on bed and crying all day wont do him any good. Randy decides not to feel bad for himself,but to live out his childhood dreams. Randy then pursues a life about giving lectures about living and accepting death as it is. For example, Randy shows many people that he is in shape, by doing push-ups and other physical activities. Also, Randy decides to tape his life and all the important so he will so that his children would actually be able to know what he looks like and who their father really was.
Overall, The Last Lecture was a extremely emotional book that shows that the people in this world should not be afraid of dying, rather live life to the fullest and do all you can do. Randy Pausch says, "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
This book influences people to not to look forward to death, but try your best to avoid it.
Rash, by Pete Hautman
Rash was a marvelous book that took place in the USSA (United Safer States of America) in the year 2074. With many activities previously legal, now illegal such as football, large dogs, alcohol, cigarettes, temper tantrums, “self mutilation”, and even french fries, the USSA is similar to a prison. Three-fourths of people are on the drug levulor© which slows their reflexes and helps them control their anger. Twenty-four percent of adults are working in prison camps doing jobs that normal people would never want to do like cleaning the sewage and making frozen food products.
This book follows 16-year-old Bo Marsten, whose father and older brother are off working in prison camps. He lives with his mother and his Gramps. He gets angry at one of his adversaries at school and attacks him. He is then sentenced to 3 years working at a pizza packing plant in the tundra. He spends 18 hours a day, 7 days a week making pizzas. Bo soon realizes that the prison guards care nothing about him because they have someone else lined up to replace him. He finds himself in an unsafe, illegal world where gambling, football, and polar bears are commonplace.
Bork, a sentient Artificial Intelligence being that Bo created before he was sent to the prison, communicates with Bo and tries to get him an early release. Bork finds a way to release Bo and when Bo returns to the normal world, he finds himself to be unfit for society. He eventually confines himself to sleeping in his room all day. Bork then tells Bo that “kill bots” (cyber bots that attack Artificial Intelligence beings who become to intelligent) will destroy him. Bork deposits 3 Million “V” Bucks (currency used in the book) into his account. Finally, Bo leaves his home to go to South America and play for their football league.
Rash was an interesting read that was different from most books. I found that reading it provoked my thoughts about how our nation would be 70 years from now. Overall, I would recommend reading this book and I look forward to reading more of Pete Hautman’s books.
The professor and the madman by Simon Winchester
I found this book to be both enthralling and moving. The making of the Oxford English Dictionary by a completely insane madman, the story is set in the 1800. After committing a murder and pleading insanity, Dr.Minor is sentenced to an asylum. Then contacting Dr.Murry and asking to assist in making the OED.
Troy Moon
“The Perfect Storm”
1 of 5 stars
I couldn’t tell what “The Perfect Storm” by Sebastian Junger, was exactly supposed to be. The story is a biography of all of the crew on the Andrea Gail, a history book on the town of Gloucester (including politics), a handbook on the art of commercial fishing, a meteorology article on the driving forces of storms, and a medical pamphlet on drowning, and real-life accounts of storm survivors, all shredded to pieces and randomly reassembled into a neat little stack. You practically need a dictionary at hand to understand the jargon (“Having determined his Great Circle route and plugged the heading into the autopilot, Tyne then goes over to the chart drawer and pulls out a ten-dollar nautical chart called INT 109. He lines up a course of 250 degrees to his waypoint on the Tail and then walks his way down the map with a set of hinged parallel rules. He rechecks the bearing at the compass rose at the bottom and then adjusts by twenty degrees for the local magnetic variation”). Most of the information presented is completely irrelevant to the main conflict of the crew of the Andrea Gail and the storm. That conflict, sadly has painfully little time in the spotlight. No one needs to know the history of the rise and fall of the swordfish population and the government’s response in order to understand how the crew battled the storm of the century.
The resolution to the conflict is sketchy and extremely vague. It also doesn’t help that it is placed within a jumble of real-life accounts of survivors of storms at sea, and, strangely, the training process of rescue swimmers. Finally, Junger ends up inserting a small passage of his own fiction to compensate for the lack of information, ending in the drowning of all the crew members (strangely, this happens with about a fourth of the book left to go). It is understandable, however (especially considering his Foreword comments) that the author did not wish to recreate a completely unknown event in a nonfiction work. However, it could still have been organized much, much, better.
There isn’t much of a plot to this book, or if there is, it is practically a labyrinth of different plot lines. The main story of the crew of the Andrea Gail and their attempt at survival, if I were to hazard a guess, was less than fifty percent of the book, and evenly dispersed within it. The plot manages to hold together while the crew goes about the business of preparing for a three month trip swordfishing, but as soon as they leave port, you get a history lesson on Gloucester. He jumps back to the story, but for only short periods before going on an irrelevant rant again. Later, the plot completely evaporates when the story becomes more of a set of recollections from people who survived the storm. This book jumps from topic to topic so quickly, you need to constantly flip back and forth to keep up with everything that is going on.
The main setting is, I presume, supposed to be Gloucester and the Grand Banks around 1991, but it might have well have been the entire east coast, scattered within over a hundred years. The setting fares about as well as the plot, promptly evaporating somewhere within the first chapter.
All in all, I could never decide what kind of book this was supposed to be. I concluded that the editor must have been sleeping. Or was fired. There is no conceivable way a book this disorganized and with such an irrelevancy content could get to a publisher. The idea was great, the information was great, but getting it all to work together failed miserably.
Storm Front By: Jim Butcher
This was one of the most amazing books, I have ever read in my whole life. This is a fiction book with many twist and turns that the character has to overcome, so that he can defeat the opponent. In the beginning of the book there was nothing for Harry Dresden the only professional wizard for hire to do in midtown Chicago, but that will soon all change, when a mysterious women comes and asks for his help, an awful murder where the victims had their hearts exploded out of their chests, and John Marcone the mob boss of Chicago wants him to keep him into looking at these murders. Harry will encounter big bad demons that can shoot acid out and bullets do not hurt him. Brown scorpions that were once little talismans turn into giant scorpions that are as big as a cow. He will have to talk to his pal Bob( a hundred year old spirit trapped in a skull that knows a lot about the magic world) to keep potions and information, and he will call on fairies for better information from the Neverness. He will talk to a high powered vampire that almost kills him for threating her. The most intense moment for Harry was when he was battling a bad wizard, but Harry conquered him and saved everyone's life including his own. So his life went back to normal work of doing nothing.
Justin Lewis
4B
"Odd Thomas"
Dean Koontz
In Dean Koontz’s book Odd Thomas, the town of Pico Mundo, California is far from normal. Sure on the outskirts it may look like your basic haven for tourists and laid back locals, but one citizen by the name of Odd Thomas will completely change this place for quite some time.
Odd has a special ‘gift’. He can sense bodachs, or the bringers of bad fortune. These shadowy figures lurk in hiding until disaster is about to strike, and then they flock by the dozens.
However with the arrival of a new guest to Pico Mundo, Odd sees bodachs everywhere—hundreds of them at that. What omen does this mysterious man bring with him? And when will it happen?
When faced with the paralyzing horror that this secretive being holds plans to bomb the local mall, Odd Thomas goes into gear to prevent it from happening. Although the cost of saving dozens of strangers is the price of his loved one, the crime is solved and once again the town of Pico Mundo may rest at peace.
--Jaime Meyers
In the book And Then There Were None, the setting is a very important part of the story It takes place on Indian Island. When the story takes place on the island it also adds to the suspense. On the island there are no telephones or any other way to contact anyone for help, and even if a person wanted to help the killer said not to help them in anyway. A person named Fred Narracot is not coming because the killer has told him not to come. If the guests on the island heliographed for help, people on shore have been told to ignore the signals.
The suspense is that the guests have been invited to the island and there is no way of contacting anyone on shore. There is a killer among the people. Someone named U.N.Owen is the killer. There is also no telephone on the island. No one can help the guests, they are all in danger.
The author, Agatha Christie makes it look like anyone could be the killer. A guest named Phillip Lombard brings a revolver to the house, and a person named Emily Brent was gone the morning someone was killed. I also liked the author's style. I think I will read some more of her books.
I really liked this book. At the end of each chapter, I was always at the edge of my seat thinking about what would happen next. I would call this book a very exciting page turner. I would suggest people to read this book.
Weasel
By: Cynthia DeFelice
Eleven year old Nathan and nine year old Molly (his sister) are all alone in a small cabin in the middle of the wilderness next to the warm crisp fireplace as the firewood slowly begins to fade away. A few years back their mother had died due to a very bad fever. Their father had gone hunting for food and has not returned for six days. Nathan and Molly are alone and scared. All of a sudden they hear knocks on their door. They are terrified and don’t know what to do. Nathan hopping its his father, bravely opens the door and finds a man standing there, he is sure it’s not his father. The man stood a distance from the cabin not knowing what to expect. Molly comes up and asks this poor guy what does he want, what does he need from them. The man just looks at them and stares. A few minutes later the man reaches into his leather pouch and pulls out their mother’s locket necklace that their father carries with him all the time. They let him in, thinking he has information regarding their father. His name is Ezra and he is a Shawnee Indian who helps Nathan and Molly find their father. Ezra tells them the whole story about this serial killer named Weasel. This killer killed all their villages’ animals, crops, and most of the people. Ezra’s tongue has been cut off by Weasel. A hunter who murders innocent people for their beliefs. That’s when Nathan, Molly and Pa get involved with Weasel. In the woods, Weasel set a trap almost undetectable. Pa when hunting, tripped and stumbled into the trap. Now Pa has lost his right leg. But when Weasel catches on to Nathan he accidently shoots himself in the ankle. Weasel is now too weak to hunt for food and dies of hunger. The family and the rest of the village is safe and secure.
Review by:
Mohammed A. Jaber
2B
Troy Croft
Brandon Carpenter
Chris Dampier
Rotation 1B
Book Review for ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker
The first part of the book deals with solicitor Jonathan Harker sent from London to meet Count Dracula in the Count's castle in Transylvania, Romania. Although ominous signs abound, such as the Counts ability to control a whole pack of wolves into doing whatever he wants them to do, Harker is at first happily naive of the danger he is in. That of course changes when he realizes he is indeed a prisoner within the castle, and while we think the worst is over as Jonathan barely escapes the castle with his life, in fact the real horrible events are just beginning as the Count makes his way to London and starts feeding on Jonathan's wife, Mina's best friend Lucy, and then Mina herself.
The opening chapters of Dracula are gripping, but the narrative loses steam once the Count arrives in England. Too many pages are devoted to the case of Renfield, one of the residents in Dr. Seward's asylum, and by the time Lucy's fourth blood transfusion is described, we began to lose patience with the story in anticipation of the final confrontation between the vampire hunters and Dracula.
The narrative is delivered through the collective diary entries and letters of the main characters who ultimately band together to overcome Dracula. This technique allowed us to feel the terror and come to realizations as the main characters do. The pace of the book is fast and furious as Harker and his companions race to find and destroy the Count before Mina completely transforms into a vampire and loses her soul forever. Unfortunately things don’t go completely according to planned; though Dracula is killed by Morris who “plunges” a knife into his heart right after Harker slashes Dracula’s throat.
Patrick Evidente
5/10/08
2-B
Mrs. Nourse
Hard copy of review
Non-fiction
Aftermath Review
The acclaimed crime writer, Gil Reavil, wrote this non-fictional book. This book was based on real experiences he came across while researching the grim reality of bio-remediation for an article in his magazine, Maxim. The bio-remediation company that he did his research on was Aftermath Inc. Although the company was spread nationally, he mainly did his research near his home in New York. Thus being said, he followed and worked with them through out the north east states.
Through out the story, he describes all the clean-up jobs with gruesome detail. On his first day on the job, his impetus was to throw up and turn away from the carnage. The carnage was a result of a 3 month old, decaying corpse left there alone amongst homely clutter. He worked with two experienced men in the field of bio-remediation, over the course of his research and numerous bio-remediation jobs, he became more efficient, and the impetus to turn away and retch was subdued. All these deaths were made by all reasons ranging from human brutality to untimely accidents. The more exposed he was to this over the course of 5 months, the more aloof he was to the death he saw almost everyday. He came across a clean up job that vexed him. A mother killed her four children before killing herself inside their middle class suburban home. This left him to worry about his own children back home and to protect them from harm. Thus inferring that he is a family man and takes that punctilious responsibility. After the majority of his volunteer jobs, he infiltrated the history of the founders of Aftermath. The two men responsible with the starting of this niche business were Chris and Tim, two childhood friends with very different views towards a number of things, interests, religion, cars and their job. Gil observed that there were more than the field workers who clean up the decay and blood. Or the two headmen who run the growing corporation. Women contacted police, sheriffs and the morgue requesting bio-remediational jobs. This was because they found the actual clean-up jobs were too gruesome to handle. Near the end, Chris and Tim held a Christmas party with all the employees of Aftermath Inc. There, all, even Gil were paid Christmas bonuses. When he left on the way home, he was left with a yearning to work with them again. He still keeps up with the corporation’s growth and changes. This shows even more, how much he misses the clean-ups that he did beside the workforce who cleans up the dead and decaying.
This novel overall was entertaining to me only in parts that described the carnage and the crime committed. The other parts were dull and mortifyingly boring. The book was non-the-less an excellent provider of insight into the bio-remediational fields of work. The methods and the measures they took to secure the area of any contamination was enticing to say the least. It also reveals how human malice can create so many deaths around us. Gil Reavil gives a good insight at a career that’s not very well known and reveals it to the masses.
Romiette Renee Campbell has lived her entire life in Cincinnati. Romietteis a beautiful brown skin girl and lives with her parents, who are both have promising careers her father as a news reporter on television and her mother as a store owner. Romiette has never found having a boyfriend important like most girls her age do.
Julio has just moved to Cincinnati from Texas,and he hates everything about the Cincinnati. All Julio can think about is getting back home to Texas. Julio parents wanted to move to Cincinnati to get away from the gangs in Texas. But, little do they know their is a gang in Cincinnati that will cause a terrible exprience for both Romiette and Julio.
When Romi and Julio talk online enough to realize they are going to the same school, they decide to meet for lunch one day. The two of them really hit it off; there is a definite spark between them that makes them want to spend all of their free time together. The Devildog gang doesn't like it, though. They don't want one of the pretty black girls at their school associating with a Hispanic boy. They threaten Romi and Julio and try to make them stop seeing each other. Romi and Julio don't know what they can do, but then they come up with a plan to secretly videotape the threats and bring that tape to the news, to expose this gang. When they put the plot into action, though, things go terribly wrong and Romi and Julio's lives are in danger.
BOOK REVIEW OF CROSSING THE WIRE BY MICHAEL POLIDORI
Will Hobbs book “CROSSING THE WIRE” has done a terrific job of bringing the reader into the story it makes you feel you are the boy who has to cross the border so he can earn the money in America to support his family. The problem is there is an abundance of obstacles and troubles the boy must go through before he can reach America.
The exposition of the story is there is a boy named Victor Flores (main character who lives in a tiny poor village in Los Arboles Mexico with his mom, brother, and sister whose names are Mama, Chuy, and Graciela. His dad died in accident while working a construction job in South Carolina the building collapsed. Victor has a best friend named Rico Rivera who can afford to go to school. He has given victor the nickname of turtle for two reason he runs slow and does not make risky decisions. Rico’s dad is the one who runs the village. One night Rico decides to leave the village to work with his brother up in Tuscon taking care of swimming pools. His brother has already gave him the money, he sneaks out the house and leaves one afternoon telling Victor to tell his parents that he left the night before.
The rising action is when Rico’s dad tells him that the Americans refuse to stop selling there cheap corn in Mexico. What this said to Victor is that his family was not going to make enough money of the corn to survive that year. That night he goes home tells his mom the horrible news and him and his mom come to the conclusion that he must go to El Norte (in the states) to earn enough money to send back to his mom so his family will be able to survive. The next morning he goes up to El Cristo Rey to pray to the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. While there a man gives him some bus money. During the afternoon he went to the bus station in Silao and got a ticket for Nogales. The first class bus ride was going good until the police pulled the bus over to check if they were from Mexico, Victor did not have any idea so at first he had to lay on the ground. He escaped and made a run for it from the police being distracted from some Mexicans hiding in a truck.
The climax is when he has to cross the border now with no bus ride or coyote money. The first person he meets in his journey is Julio from Honduras. Julio is trying to cross the border to the only difference is that he has more experience than Victor and knows a few ways of how to get there. They met by while in the train yard Victor then picked out a train jumped on a ladder and dropped in the train through a gap on the top. They lived in Nogales for a while then one night a giant storm began in the middle of the night so him and Julio ran for the tunnel called Los Vampiros which led across the border. The only problem was the gates on the other side were only sometimes open which is why they chose to go during when the tunnel is floodes because that is when they most likely open the gates. Victor decided not to take that chance, Julio did and made it. Who Victor met next on his journey is Miguel. He meets him when Miguel tells the bus driver to stop near the border and Victor sneaks off when the bus driver is not looking. They walk through the scorching hot desert for a few days with only a few breaks. While crossing they learn about each other become friends and Miguel teaches him how to use a map. Finally they enter the Chirichua mountains by. While crossing the mountains they are spotted border patrol since Miguel is injured he is caught and Victor gets away. Before Miguel was caught he handed Victor his map, knife, and food.
The falling action is when he meets the last and most important person Rico Victors long lost friend. Victor eventually gets out of the mountains gets caught by the border patrol and gets deported to Nogales where he met Rico in a soup kitchen. They hang out for a few days then plan how to get to the states. There plan is to hike to the town of Sells then get a ride from an Indian to Tuscon which is only 30 miles away. What really happens is they get to Sells and figure out there is border patrol in the way. So Rico makes a deal with a drug dealer that they would be mules and carry the drugs across the desert. The leaders of the pack were Morales and jarra. After being tortured walking through the scorching hot desert for a few day with only a few breaks and carrying fifty pound bags on there back they finally escape from the leaders of the pack. They went to Baboquivari canyon where they were running from Jarra. Met a border patrol trooper helped him get away in a helicopter. Next they escaped from Jarra and went to a small ranch house.
The conclusion is when they meet a guy at the small ranch housed whose name is Hansen who drives them to Tuscon. A terrible thing happens there they get dropped of at Rico’s brothers house and learn from the neighbors that him and his family left three nights ago because he would have been arrested and his family would have been deported because he stole cars. In the end Victor ended up working in an asparagus farm in Dayton Washington and would rotate to different farms. Rico went back to school in the village from where the story began.
brent raczkowski
joseph conrad: by martin tucker
Joseph is a writer thats work is a reflection of morals. He is caught between the urge to plunge depply into the need to shape the human evnts of today. His greatest work was written between 1900 and the1914. The very first novel he ever wrote was Almayer's Folly. He once had trouble because his mom was dead and his dad was sent to exile. Then he finally started to write again. His characters are unique and real, and the stories are real world, challenging situations that are unpredictable and yet follow the laws of human nature. This book takes place in poland. In 1857 Conrad was born. 1862 his father is sentenced to exile. Also his mom dies in 1865. conrad had a hard life because of his dad going to exile his mom dieing. Then he solved his problem by writing. in this book he talks about the other books Condrad wrote including the Heart of darkness, Nostromo, and others.in 1868 his dad is able to feturn home from exile and he goes to Galicia and Conrad joins him. Conrad works on a french ship from 1874-78.
brent raczkowski
5/22/08
4b
One Soildier's Story
BY: Bob Dole
The book goes back to a journey that began in a small town called Russell, Kansas where bob dole was raised. He was a hard working and very athletic he wanted to grow up and become a doctor. There were 99 people in his graduating class so you know that it was a small town. When he was wounded the community or town that he lived in raised money to pay for all his hospital bills because he had no money. He lost a kidney, the use of his right arm and most of the feeling in his left arm. He was hoping that the doctor would be able to help him and put him together again but he had to realize that he was not going to be put together again. Bob Dole arrived in Washington as a freshman Congressman in 1961, and later served 27 years in the Senate. He ran as his party's candidate for Vice President in 1976.
Chinese Handcuffs: Chris Crutcher
Chinese Handcuffs was by far one of the best books I have ever read. Dillon Hemingway is a very complex character. He is just getting over his brothers suicide, when all of a sudden his life seems to just keep going downhill. My favorite event in this book is when Dillon has to chase Jennifer through town when she is at her lowest point in her life and wants to commit suicide. It shows just how much he cares and will do anything to save her. He pretty much breaks his ankle and loses a tooth to save her. The main conflict in this book is Dillon trying to get over his brothers death, and trying to help Jennifer overcome her being sexually abused by both her fathers. He overcomes his conflict throughout the story by writing letters to his dead brother and overcomes his conflict of helping Jennifer by catching her father in the act and making him go to jail.
Chinese Handcuffs: Chris Crutcher
Chinese Handcuffs was by far one of the best books I have ever read. Dillon Hemingway is a very complex character. He is just getting over his brothers suicide, when all of a sudden his life seems to just keep going downhill. My favorite event in this book is when Dillon has to chase Jennifer through town when she is at her lowest point in her life and wants to commit suicide. It shows just how much he cares and will do anything to save her. He pretty much breaks his ankle and loses a tooth to save her. The main conflict in this book is Dillon trying to get over his brothers death, and trying to help Jennifer overcome her being sexually abused by both her fathers. He overcomes his conflict throughout the story by writing letters to his dead brother and overcomes his conflict of helping Jennifer by catching her father in the act and making him go to jail.
The book "Angels and Demons," by Dan Brown takes place primarily in Vatican City during the election of the next Pope, in present day. The overall plot is a mad search for the four missing cardinals and anti-matter (a highly explosive chemical thought to be the link between God and science) The main characters are Dr. Langdon, a symboligist at Harvard, Vittoria Vetra, a physicist at CERN (the worlds largest particle physics laboratory), Carlo Ventresca the Camerlengo of Vatican City, Commander Olivetti, leader of the Swiss Guard, and Maximilian Kohler, the director of CERN. The main conflicts are the murder of Vittoria's father, the kidnapping and murder of the Preferiti, and the theft and scramble to find the anti-matter before the Vatican is destroyed. In the end, the so called Illuminati threat turns out to be fodder. In reality, it was the Camerlengo planning the destruction of the Holy City. Carlo Ventresca had killed the Pope (who was in fact his biological father) and hired the Hassassin to kill Leonardo Vetra, the Four Preferiti and steal the anti-matter. Langdon is given the Illuminati Diamond as a reward for his works...THE END
- Carl Craig
Lucky, a compelling memoir of Alice Sebold, the writer and main character of the novel, as she goes throughout her life being a victim of rape at the age of 18 as a college freshman at Syracuse University located in Philadelphia. Perhaps the beginning of the memoir is what pulled me in to continue on with each page. The story commences when her actual rape is occurring. Alice goes into detail that she was walking back to Syracuse University under a dark bridge in the middle of a forested park area, books in hand, when young African American man made a brutal attack on her. Clothes were forced to be ripped off and then he had his way with her. What seemed like minutes, felt like hours to Alice. To Alice’s dismay she was actually a virgin at this point in her life and had absolutely no idea what to do in order to rid of this atrocious man. Although, she did what she was told to do, and after the man was done he as ironically apologetic about what he had just done to her. He even offered to help her in any way possible! How in the world can you BRUTALLY RAPE someone and then apologize and offer your assistance?!
The memoir persists on with Alice having to deal with the fact the she is the same person on the inside, but in reality not so much. After the rape incident she, of course, is taken to the hospital, cleaned up, and in the following day’s leaves the Syracuse campus to journey home to her parents for rehabilitation. On the way they pick up her sister, who is attending Philadelphia University. Alice Sebold’s memoir then goes into a series of internal withdrawals, where the clothes she wear changes from nice, everyday attire, to merely night gowns. Her confidence lacking entirely, to the point where she has various emotional breakdowns due to thoughts of “good boys” not liking her if they found out she was raped. Alice considers herself dirty, unattractive, and unloved.
The remainder of the memoir is Alice attempting to deal with herself as a person as well as find out who the rapist was. Contemplation of returning to Syracuse University is imminent. She does eventually go back, but it’s probably one of the hardest and scariest things, besides actually GETTING IN, that Alice has ever followed through with. At this point Alice is still dwelling in her parents’ home, during the summer, May 8 1981.
Towards the end of the memoir, nearly another year has gone by, Alice is doing relatively well back at Syracuse, her baby, as she is pregnant from the rapist, is getting bigger, and kicking inside Alice’s stomach and what not. At this point the climax is beginning to arise. Alice had set up a trial to determine who her rapist was. Mastine, a lawyer, began questioning her of what had happened, how old she was, where she was when it happened, etc. Alice stated, when asked, that her rapist was actually in the courtroom. Come to find out his name is Gregory Madison, which Alice was unable to identify at the time, as Madison was able to enlist a lookalike friend to frighten and intimidate Alice. Luckily Madison was finally convicted due to the evidence being against him and was remanded to jail for life.
Following the conviction of her rapist and graduation at Syracuse, Sebold went to the University of Houston in Texas for graduate school. Then she moved to Manhattan and lived there for ten years. Alice held several jobs as a waitress and tried to pursue her writing career. She then wanted to write her story through poetry, but that, and attempts at writing a novel, did not come to fruition. Alice used heroin recreationally for two years, though claims she never became addicted. Sebold recounted her substance abuse to students at an Evening of Fiction workshop by saying that, "I did a lot of things that I am not particularly proud of and that I can’t believe that I did." Following this she left the city and moved to Southern California, where she became a caretaker of an arts colony, earning $386 a month and living in a cabin in the woods without electricity. She would write by propane candlelight, and in 1995, Sebold applied to graduate school at University of California, Irvine (UCI). Ms. Sebold is now the proud writer of Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon, and continues perusing her writing career thusly.
Wayne Glass
AP English III
A-R3
The book Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir of the events that he endured during the Holocaust. It all begins in a town of Sighet, Transylvania. When Elie was a teenager he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to Auschwitz concentration camps. His mother and his three sisters were separated from Elie and his dad. That was the last time the ever saw them. The story takes you all the way into Elie journey through the many concentration camps and slowly becoming weaker. He explains the cruel punishment that Elie and his father received along with the injuries they endured.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
Was a great book!!
Stacy Verrando
Anthem
by: Ayn Rand
Everyone has a constant question in their head, driving them, pushing them, provoking their thoughts. The story Anthem is about a man named Equality 7-2521 and a question inside his head, a question causing him to break all laws of his society.
Equality 7-2521 was born during the time of the Great Rebirth. A futuristic time with rural beliefs (renaissance). During this time, the world is run by societies that determine your job, mate and death. Also in the Great Rebirth there was the almighty WE. The WE instated that all men were equal and all were part of one whole. No man had self and all men spoke as one. Equality, questioned his societies and their beliefs.
Equality was different from his fellow brother’s. He liked to think and question his surroundings. As a child Equality saw a man burned at the stake for he had spoke n the forbidden word. Since that day Equality believes it was his destiny to discover the word. While growing up Equality hoped that the council would send him to the House of the Scholars. So he could learn and make new discoveries to help benefit his society. Unfortunately he was sent to the house of the Street Sweepers. Equality saw this as punishment for thinking so much, but it still did not stop his inquiring. One day, while cleaning the streets, Equality stumbled upon a hole. Curious, Equality explored the hole to find that it was left from the times of Unmentionables. Intrigued by his discovery Equality kept his hole a secret and he returned to it.
While inside his hole Equality discovered materials and tools inside. He would perform experiments and trials. One day he discovered electricity. Enlightened by his new discovery, Equality created a light bulb of sorts, to contain the light. Alas, the council turned him down and threatened to destroy his creation of light. So, in a blind rage he broke a window and dashed into the forest. Once in the forest Equality came to the conclusion that he must never return to his society. Here Equality experiences one of his first self emotions, greed and selfishness. If nobody wanted to see his invention he would never let anyone destroy it no matter what the world council said.
In the forest Equality had to provide for himself, and he liked it. One day while exploring the wilderness Equality stumbled upon a structure of sorts. It had rooms and facilities. Equality claimed it as his new home. Inside he found scriptures. These scriptures had words on it that he did not understand. That’s when Equality knew he had discovered the forbidden words I, me, self, him, her and many more. At that moment Equality ordained that he would bring his fellow brothers back here and teach the m the sacred way of “ego”.
Anthem was a great book that caused me to think and ponder on the words ego and self. This book gave a phenomenal description of what individualism is, man vs. society and man vs. self.
A clear 8 out of 10.
Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo
Private Thomas Peaceful stands watch over the empty battlefield in World War 1. As he watches his mind is filled with memories on how life use to be as a child.
Thomas was brought up by his mother but his brother was his overall protector. He and his brother were best friends and did everything together. Then came Molly who was Charlie’s first love. Life was very good until World War 1 broke out.
Everything changes, to the attitude of the owner of Charlie's house, which became a madman. Everything was very chaotic.
One day the owner, the Colonel came to Charlie's house to send his brother to war. Everyone was heart broken but Charlie would not let his brother go alone. Lying about his age Charlie and his brother went to a war that they have no clue what they were about to witness.
From then on war changed Charlie and his brother into new beings. Watching people get killed to close incidents on their own. Just as Charlie thinks that the war is over, it's horrific consequences to him and his brother will change his life forever.
-Michael Sullivan
90 Minutes in Heaven By: Don Piper
This is a true story of how Don Piper's life was taken away from him a brought back to a whole new outcome on life and how everyone see's it as. Don Piper is a Christian Pastor who was on his way home from a pastor's convention when suddenly his life was taken from him from a head on collision. He was announced dead the second the peramedics arrived. When approximately 90 minutes later he was alive again with a pumping pulse. He crashed on a bridge, it was raining with debris from the crushed vehicles scattered everywhere like a hurricane had struck. His body was so terribly dismanciled that the peramedics had to cover his body with a tarp to keep from near by viewers being able to see the discrace. When Don was dead for 90 minutes, he later tells us in his story, that he saw heaven. When he entered he was greeted by what seemed like hundreds of people that had been inspirations in his life, they were all smiling and so happy that he has come home. He heard people singing, but not like any singing on earth, it was like a hundred different songs playing at once but harmonizing to create one beautiful song. He experienced what he considered just floating towards the gates. One thing he does say repeatedly is that he never did see God, he believes that if he had seen him that he would never had wanted to return to earth, he would have stayed in heaven. It was like God was "teasing" him with heaven. Once Don returns to earth he has to go through what seemed like thousands of surgeries because his body was so torn up from the crash, the doctor's didn't believe that he was going to make it through all of the surgeries. But, Don also believed that God showed him heaven for a reason, to be a witness to those around him plus more. Which in deed, he did. He shared his story with the world and he still continues to share his story, through his books and through his preaching. He is a husband, a father, a brother, a friend, and more. This story's conflict was the decision between life and death. The resolution, God gave him the strength and desire to live.
Robby Kuhn
Mrs. Schultz-Nourse
AP English 3
23 May 2008
A Literary Review of Oliver Twist
“Please, sir, I want some more.” With this line, early in the story, Charles Dickens begins perhaps his most famous novel, the tale of Oliver Twist. This compelling story takes place in 1830’s London, in the village of Pentonville outside of London, and in an unnamed town 70 miles to the north. As an orphan raised by the state, young Oliver Twist is banished from the orphanage. Following an unsuccessful attempt to indenture him to a chimney sweep, Oliver is apprenticed to an undertaker. Unable to endure the constant harangue of the undertaker’s wife, he runs away to London. In the Spittlefields neighborhood of East London, Oliver is taken in by a gang of pickpockets led by an old man named Fagin. The young boys received lodging as remuneration for their work as pickpockets and thieves. A major conflict in the story is the internal struggle between Oliver and his emotions. He struggles to overcome his upbringing and the criminal activities he abhors. Oliver tries to find his way out of the noxious environment of East London. His unknown family background remains a cryptic theme. After being falsely accused of pick pocketing, Oliver is taken in by the wealthy Mr. Brownlow in the village of Pentonville. The placid atmosphere in Brownlow’s mansion is in marked contrast from the turbulent times in Spittlefields. When Oliver is kidnapped by Bill Sikes and taken back to Fagin’s hideout, Bill’s girlfriend Nancy contacts Mr. Brownlow. Nancy meets Brownlow on the steps below London Bridge to tell him where Oliver is being held. When Bill finds out about the meeting, he murders Nancy with blows from his blunderbuss as she cowers in the corner of her room. The police arrest Fagin, and Bill’s knotty escape is hampered when he accidentally hangs himself. With the criminals vanquished, Oliver returns with Mr. Brownlow to Pentonville. Oliver has been able to overcome his early upbringing and criminal environment. Mr. Brownlow is able to unravel the mystery of Oliver’s family history, and the family starts a new chapter in the story of Oliver Twist.
Katie McKinney
28th May, 2008
4th Nine week Book review
Cage of Stars
Jacquelyn Mitchard
* * * / 5
Veronica (Ronnie) Swan is playing hide-and-seek innocently in the backyard with her two younger sisters. Life in their close-knit Mormon community in Utah previously posed no threats. Ronnie is waiting in the she for the girls to come find her, but she realizes she has been waiting too long. When she emerges from the shed, she seen a sight on the picnic table she never could have imagined in her wildest nightmare; her two beautiful, angelically blonde younger sisters, left to die in pool of each others’ blood. She instantly feels guilt, because she chose to cower in the shed rather than keep adequate watch over her sisters. A schizophrenic killer, Scott Early, is identified as the killer. Although her parents find the strength to forgive the deranged killer, Scott Early, Veronica cannot do the same. As an adolescent, she simply cannot cope with the pain, nor forget that scene that unfolded in her backyard that afternoon. She doesn’t understand why it happened how it did, or why it happened at all. She doesn’t understand why her parents were able to forgive him; how they were able to forgive him. Years later, still coping with the murder of her sisters, she sets out to avenge her sisters’ death and make peace with her feelings of grief and anger. She soon finds that revenge will not appease her desire for closure, only searching within herself can ease her pain. How to attain this, she is not sure. Ronnie must think far beyond her years to develop just a little bit of the strength that her parents did, and learn how to deal with the pain she has been feeling for so long. Ronnie begins the journey as a confused and pained twelve-year-old struggling to find her way, even without the death of he two beloved sisters. She ends the journey a mature, mentally and emotionally enhanced, justified young woman, who has found her light and her purpose amidst a world of turmoil.
Everyone is familiar with the old, famous, story of Romeo and Juliet. Sharon Draper's more modern book, Romiette and Julio, has a similar theme. Romiette is a 16 year old, African-American high school junior living in Cincinnati Ohio. She meets and begins to talk to a 16 year old Mexican, boy named Julio on an online chat room. There is an instant attraction. The two soon realize that they attend the same school. Julio is the new guy in town and has a hard time adjusting. Throughout the book Romiette and Julio spend more time with each other and eventually fall in love. This becomes a huge problem because Romiette is black and Julio is Mexican. An infamous gang from their school called the Devildogs, do not approve of their interracial relationship at all and because of this they cause constant trouble for the innocent couple. Throughout the book the Devildogs continue to threaten to “teach them a lesson” and end up kidnapping Romiette and Julio. The Devildogs throw Romiette and Julio onto a boat in the middle of Lawn Woods Lake and leave them there to die. They beat Julio with a gun barrel and knock him unconscious. After Julio gains some consciousness back, a huge storm comes and thrashes the boat around. Him and Romiette are both thrown out of the boat. They find shelter underneath a huge tree truck and wait there in the freezing cold for someone to rescue them. When a search team is sent out to find the couple, Romiette’s father sees one of her shoes drifting in the water. He immediately recognizes it and begins searching the area. He finds Romiette and Julio both barely conscious and rescues them both and they are brought to safety. This book was extremely entertaining and I loved every minute of it.
No Country for Old Men
By: Cormac McCarthy
No Country for Old Men is set in the year of 1980 along the Texas-Mexico border. The book has three main characters and switches back and forth between their parts of the story. The first main character is Anton Chigurh, a hitman hired by a drug buyer to get the money back from a drug deal gone wrong. The second character, Llewelyn Moss, is a man that just happens to get himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The third character, Sheriff Bell, is the sheriff who is in charge of the investigation of the trail of murders throughout the book.
In the beginning, Moss comes across the scene of a drug deal gone bad and finds a case of two million dollars. He decides to take it home with him and from there, times go downhill for him. Soon after he has a gang of Mexicans and Chigurh both chasing him down for the money. The chase is followed by Sheriff Bell trying to figure out what is going on as the events unfold. The hunt for the money grows more intense as more people are pulled in and the body count continues to rise. At least twelve people are killed by Chigurh alone. The climax hits as Moss looks like he is about to escape with the money, but he is caught and killed by the Mexicans in a hotel. Bell and the police search the hotel but find no trace of the money. Later on, Chigurh comes and takes the money out of the hotel. As he is driving down the street with the money, he is hit by another car, breaking his arm. He climbs out of the car with the money, makes a makeshift sling, and continues on his way. The ends with Bell in retirement reflecting back.
There are several conflicts in this book. The first is an internal conflict inside of Moss. He wants the money for himself, but is trying to do everything he can to prevent the need to kill someone else. His kindness is rewarded with his own death. The other main conflict is between Chigurh and Moss. They both are the two most strong-hearted about walking away with the two million dollars. Moss represents a "kind", conscientious person and Chigurh represents pure evil. He is portrayed as a human "terminator" of sorts and will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. He can't be stopped, only slowed down as evidenced by the car crash and broken arm. The resolution of this conflicts ends with Moss being killed, but not by Chigurh's own hands. This shows that sometimes evil does prevail.
5/5 Stars
-Aaron Law
Brandon Raczkowski
Black and White
By:Paul Volponi
Marcs and Eddie are the stars of Long Island City High School's basketball team. Marcs is black and Eddie is white, but they got past all that "racial crap" and have been best friends for years. Marcs and Eddie are going make it to the NBA. Everyone knows it. They have scouts coming to their games to see them play. Both know it will only be a matter of time before they get their big scholarships and then they can go to the pros. The problem is both boys are from the inner city and have little money. They could work but that would interfere with their practices and games. So, they decide to make some quick cash.
Derek Miller
5/5 Stars
Bringing Down the House – Ben Mezrich
You Could see the Movie Or You Could Experience it for Yourself
From the moment I picked this book I was drawn into its intense action and enthralling scenarios. Ben Mezrich vividly describes the sights and sounds along with emotions that go with highs takes gambler. It let me live vicariously through the lives of the MIT students, turned high rollers. Bringing Down the House also gave me a better taste of what really goes on in Casinos. I especially appreciated the colorful description of the “comps” and special treatment that was received. This book not only had a high flying, high-class side, it also intertwined the two-sided life that Kevin was living.
In the beginning of chapter two he narrates the experience of his first flight to Las Vegas strapped with cash and drenched in apprehension. The rush that Kelvin felt reached out and pulled you along for the ride. Next it takes you to a stunningly realistic description of his life before Vegas. The language the author uses vividly describes his dingy apartment and lifestyle at MIT.
As he describes each of the casinos you feel as if you are stepping onto the gambling floors. The smells and sounds of casinos envelope and mesmerize you. Apprehension and suspense grow as the book progresses leading up to and beyond the spilt of the team. Kevin and his two cohorts, Martinez and Fisher, the other BPs break away from the originator of the group Micky. Martinez and fisher throw caution to the wind and keep raising the risks until Kevin feels that he must break away or lose everything. Eventually he forms his own team and prospers, but all good things must come to an end and with increasing security and technology he eventually became blacklisted at virtually all major casinos around the world.
Catch-22
By Joseph Heller
4/5 Stars
Catch-22 revolves around 28 year old John Yossarian who is posted at Pianosa, an island off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea, during the latter half of WWII. John is continuously paranoid throughout the novel that everybody in the war is trying to kill him. His crew and friends try to persuade him that this is not true, that no one is targeting him specifically, but he quickly dismisses their claims and spends his time looking out for himself. But as the war progresses, military command repeatedly raises the amount of required missions that a soldier must fly before he goes home. When the book begins, the number is 25, but by the time we reach the end the number has been raised to 80. Before long all of Yossarian's friends have died, been removed, or disappeared all together. Yossarian makes a very memorable statement when he witnesses the death of one of his friends:
“Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.”
It is at this key moment that Yossarian reaches an epiphany; that without the soul, without life, man is garbage. It is after this that Yossarian refuses to fly any more missions and soon the final conflict presents itself. Yossarian is eventually forced to make a decision that will either put him in danger, or put the remainder of his friends in danger. He has spent the entire war avoiding dangerous situations to keep himself alive, but his conscience will not allow him to put his friends in the line of fire. The Catch-22 presented by this event is that life is not worth living without a moral concern for the well being of others. So instead of accepting or rejecting the issue, Yossarian flees and runs away to Switzerland where he has heard one of his friends, thought to be dead, has washed up.
I enjoyed this book, but I also found it difficult to read and follow. The scenes of the novel would incessantly shift between flashbacks and the present. The vocabulary and Heller’s use of the English language is dated and was somewhat cryptic to me at times; having me pause in the middle of a page and ponder to myself exactly what he is trying to tell me. Overall, I enjoyed the story and the process of reading it.
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