Reader's Corner
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Alright , don’t judge me. I’ve just finished reading The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks. Yes, I said it, Nicholas Sparks. Before you go all crazy and start doubting my judgment as a literature teacher, let me just say that I found little to know literary value in this book. However, there is some. Was it predictable? Yes. Did it follow the same plot line as every other Nicholas Sparks book? Yes. But, was it entertaining? Yes, it was. I’ll say one thing for the guy, he’s nailed down a formula for romance novels that works. So why did I pick up this cliché chick lit book? Well, every year I try to complete the 40 book Challenge, and every year I get stuck trying to find a North Carolina author to read, and well, the book was available at the library so I checked it out.
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of reading Nicholas Sparks before (and sadly, I’ve read my fair share), I’ll go ahead and give you the plot line of this book (and for that matter, basically every other book he’s ever written). Mysterious vagabond, Logan Thibolt (pronounced Tebow) arrives in the small North Carolina town of Hampton with his German Sheppard, Zeus. Thibolt’s arrival in Hampton causes lots of questions. First, he claims to have walked all the way from Colorado with only his dog and his backpack. Second, he has a photograph of Elizabeth, and no one knows why. Elizabeth has lived in Hampton all of her life. Elizabeth has a son, Ben, and a jealous ex-husband, Sheriff Keith Clayton, who’s continually running off any men she tries to date. Thibolt has come to Hampton in search of Elizabeth after he found her picture on his first tour in Iraq. He thinks the photograph has kept him safe and he wants to thank her. Predictably, he meets Elizabeth and they fall in love, but he doesn’t get around to telling her why he’s come to Hampton. Clayton finds out and drama brews. I won’t spoil the ending, but, if you’ve read any other Sparks’ novels you can probably figure it out. So, this seems like the perfect time to have a discussion about archetypes, what they are, and why authors use them. Archetypes are characters that you come to know because they play the same or similar roles in every story they are in. For example, the trusted side-kick such as Batman’s Robin, and Sherlock’s Watson, play a very similar role in both stories. They are there to assist the hero and keep him or her out of trouble. They always have the hero’s back. I’m sure if you think about it, you could come up with a long list of trusty side-kick characters. That’s because that character is an archetype. Nicholas Sparks is a big fan of using archetypes in his writing. Almost every story he writes has the mysterious or misunderstood newcomer whose arrival sparks controversy and upsets the status quo. There is also the jealous/violent ex whose presence in the story serves to provide the main conflict. Generally because said mysterious newcomer falls in love with the sweet-natured, but also internally suffering all-American girl who happens to be the ex of the jealous/violent ex character. Now, not all of Sparks’ novels use these archetypes, but enough do that it’s safe to say he likes to use them. So, why do author’s like Sparks use archetypes in their writing? Well, to be honest, it saves the author a lot of time in the novel that might otherwise have to be used to explain these characters. As readers and consumers of stories, we’ve subconsciously started to expect these archetypes and when they show up in a story, we already know a lot about them. We don’t question the trusty side-kicks loyalty because we’ve become accustomed to this character and his/her role in the story. We inherently know that the jealous ex-boyfriend is going to be the villain because, well, he always is. Therefore, by using these archetypes in their stories, authors save a lot of time on having to explain backgrounds and plot points because they are generally understood. So, while not necessarily a book I’d recommend to all readers, I will say that if you like Nicholas Sparks books, you’ll like this one too. While slightly predictable, and similar to other’s he’s written before, it's still an entertaining read!
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For years, I've watched students read graphic novels and thought, I should read one of those, but never did. Well, I've finally done it. I've read my first graphic novel, and I must say, my introduction into the genre was quite pleasant. So much so, that I'll most likely read another one soon. For my first graphic novel, I chose American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. I chose this particular graphic novel for two reasons. First, it had been recommended to me by several people including a student of mine. Second, it was on the bookshelf at the library. That being said, I highly recommend this graphic novel, especially if you, like me, have never read one before.
American Born Chinese follows three story lines. The first is of young boy Jin Wang who finds himself the only Asian student in his new school and faces the xenophobia of the other students at his school. All Jin wants is to fit in and have friends. The second storyline follows the Monkey King who desperately wants to be seen as the all powerful god that he is, but everyone sees him as just a monkey. Third is Danny, an all-American basketball player with an embarrassing Chinese cousin who visits every year. His cousin causes so much social damage that Danny is forced to switch schools at the end of every school year. Believe it or not, all three strands of this story find themselves woven into one larger story, creating a very interesting plot with a universal theme. What these three stories have in common, and why I think this story is so popular, is the theme. All three stories touch on the theme of being happy with yourself and who you are, and not trying to be something you aren't. This is such a universal theme that it was hard not to see myself in the story as I read. But how can I relate to this story? I'm not remotely similar to any of the characters. Except that I am in one way - in fact we all are. We all have times where we wish we were something that we aren't or that we had things we don't have. Whether it's longing for straighter hair, better athletic abilities, or more friends, we all can relate to wanting things we don't have. We know what's it like to be embarrassed about something too. We know that feeling of wanting to crawl under the covers and hide until everyone forgets what we've done. So, the reason this book is so relatable has nothing to do with it's characters or even what happens to them. It's that we can all empathize with how they feel. It also lets us know that we aren't alone in these feelings. (Even though we tend to think we are). And it reminds us to be happy with who we are, because there is only one me and only one you - and we're pretty cool. I picked up the book, Looking for Alaska, because it was written by John Green. To date, I've read three John Green novels. Two have disappointed me and one is arguably the best book I've ever read. Unfortunately, this book was one of the disappointments.
So why the disappointment? Well, as I read Looking for Alaska, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had read the book already. I was sure I hadn't but the plot line just seemed so familiar. The story is told by Miles Harper, an awkward kid who's never really had many friends at his school in Florida. He convinces his parents to send him to Culver Creek boarding school in Alabama, telling them that he is searching for his Great Perhaps (and what that is - no one really knows). At boarding school he quickly befriends his roommate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin. The Colonel nicknames Miles "Pudge" (because he's so skinny) and introduces him to his friends Takumi Hikohoto and Alaska Young. Alaska is beautiful, moody, mysterious, and totally out of Pudge's league. Predictably, Pudge falls head-over-heels in love with Alaska. Toward the middle of the semester, the four friends plan a crazy prank that they carry out together in the middle of the night, and shortly thereafter, Alaska disappears leaving Pudge to spend the rest of the school year wondering what really happened to her. So what do you think? Sound familiar? Perhaps a bit like the plot of Green's later book, Paper Towns? Both books deal with a sort of awkward/nerdy boy falling for a beautiful, moody, and mysterious girl who is way out of his league but who he is friends with. Both novels have a night full of pranks in which said nerdy boy and mysterious hot girl pull off the pranks together - creating a bond between the two characters. And BOTH novels deal with said hot girl disappearing out of nowhere after which said nerdy boy pines over her disappearance for the rest of the novel. And now, for the disappointing part - neither novel provides much in the way of a resolution. They both sort of end with the nerdy boy, Pudge in this case, essentially saying 'oh well I guess I'll never really understand why she left' and then walking away from the situation. Really. REALLY? REALLY JOHN GREEN!?!?!?!? Ok, so, if you couldn't tell, this book disappoints me because at the end the whole journey just seems so pointless. The fact that the same writer has done this to me TWICE started to bother me, so I did some digging and I found that John Green had a similar experience in HS to the one that Pudge goes through. Looking for Alaska was John Green's way of trying to make sense of what happened to him when he was younger. I think it's safe to say that he really didn't make sense of it, because four years later he wrote Paper Towns with an eerily similar plot line and the same disappointing ending. I'm not sure what Green has in the works for now but I'm going to have to take a bit of a break from him. There is only so much disappointment a girl can take. Until next time, happy reading!! Whew - it's been a while since I've posted but I've been busy reading Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and let me tell you, this book is not for the faint of heart. While it IS an amazing read and I highly recommend it, get ready to really start questioning our criminal justice system. Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer who specializes in overturning wrongful convictions of death row inmates. His book, Just Mercy, is a nonfiction retelling of how he got started working with death row inmates and presents to the reader some of his most heartbreaking cases. The book mainly follows the case of Walter McMillian who has been wrongly accused of a murder and placed on death row. Once Stevenson starts looking into Mr. McMillian's case, he uncovers a series of cover ups and fabricated evidence that was used to secure a guilty verdict. Never mind that Mr. McMillian has about 30 people that were with him at the time of the murder and can attest to his innocence, McMillian still finds himself on death row. Throughout the novel, Stevenson revisits McMillian's story, while taking every other chapter to describe another case he's working on, giving the reader a good idea of what it must be like to be a lawyer (being pulled in 30 different directions at once). I won't spoil the ending for you, but I will tell you it's a very interesting, if not intense, read. I've got to admit, reading this book took me outside of my comfort zone a bit. Usually, when I pick up a book to read for pleasure, I like something entertaining. I like to escape in my reading. This book is NOT that book. I knew when I picked it up that it was going to be a hard book to read. I'm very interested in social injustices, but generally find myself better equipped to handle an article on the subject rather than an entire book. Reading a novel that is entirely dedicated to exposing corruption and wrongful treatment of innocent people is gut-wrenching at times. I found myself having to put the book down and give myself a break from the heaviness of it. That being said, I am so glad I read this book because I learned SO MUCH from it. Questions I'd never even considered before have now become things I think about on a regular basis. In Language Arts, I've been known to say that we've got to talk about the hard stuff if we want to make a change. Reading this forced me to think about some of the hard stuff (and don't be surprised if some of the topics addressed in this book become the topic of an AOW or a seminar in the near future). Reading this book made me realize a few things. First, wrongful convictions are more common than we would like to think. Second, our justice system tends to favor the wealthy and privileged. Finally, more people need to be aware of these issues if we are ever going to make any positive changes. So, would I recommend this book, absolutely, but with one caveat. If you do decide to pick up this book, do so with the understanding that it is nonfiction, it is real, and it can be heavy at times. However, as informed citizens we realize that sometimes we have to talk about the hard stuff in order to make a change. Wow. I just finished If I Stay by Gayle Forman, and it's safe to say I've never read anything like it before. I was so captivated by this novel and it's concept that it was hard to put down. It's about a 17-year-old gir, Mia, who, at the beginning of the book, has a great life. She has a loving family, loyal best friend, the popular rocker boyfriend who's totally devoted to her. Oh, and she's an amazing cellist. Like, going to Juilliard amazing. Until, on an impromptu drive, her family's car is hit by a truck and Mia finds herself in the hospital fighting for her life. The majority of the novel is spent with Mia in spirit form watching as family, friends, and her boyfriend Adam fight for her to stay in the world of the living. While in the hospital, Mia realizes that it is her decision alone if she will stay.
A couple of quotes really stuck out to me in this book. The first occurs on pg. 108 when Mia describes how her best friend Kim saved her from quitting the cello. "I was overwhelmed with gratitude to be friends with someone who often seemed to understand me better than I understood myself." I like this quote because we all want that one friend, and if we have that one friend, we hold on to them with an iron grip. Some of us get lucky and meet that friend in kindergarten, and others, like Mia, don't meet that friend until they are older. No matter when you meet that friend, you somehow just know that friend is "the one." And let's be honest, friends are just about the biggest part of school. If you have a friend who has your back, you can get through anything. I mean ANYTHING. That's what makes a best friend so special. Kim does not disappoint in the best friend arena. While Mia is in the hospital, Kim does all that she can to make sure Mia gets through this "anything." I think one reason I like this book is because it doesn't sugar coat the realities of life. It's very honest about the fact that sometimes life is a picnic...and sometimes it's not. Mia is a high school senior and her boyfriend Adam is in college. They've naturally started to go in different directions but neither wants to admit it. Mia says, "My stomach lurched, an appetizer before the full portion of heartache I had a feeling was going to be served at some point soon," (171). We've all been there, dealing with a struggle of some sort. Maybe it's a boyfriend who's going in a different direction, a friend who betrays us, or something else entirely. But we've all felt that stomach lurch. Having lived through my fair share of stomach lurches, (and realizing I've surely got more to come), it also struck me how, in the moment, sometimes the struggle seems like it's the only thing going on in the world. But, after we push through it, we look back on it and realize it wasn't so bad. Maybe it was even good we went through it because it made us stronger. It's helped us to grow in some way. So I guess I appreciate the book's admittance of reality. Sometimes we want to read to escape life's realities, and sometimes we need a dose of reality itself. This book definitely gives us that. I just finished reading Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, at the recommendation of a peer, and I'm glad it was recommended to me. Monster is about a 16-year-old African American boy, Steve Harmon, who is on trial for a robbery gone wrong at a convenience store in his neighborhood. Steve lives in a rough neighborhood in New York, and because of his tangental association with the people in his neighborhood who were seen committing the crime, he is accused as well. The book starts at Steve's trial and follows the proceedings all the way through to a verdict. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I will say that I was on the edge of my seat reading it.
Even though the book was written in 1999, it could have easily been set in 2016. The book touches on themes of racial profiling and portrays an institutionally biased criminal justice system. As I was reading the narrative bits of the book, and listening to Steve's internal debate on whether or not he is a monster because society has deemed him so, I couldn't help but to connect it with what we've been seeing on the news lately. As the book goes on, we come to see that there is no real evidence against Steve, except that he lives in a bad neighborhood and knows some of the people who live there and who have done bad things. Therefore he is presumed guilty by association. So if I haven't got you hooked by the plot, I'll tell you the structure of this book is really cool. It's considered multi-genre because it jumps around between Steve's diary, photo's, and a screenplay that Steve is writing of the whole thing. We find out midway through the novel that Steve is quite a talented film maker, and as a result, he decides to tell the whole story of his trial as if it is a movie. The book uses different fonts for each genre the reader sees, which adds a cool visual element as well. Another cool effect of this multi-genre approach, is that we get to see the story from a first person POV (Steve's via his diary) and a third person objective POV (via the screenplay). This contrasting POV gives the story yet another layer of interest as the reader waits to see how Steve will react to each courtroom scene. One more bonus, it's a quick read. At just 281 pages and with large font on many of the pages, it's a good one to grab if you don't have a lot of time on your hands. However, that does not make the book any less thought-provoking. In a very short amount of space, Walter Dean Myers has provided his readers with a story that addresses real, deep issues. It's a book that will certainly leave an impact. I just finished reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and all I can say is, grab a tissue. Actually, grab the whole box because you’re gonna need them. I don’t think you can get through that book without crying. And I’m not talking one graceful tear that gently slides down your cheek, I’m talking full on ugly cry. I must admit I’ve avoided reading this book for about four years now precisely because I knew it was going to be a tough read. I mean, kids with cancer is never a fun subject. You know someone is going to die and The Fault in Our Stars does deal with death. But really, the book is about life, and not letting something define you. But to be honest, I didn’t cry because of the dying. I expected death. I cried because the journey through life - what little there was - was so beautiful.
Ok so if you haven’t read it or seen the movie at this point you are wondering what the heck this book is about. So I’ll tell you but I won’t get into any spoilers. The book follows two teens, Hazel and Augustus, who meet in a Teen Cancer Support Group. As you would expect, they fall in love, but, being kids with cancer makes loving someone complicated. In addition to their falling in love, they also go on a quest to uncover the ending of their mutual favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction. A journey that teaches them both a few things they weren’t expecting. Suffice to say, I loved this book. I loved this book so much that I finished this book in a day. I literally could not put it down. Despite the ugly cry tears that had me literally sobbing out loud, this book was absolutely amazing. What makes it so? I think it all boils down to Hazel. The story is narrated by her and, in my opinion, her character makes the book as great as it is. Yes, she’s living with cancer, but she approaches it all in such a logical and at times witty manner, that the reader is not made to pity her the entire time. In fact, despite her physical limitations, she is a very strong character, which I liked. How does Green do this? Well for one, he has Hazel call out “cancer book tropes” while still incorporating the necessary “cancer book tropes” into his book. On page one, Hazel tells us that she’s going to support group because her mother thinks she is depressed. Hazel thinks, “Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying,” (3). In this way, Hazel acknowledges that she’s depressed, as are most cancer patients, but unlike most cancer patients, she’s thought about why she’s depressed and it’s not because she has cancer, it’s because she’s going to die. She continues to explain how cancer has impacted her life and what non-cancer patients think vs. the reality that cancer patients experience. So right from page one, I as a reader felt like this was a character who was going to be real with me about cancer. While she may be a bit depressed (“cancer trope”) she does not approach this depression in the way other characters living with cancer have. I found this to be really refreshing. It gave me some relief as a reader to know that this person wasn’t going to let cancer define her, but was going to think through her disease and come to a logical conclusion about how it affects her. Another thing, Hazel is witty, and I find her quips to be hilarious. She doesn’t allow her condition to affect her personality. She is who she is and doesn’t apologize for it. This is why Augustus falls for her, and it’s why I love her too. For example, after she meets her idol, Peter Van Houten, only to find out that he’s a total loser, she tells him, “I think you’re a pathetic alcoholic who says fancy things to get attention like a really precocious eleven-year-old and I feel super bad for you” (pg. 276). Burn, Hazel, burn. She cuts right to the core of his inadequacies and doesn't apologize for it. In this way, Green creates a character that is so strong despite her physical weaknesses, and for this, we love her. Yes, you may cry, but The Fault in Our Stars isn’t one to miss. There is so much about it that’s good, it’s hard to find much bad. Bottom line, read the book. You won’t regret it. I just finished reading Girl at War by Sara Novic. Girl at War is a historical fiction novel about a young girl, Ana Juric, who is living through the Yugoslavian Civil War. When the war breaks out she is only ten years old and trying to understand what is going on around her. After the death of her parents, she escapes to America where she is forced to deal with her survivor's guilt. Only problem, most people in America have never even heard of the Yugoslavian Civil War, and no one understands what she's gone through. She decides that she must return to her home country of Croatia if she is ever to find peace.
While I enjoyed the storyline of Girl at War, the structure of the novel left me feeling overly confused, and the novel seemed to end without ever giving the reader a sense of closure. Perhaps that was the point, but I personally found it very disappointing. The novel alternates between 10-year-old Ana and 20-year-old Ana. It starts with young Ana at the start of the war, but once her parents are killed it quickly fast-forwards to Ana at 20 going to college in America without any explanation of how she got there. I think the intended purpose was to add drama to the story but it left me frustrated and needing answers. On the other hand, it kept me reading. Once Ana decides to go back to Croatia, the story very suddenly jumps back to young Ana, and the reader finally learns how Ana ended up living in America. Then, almost without warning, the reader goes back to college Ana, who is traveling in search of her godparents. I won't spoil the ending but I will say it ends a bit abruptly and had me wondering: What was the point of all that? Overall, I enjoyed reading the book but I wouldn't say it was the best book I've ever read. I did appreciate the suspense that was created with the movement between young Ana and adult Ana, and it is a compelling story. My only real complaint is the ending. If you like historical fiction, I think it's worth checking out. Maybe you'll feel differently. If you do, be sure to let me know in class! |