In the book that I just finished reading, Eleanor and Park, the main character Eleanor goes through her life pretty much by herself. I mean she has a family but they don't really take care of her that well. Her mother puts her boyfriend before her kids and her father barely talks to her. Her siblings only care about themselves. She's kind of a loner and is constantly feeling like no one cares for her but herself. This all changes when she started dating Park. Of course she still has a treaterous home life. Her Mother's boyfriend was always aggressive and physically abusive to their whole family. She still had no money or toothbrush. But park made a lot of things better for her. He showed her what a real family was like with his, and made her feel loved and apart of something. I connected this situation and the song "Scar Tissue", by the Red Hot Chille Peppers. This section of the song is like a parallel to the life that Eleanor leads. She has this amazing thing going for her, (Park) the "sarcastic mister know it all" but she has no one to share it with. No friends, or family, and in the song they share this lonely view with the birds because there's no one else to tell.

Forsaking Home by A. America

                   

                  The book I am reading is about the collapse of society. With the government failing, no power, and no help, people must survive with jus their close friends. People will raid, kill, and destroy anything that gets in their way of surviving. In my book, Morgan, his family, and his friends must survive after leaving their home, which was torched by raiders.
                   I chose this book because it seemed like a book I would enjoy reading. The cover intrigued me because the cover depicted a warlike scene. I like reading about survival and war and I knew this book would suit me well.
                   The connections I made between the book and society are people rely too much on stores and the government in their lives. In this book, the government collapses. There aren't any stores left because they were all looted. People don't know how to hunt or fish or gather for food because it was never needed in their lives. All they can do now is just wait to die of hunger.

Schools Out - Forever Topic Of The Week

I am reading the book Schools Out - Forever by James Patterson. Max and her group, the flock, have been taken in by an FBI agent after Fang was badly injured. Max and the flock were staying at the hospital and being questioned by the FBI. As soon as Fang was able to walk, they were taken in by an FBI agent to her house. Although they are living their with happily, they were soon enrolled into school and Max began wondering that the FBI agent taking care of them is taking her place as the protector of the flock.

I chose this book because it was recommended to me by a friend when he was reading to it. he told me to read a few pages and see if I liked it. I read it and I decided to consider reading it after I finished the book I was currently reading then. I also chose to read it because it was very action packed and suspenseful.

I saw a connection between Max and something she thinks she is (Her role). When she and the flock started staying at the FBI agents house, she thought that the agent was taking her spot as the protector of the flock. She started thinking differently until Nudge told her that shes only 14 years old. That she doesn't have to act like the mom of the flock, even if she is the oldest one. This thought of her spot being taken by the agent was holding Max back. This shows the connection between Max and her role.

Click Here. This picture shows the role that Max thinks she should be playing.

Harry Potter and the order of phoenix

"Something had happened to the night. The star-strewn indigo sky was suddenly pitch 
black and light less -the stars, the moon, the misty streetlamps at either end of the alley
had vanished. The distant rumble of cars and the whisper of trees had gone. The balmy
evening was suddenly piercingly, bitingly cold. They were surrounded by total, 
impenetrable, silent darkness, as though some giant hand had dropped a thick, icy mantle
over the entire alleyway, blinding them. "(12)

Connecting Through Words in The Beginning of Everything

I love words; I always have. In preparing to write this model blog entry for you, I took the books I recently finished, as well as the few I am reading now, and looked through my highlight section on my Kindle. I love words, especially someone else's words that say what I feel so much better than any way I could say it. Through all the looking, I kept coming back to this line:

"The way I figured it, keeping quiet was safe. Words could betray you if you chose the wrong ones, or mean less if you used too many. Jokes could be grandly miscalculated, or stories deemed boring" (66). 

I really enjoyed the novel The Beginning of Everything, by Robyn Schneider. Though at some points it got a little bit predictable, I really couldn't put it down. Ezra, the main character, has pulled away from his former "popular" friends in the aftermath of a car accident that left him unable to play sports. Your typical jock who finds he has nothing left; well, not really. Turns out Ezra may have only been "pretending" to be that high school cliche. Learning the hard way that his former friends may not have been actual friends, Ezra reconnects with his middle school best friend, Toby, and finds his inner academic nerd, as well (in the end) some people he can truly call friends. But before you go dissing the popular kids, enter Cassidy Thorpe-- mysterious, adventurous, intelligent (and gorgeous) Cassidy. But she's hiding a secret that keeps her always at a distance, and though she steals Ezra's heart, she ends up leaving it in pieces. I shouldn't write much more here other than "go out and read this book, ladies. It rocks!"

Several weeks ago I learned of a young woman, 29, named Brittany Maynard who was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma. She has chosen to control her own death-- not to commit suicide in the traditional sense, but in controlling when she will die, she is controlling the quality of her remaining time on earth. I think of that above quote when I think of her-- she spoke up. She didn't LET wording of laws betray her-- she spoke out and moved to a state, Oregon, which "allows legal protections for terminally ill patients who want to end their suffering" (Washington Post, 10/8/2014). You can find the article detailing her choice and reasoning if you click here. There are so many emotional and moral opinions surrounding her choice, but she stood up for herself; she took control of her own life and met death on her own terms (she died November 2).

I thought I'd give you an oldie but a goodie here with John Mayer and "Say".

"The water cold as ice, yet some weird force was making it feel warm. Like some odd spell or heater was set in the water to warm it up. As we're hanging on to captain Mickey, there was something dark in the water. Some dark object coming towards us. As it emerges from the dark ocean water below, we notice it's a dolphin! It has come to rescue us, sent by king triton probably. "

Dark Passage (Kingdom Keepers #6)
Pg #23

Divergent

"A foot drives into my side, forcing the air from my lungs. I gasp and cough and claw at the back of my head. Someone grabs a handful of my hair and slams my head against something hard. A scream of pain bursts from my mouth, I feel dizzy" (279).