Pretties, by Scott Westerfeld

The book I am currently reading is Pretties, by Scott Westerfeld. This book has me a bit confused and angry. I say that because of what Tally has become. She is different. She is now a ‘pretty’ and she has a new perspective on life… being selfish and vain.  

Tally is changing. She is in a whole new world now. There is a saying ‘out with the old, in with the new’…Well this is what Tally feels like. She goes out late at night, makes out with boys and gets hangovers. This is shocking and disturbing to me. She is no longer the ‘sweet’ girl she used to be when she was an ‘ugly’. It is almost like being a ‘pretty’ was poison to Tally. She has become that pretty, but ‘bad’ girl. I am not sure where this story is going.  My feeling is…Can Tally really handle being pretty? Maybe it is not what she thought it would be.

Shay is Tally’s best friend (at least when they were ‘Uglies’).  She is no longer a part of Tally’s circle of friends. Shay was always supportive to Tally. She taught her how to ‘love’ herself and be true to who she is. Shay was what kept Tally focused. But the tables have turned…Shay has become a ghost in Tally’s life. It’s like she is not even there. She is lonely without her friend.  Tally now is acting like Shay is a ghost. It’s like she is not even there. 

I could feel shay’s pain. I mean if your friend betrays you, it is not a cool thing. I feel that Tally is not being true to herself. She is acting up to fit in the crowd of the ‘pretties’. She is acting shady with Shay because she wants to become popular… I mean she wanted this all her life… But how far will she go? 

I hope as I continue to read this book, their friendship will get better. I mean they have been friends for so many years…why ruin it now?

l8r, g8r , by Lauren Myracle

I am currently reading l8r, g8r , by Lauren Myracle. This book has my skin crawling with curiosity. Zoegirl is acting quite strange with Doug. She is making Doug control her and that is perplexing to me. Zoegirl is sweet, and she cares about school, and to me she is the ‘nerd’ of the group because she is always on point with her work. 

Zoegirl is a timid girl. She doesn’t like speaking around people while other people stare, nor does she use foul language. But when she gets a bad grade she wants to kill herself. Zoegirl is in love with Doug and will do anything to stay with him. Doug tends to tell her things like she is a slave, or he would tell her mean stuff, for instance he told her “go get me something to drink”, or “I can’t hang out today, I’m chilling with my friends”. The sad thing is she seems addicted to his harsh words. She would sit there and say “ok, ok, ok” and she doesn’t stand up for herself. She needs to find herself, and realize that she is a special person. She does not need Doug to make her feel better. Zoegirl is actually acting like she is his ‘slave girl’, and that is just not cool.

If I was in her shoes I would let him have it… and I mean have it seriously. I would let him know that I am a human being just as he is. I will put a stop to his abusive behavior, and tell him, “No Doug, I’m not going to do that! You always control me and I’m tired of it”. She needs to show Doug who she really is… and not be afraid of him. Obviously Doug has a ‘big head’. He thinks it is all about him. But again he feels that way because she is allowing it by obeying and doing everything he says.

Also, zoegirl is acting so different with Doug than she normally will around her friends. I say this because, when maddie says something mean to her, or just make a joke, she instantly yells and get angry at maddie. But, with Doug if he said something mean to her, it’s a different story. She acts like its ‘okay’ and nothing ever happened. She panics around Doug, it almost seems that he would hurt or do something terrible to her… so why is she with him... She needs to get away from this relationship.

Some advice I would give zoegirl is ‘be a leader not a follower’.  She needs to tell Doug how he doesn’t need to control her, and how she is her own person. Zoegirl is scared, yet she is in love with Doug which is so complicated. She doesn’t want to hurt him, but what about herself. You have to love ‘yourself’ first before you can love someone else.  Zoegirl just needs to let him know she is not a dog and she has a life.

I hope as I continue to read this book, zoegirl will become a stronger character, and love and appreciate herself and not let Doug control her life.

Secrets in the Shadows by: Anne Schraff #2

           The book I am currently reading is Secrets in the Shadows by: Anne Schraff. It is about a boy named Roylin Bailey who loves this new student Korie Archer who just came into his history class. She was the most beautiful girl he has ever seen and she liked Roylin. He tried to impress her by getting something she really wanted but he made a big mistake.

            Roylin loved this girl name Korie to get her a $300. Now when he gave her the gift she just said thank you in a really happy way and forgot about it in 2 minutes! I don't really think she realize what he had to g through to get her this necklace. To get this necklace for her, he had to steal money from his good friend and cause his death. Now he lied to her and said he was rich and he got that necklace so easy and deep down that's not the truth is technically murdered someone for that necklace for her and all she really said was thank you and that was the end of it. I think its hurting Roylin because its like you lie but don't want to get caught, and now you realize the consequences and you don't want to face them. 

             I think Roylin needs to face his punishment because what he did was not nice at all. Now, he has to deal with his only friend death because he tried to please a girl that he didn't really know which is kind of sad. I hope as I read on that maybe he has positive news, but he faces what he deserves because what he did was serious. 

Secrets in the Shadows by: Anne Schraff

Secrets in the Shadows by: Anne Schraff

The book I am currently reading is Secrets in the Shadows by: Anne Schraff. It is about a boy named Roylin Bailey who loves this new student Korie Archer who just came into his history class. She was the most beautiful girl he has ever seen and she liked Roylin. He tried to impress her by getting something she really wanted but he made a big mistake.

In my book, Roylin likes this girl Korie and all she wished for was to get a $299 necklace but she knew that he didn’t have that type of money.  Roylin has a good friend name Mr. Miller; Roylin stole $250 dollars from him just to get the necklace for Korie. I think this was not the right thing to do because why would you steal money from the only person that understood you and you could barely even him back?  I consider Roylin almost desperate because if you just met a girl and all of a sudden you are just in love and go buy her a three hundred dollar for a girl you just met and go and steal money from a good friend, this makes no sense. I find this pointless to go all out for a girl you just met, it just doesn't add up in my head!

I think as I read on, Roylin will get the consequences he deserves because this is something that you don’t do and if you are crazy about a girl like that, you would make the money on your own time and then get the necklace, but you don’t just steal money from your good friend that you trust and has always been there for you. I really hope Roylin realized what he did. 

TTFN by Lauren Myracle

I just finished reading ttfn by Lauren Myracle. This book has a really unique style to its writing. This book has a great plot to it, a great story line. The Winsome Threesome including three girls, Angela, Maddie and Zoe, who communicate by IM’ing each other (instant messaging each other). They are really close friends they are in high school and they all speak out their problems.

Lauren Myracle used a chat room (instant messaging) to show how these three friends talked to each other. They speak in slang for example the word ‘you’ they use the letter ‘u’. They all have their own little nickname. Angela is Snow Angel. Maddie is mad maddie and Zoe is zoe girl. Having it in a chat room actually showed me who speaks more to each other and has more problems. Snow Angel is more depressed at times because she has moved to California away from her friends, zoe girl is the strict and perfectionist one. She is the good girl she doesn’t break the rules she doesn’t party as much and she is very different from the rest of the girls. Mad maddie is the wild one she goes out a lot, she does smoke pot and she doesn't usually care about what others think of her or do which I think is good but she should be careful at times.

An emotional line was when zoegirl said “you don’t have to get drunk or smoke pot in order to live life to the fullest, maddie, its wrong because it bad for you and you know that?” This just showed that zoegirl cares for her, and how it is not good to smoke pot and get drunk because that affects you emotional and mentally. You can always be yourself and get attention by being yourself. “I take her by the wing and we dance into flight” This is a quote of what zoe said. I thought this was powerful. I think it means that wing from a bird-a bird flies-need a flight to fly from an airplane, so you take the wing and we dance in to flight, I think the dancing is not literally dancing it’s just the joy they are having together.

Mad maddie has made some decisions that are disappointing to me and I disagreed with them. Maddie has agreed to smoking pot and drinking to make her look ‘cool’. This is something I hate because it just shows your confidence and your self-esteem in yourself. If you have to make someone jealous and one of those things is changing yourself, that’s not acceptable. Mad maddie has a ‘boyfriend’ named Chive. He is basically a ‘player’ (he has two girlfriends) he talks to mad maddie and talks to this other girl Whitney. He always has attention on Whitney but it’s like mad maddie does whatever it takes to get his attention and that for her is smoking pot and getting drunk.  This just shows to me Maddie strength about herself and how desperate she is to find and have a boyfriend.

This book is a really good book, and it shows agreement and disagreements in friendships. It shows what people would do to get what they want. And this is a story people can relate in their personal life.

Non-Fiction Blogpost

Non-Fiction Text: On Staten Island, Relentless Bullying Is blamed for a Teenage Girl’s Suicide

By: Vivian Yee

The main idea of this article is to show how bullying has an impact on peoples life. When people tease one another they have to understand the harm that they are doing. Felicia was teased because she had piercings and lived in foster care. Many thought nothing would happen because she never expressed her emotion at all. Some details in the story were, “She looked happy. She was laughing. It didn't look like anything was upsetting her at all”. This show how she was a ‘closed person’ and never told people how she felt. Also in the article it states “if you tried to bully her, she’d laugh at you” this shows how she would hide her emotions and later on she would express them when no one was there to stop her. Lastly, in the article it says something like how “Somebody must’ve said something pretty bad about her for this to happen” this shows how she is a strong person so in order to break her, you have to say something that will actually hurt her in more than one way. This detail support to main idea because it shows how you shouldn't bully people because you never know what will happen.

Author wants us to feel sad and bad for this girl. No one wants to see a girl get bullied by other people. This is what makes us resistance the text a little, because you kind of don’t want to read it because it’s just depressing. “I can’t, I’m done, I give up.” This quote was from the article and it shows when I resistance the text because she gives up so it means this ‘bully’ done something really bad to make her almost want to die.

            I will take away that bullying is not a joke, it serious. You shouldn’t bully someone because you don’t know the harm that you are doing to that person. My thoughts have been shaped because I know this issue is bad, teenagers commit suicide, start cutting them and it’s not funny. This article shows that you can only take so much pain, till you just want to kill yourselves. I want to know, why do people do this to others? Do they take this as a jok

Social Action Question #4: When do you find yourself resisting the text? What does your resistance say about you or the text?

         The story I am reading is “a long way gone” by Ishmael beah. It’s about a 12 year old boy named Ishmael beah going into war. He is a child solider that is forced to fight with the rebels and wanders land rendered by violence.

            I found myself resisting this story way too many times, that I wanted to stop. I found myself resisting when he had to fight. He said it was like a bloodbath. When the rebels first came to attack his country, he saw a family in a van, died. The girls were shot in the head, and the parents were killed by a gun going through the windshield. This is just so intense, because this is when I started to shake, and made me think that he would die since the rebels seemed so close. Also, according to the story, he saw a guy walking that had been shot in the arm, throwing up blood, and looked like he had no hope left. This is when I really resisted because it made me gag and say to myself ‘oh my god’ this is so much! How can a 12 year old boy handle this danger and disturbing sight!

            The resistance says that I can’t handle the text. I think this goes out to everyone though, because I mean if you see people throwing up blood, or people getting shot in the head, and you know rebels are in your country, what are you to do? What can you do? This is an intense situation because it makes you nervous that you can be ‘next’. I should have expected some resistance, since I did research about child soldiers.

            This book is really good so far. I think the resistance shows how bad and brutal being a child solider was, and the bad memoires and images that they had to go through. I hope as I read along good things start to happen and maybe even a change.