Summer Reading: Looking for Alaska: blog 4

 I chose to read looking for Alaska for my summer reading project. I chose it for a couple reasons. The author really caught my attention while I was reading the list. John Green wrote one of my favorite books, The Fault in Our Stars. He does a great drop of adding in love, tragedy and comedy without making it sappy. There were personal connections between me and the novel once I finished it. The main one being loss. We have all lost a loved one, which is what makes this story so relatable. Another one being sadness. Alaska felt sadness throughout her whole life and Miles after Alaska’s death. We have all also felt sadness in our lives, some more than others.

One thing I would like to say before I continue is that Looking for Alaska is an amazing book. I would mainly recommend this book to young adults. No younger than 13 because of some of its content. The book relates in things that young adults are going through. School, first loves, loss, friends and new experiences. We can relate, which is a great thing when you’re reading. It makes the book better, it makes you want to read; which can be hard for young adults to want to do.

Summer Reading: Looking Fot Alaska: blog post 3

Page 214-215, towards the end of the book. An amazing book that is. Looking for Alaska has so many amazing chapters, sentences and words. I’m going to write you a small section that catches my eyed.

                “A cool breeze had beaten back the onslaught of summer, and on the morning the Old Man gave us our final exams, he suggested we have class outside. I wondered why we would have an entire class outside when I’d been kicked out of class last semester for merely glancing outside, but the Old Man wanted to have class outside, so we did. The Old Man sat in a chair that Kevin Richman carried out for him, and we sat on the grass, my notebook at first perched awkwardly in my lap and then against the thick green grass, and the bumpy ground did not lend itself to writing, and the gnats hovered. We were too close to the lake for comfortable sitting, really, but the Old Man seemed happy. “ I have  here your final exam. Last semester I gave you nearly two months to complete your paper. This time, you get two weeks.” He paused. “Well, nothing to be done about that I guess.” He laughed. “To be honest, I just decided last night to use to use this paper topic last night. It rather goes against my nature. Anyway, pass these around.’

                How will you-you personal y- ever get out of the labyrinth of suffering? Now that you’ve wrestled with three major religious traditions, apply your newly enlightened mind to Alaska’s question.”

The point of view from a teenager personally makes the book more relatable, which is great for the intended audience of teenagers. The way he talks about the teacher(Old Man) makes me feel more connected to the book because well, we all know teachers we talk about like that. The section has the perfect amount of dialogue. The whole book has the perfect amount of dialogue; making it that much better. A good difference in diction is used, some advanced, some abstract. Everything about John Greens writing, especially in this book, is a rollercoaster fir my emotions.

In this section Miles is talking about something as ordinary as class. He in cooperates the only teacher he talks about in this book. The teacher changes Miles way of thinking, especially after Alaska’s death. He mixes in the past from when he got kicked out of class because he was thinking about Alaska. His love for her was shown by that. Everyone else’s love for her is shown by the fact that a teacher changed a final exam just for her.  The talk about the labyrinth is a great part in this section. A lot of the book and Alaska way of thinking was about getting out of the labyrinth of suffering.

The book that started Alaska's want out of the labyrinth of suffering.

Summer Reading Assignment: Post 2: Looing For Alaska

   In my last post I talked briefly about the main characters. Now I’m going to talk about their wants and desires. So let’s start with Alaska. Alaska kind of wants what everyone wants; to be happy. It goes deeper than that though, she wants to go back and change the past with what happened with her mother. She wants her father to love her. She wants a home. She never wants to leave the Creek because while she may have a house, she does not have a home. Miles is simpler. He has a good family back home with a mom and a dad who love him. He wants something he likes to call a “Great Perhaps” There’s a quote from the book that shows this, “That’s why I’m going. So I don’t have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.”  He wants a life that is anything but boring, he wants crazy, he wants the beautiful, funny, interesting, messed up, anything-but-innocent Alaska. 

   Now let’s move onto themes. There are always multiple themes in every book you read. There are simple themes in Looking For Alaska like love, trust, grief and friendship, but there are also deeper themes like self-discovery, someone’s life can change the way you see things, there is more to someone than you will ever know, take initiative and make a change in your life. Books are full of messages waiting for people to find. 

   The book is structured in a very unusual way I have never seen before as a reader. The book is split into two parts, a before and an after. In before, the individual passages are like a countdown, starting 136 days before an event we don’t know about. After the event, the book counts up to the end of the story. This gives the book a unique kind of suspense.

Summer Reading Assighnment: Post 1: Looking For Alaska

The book I chose to read for my summer reading project is Looking For Alaska. There are a couple main characters in the book that the story revolves around. The first main character is Miles Halter, also known as “Pudge”. The other main character is Alaska Young. The story revolves around there friendship and how it evolves and changes throughout he book. Chip Martin, mainly known as “Colonel” is another big character in the book being that he introduced Pudge to Alaska and continues to be a big part in the rest of the story through his friendship with both Miles and Alaska. The setting of the book is a boarding school called Culver Creek. Culver Creek is where the main characters live and go to school. The boarding school is what complete changes Miles life from boring to crazy. While there are different types of conflict throughout the book, the main kind would have to be self to self conflict. Both Alaska and Miles show great amounts of self-conflict. They both show self-conflict on how they feel about each other, but there’s so much more than that, especially with Alaska. There is also some man vs. man conflict between the “Weekday Warriors” and the “regular boarders”. The weekday warriors are the stuck up rich kids at the school and the regular boarders are, well the regular people; pretty self-explanatory. Looking For Alaska is written by John Green, the amazing writer that wrote The Fault in Our Stars. Both books connect with a sense of love, but Looking For Alaska is such a unique kind of “love story”. It doesn’t really connect to other things I have read in a deep connection. It’s innovative, it’s original, it’s amazing.

Similiarties Between Divergent and Delirium

          http://libraryschool.libguidescms.com/content.php?pid=325261&sid=2662137

           Start with a perfect or utopian society, usually formed after a rebellion that no one really remembers:

In Divergent everyone is divided into factions based on their beliefs so “everyone fits in”. In Delirium people can’t be possessed by passionate love, which is what destroys happiness

           

            Add in one breakthrough that occurs during the teen years:

In Divergent, everyone is given an aptitude test and allowed to choose their faction at age 16. In Delirium, everyone gets surgery to remove the deliria part of your brain at age 18.

            

            Rules by the government that no one thinks to question:

In Divergent, there is technology to create serums that give the receiver lifelike simulations which others are able to watch, but if you leave your faction, you cut off people from your past life. In Delirium, you have to have the surgery so you cannot love. To make sure people get the procedure, the government shows them videos of people dying for love as a scare tactic.

           

           Add in Words to enhance the illusion of a future society:

In Divergent the main examples are dauntless, erudite, candor, abnegation, and amity. In Delirium some exapmles are, amor deliria nervosa, Invalid (uncured person), and the Book of Shhh.

            

           Mix in a character that opens the main character’s eyes to the flaws of society and is used as a love interest:

For Divergent that character is Four, who teaches Tris about fighting and about being a Divergent and Tris falls in love with throughout the book. In Delirium that person is Alex, who Lena falls in love with just before her surgery.

            

          Flaws in society:

In Divergent, the factions create friction. For Delirium, the government makes citizens easy controllable with brain surgery and also the fact that people need love.

Main Theme in Delirium

   Simple to say, the main theme in Delirium is love. Once you turn 18, you will never love anyone or anything again. No love for family, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends. You wont love anything, not even something as little as a sport.  It’s what the entire book is based off of; there would be no book without love. I can agree that in most books with the main theme of love… are pretty awful. This book is not just a sappy love story though. Action, betrayal and love. All incorporated in one book. The theme of love is shown throughout the whole book. 

    An example from the beginning of the book is, “The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.”(1.12) This is how Lena feels about love in the beginning of the book. For Lena, she thought love was bad before she actuallu truly experienced it. The theme of love is shown in the middle of the book by,  “The disorientation, the distraction, the difficulty focusing—all classic Phase One signs of deliria. But I don't care. If pneumonia felt this good I'd stand out in the snow in the winter with bare feet and no coat on, or march into the hospital and kiss pneumonia patients.”(15.21) The theme of love has evolved. Lena now could not live without love. It shows that people need each other’s love; it’s just how the world is. An example from the end of the book that shows the theme of love is, “Without love, there could also be no hate: without hate, no violence. Hate isn't the most dangerous thing [...] indifference is.” Lena realizes that love has its downside because without love there is no hate. She also realizes that love is the only way to true happiness, which kind of relates to Fahrenheit. They are both about a journey to true happiness. Those quotes show how the theme of love has evolved throughout the book.

My Writers voice

Blog post #5:

       “Within the first few pages of the book we already know that it is set in the good ol USA. A quote from the book that shows that is, “Of course we aren’t totally free of deliria in the United States." It makes you think, what if our government said love was a disease? What if they prevented us from love? The US government in this book deprives its people from such an important emotion. They see only the pain love brings, they don’t see the happiness and wonderful things it brings. Any town or city could have been chosen for the setting in my opinion. No matter what city, there would be no love anywhere. (Thanks to the wonderful US government) But it is set in Portland, Maine. They can’t love, can’t choose who to marry and get told how many kids they can have. The government watches them like people watch a reality show. In the book, the US still celebrates some holidays. The government held the value of the fourth of July. A quote that proves this is, “the day of our independence, the day we commemorate the closing of our nation’s border" So there are some similarities with the world in this book and our world. Even though in that quote, the border closing really represents their total dependence for the cure of love. The US is totally cut off from the outside world. The people are not allowed access to the outside world. It's kind of like a communist country, but worse.”
       
        For my writers voice I use sarcasm as a writing style. I use it as a way to criticize something or sometimes show I like it. It shows I feel about a subject. I also use rhetorical questions as a of my writing style part of my writer’s voice. An example of a rhetorical question I use is, “What if they prevented us from love?” That phrase shows my writers voice of sarcasm is, “Thanks to the wonderful US government.” They show my personality as a sarcastic writer that likes to involve my reader’s with questions. It also shows that I am headstrong about my opinion.
      
        I use different types of punctuation to enhance my writer’s voice. I use commas a lot in my writing. It’s a good way to in cooperate my opinion with examples or evidence. It’s also a great way to make sentences interesting and different. It can change the tone of the whole piece. An example is, “Its kind of like a communist country, but worse.” It really helps the reader understand what the country is like and is a great way to add to the tone. For diction I use a lot of abstract diction. The abstract diction helps enhance writer’s voice because it shows how I want to make the readers feel. It helps the readers really evoke their emotions with what I’m is trying to describe. An example is, ‘What if they prevented us from love?” the word prevented changes the way the readers feel about love in the book and helps them appreciate love.

Delirium

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/10342808-delirium

Delirium is a beautifully written book that takes place in the ninety-five days leading up to Lena’s procedure. As Lena finishes school and goes through the motions of evaluation and pairing. Lauren Oliver expertly weaves in the story of Lena’s upbringing and her friendship with best friend Hana. This is such a rich and detailed novel spanning the whole of Lena’s life.

There is nothing in this story that is predictable and the reader is repeatedly stunned by twists and revelations in the story. I loved the characterization of Lena and Alex and the description of Lena’s experiences as she comes to terms with feelings and emotions that she simply does not have words for.

Lauren Oliver has an amazing style of writing and is able to take the reader through a full range of emotional responses. Happy, sad, mad. We feel them all. It is safe to say that I felt devastated by the ending of the book and had certainly not expected to be put through the wringer again following some of the book’s more shocking turns. The author really shows the point of sacrifice. SPOILER  When Alex rescues her and they attempt to escape the city and Alex allows himself to be captured and shot on the spot to save Lena, thats a hige sacrafice. It really gets the theme of making sacrafices for the people you love. Lena doesnt even have a chance to grieve, she has to escape into the woods after seeing Alex get shot. 

Delirium Setting

Within the first few pages of the book we already know that it is set in the good ol USA. A quote from the book that shows that is, “Of course we aren’t totally free of deliria in the United States." Civilization is concentrated in those cities which escaped the severe bombings of decades past. Travel between cities is highly restricted. Electric fences separate the city from the Wilds—unregulated territory which was presumably mostly destroyed by bombs. It makes you think, what if our government said love was a disease? What if they prevented us from love? I wonder if the government would even be allowed to do that. I guess anything is possible. The US government in this book deprives its people from such an important emotion. They see only the pain love brings, they don’t see the happiness and wonderful things it brings. Any town or city could have been chosen for the setting in my opinion. No matter what city, there would be no love anywhere. (Thanks to the wonderful US government) But, it is set in Portland, Maine. No matter where you are in the US though, you can’t love, can’t choose who to marry and get told how many kids they can have. The government watches them like people watch a reality show. In the book, the US still celebrates some holidays. The government held the value of the fourth of July. A quote that proves this is, “the day of our independence, the day we commemorate the closing of our nation’s border" So there are some similarities with the world in this book and our world. Even though in that quote, the border closing really represents their total dependence for the cure of love. The US is totally cut off from the outside world. The people are not allowed access to the outside world. It's kind of like a communist country, but worse.

Kristy Ramsey

The column was about teachers having the responsibility to have a gun with them at school. Teachers would have guns at the school to be able to protect themselves and the students if a school shooting was to happen. http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/krista-ramsey/2014/02/22/krista-the-very-poor-case-for-arming-teachers/5744065/
    "To ask them to conceal a weapon is beyond common sense or even professional respect." is a very well written line in this column. It is very persuasive. The way it impacts the reader is it sways them more to side with her that this is a bad thing to do. She definitely persuaded me. Her diction that she uses helps persuade the readers that the teachers having guns in way to far. The way she uses different types of punctuation and sentence lengths really makes the article more interesting and impacts us by knowing where Kristy stands on the situation . 
    Kristy always incorporates her own voice in her columns and uses her opinions, which is different than many writers. "To ask them to conceal a weapon is beyond common sense or even professional respect." I would like to ask Kristy if she ever feels nervous to side with certain opinions. That could upset many readers which makes me wonder is she gets nervous to add her opinion. This quote also shows how she puts her opinion in there. It shows her opinion that teachers should not have to have guns at school. I wonder where Kristy gets her ideas. 

Switched book to Delirium

I love dystopian books and so far this is a good one. Since dystopia is so popular, it would be hard to write a good dystopia book and have it become popular. It is an original plot line. A world without love. At the age of 18 you have to get a surgical procedure that makes it so you can never love again. They make the people heartless, but they dont literally take out your heart. It makes me wonder what inspired the author. I'm thinking maybe this great book could of been inspired by just a bad breakup. Im only around page 100, but I really enjoy this book. It makes me think what the world would be like without love. Lauren has an interesting way of writing it.  

There was something I read in there that really stood out to me and it was,“You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes.” That reminded me of Fahrenheit 451 because a theme of Fahrenheit was engaging in difficult and uncomfortable thoughts are the only way to true happiness. Both the quote and the theme relate because they both say that you need to be unhappy sometimes to find true happiness. Specifically for Delirium, I feel the auothor is trying to get the point across that people need love, thats its just a part of human nature and she does a great job showing that through her words.

Lone Survivor blog post #1

Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July, 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to have a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive. The book and movie both follow this plot line.
This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American Navy SEAL history. His teammates fought valiantly beside him until he was the only one left alive, blasted by an RPG into a place where his pursuers could not find him. Over the next four days, terribly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell crawled for miles through the mountains and was taken in by sympathetic villagers who risked their lives to keep him safe from surrounding Taliban warriors.
A born and raised Texan, Marcus Luttrell takes us from the rigors of SEAL training, where he and his fellow SEALs discovered what it took to join the most elite of the American special forces, to a fight in the desolate hills of Afghanistan for which they never could have been prepared. His account of his squadmates' heroism and mutual support renders an experience for which two of his squadmates were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism that is both heartrending and life-affirming. In this rich chronicle of courage and sacrifice, honor and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers a powerful narrative of modern war.
I thought it would be a good idea to compare the movie and the book.  Mainly I compared the characters. The way they are described is very similar to how they actually look. Although I am not far, the movie seems to follow the book well. This book seemed so compelling because of the fact that it is a true story. Lone Survivor in the movie opens with a voiceover of Marcus Luttrell dying and is airlifted back to a military base. As the plane lands, Marcus Luttrell literally dies. According to Luttrell's memoir, however, he was not in mortal danger. After the Army Rangers rescue Luttrell, the Army Rangers "radioed into base that I had been found, that I was stable and unlikely to die." They also stop and have tea with the locals. I feel that in the book, the number of Afghan fighters has been exaggerated. I feel that is just a way to make it seem a little more interesting.

Fahrenheit 451 Characterization of Clairsse

In Fahrenheit 451, we have met a few characters so far for the first part of the book. The one I’m choosing to characterize is Clarisse and I would say that she is a main character. Clarisse in the book is different from other people in her society. Her family knows about the pre book ban world. She knows about books, it makes her see things differently than the other people in her world. Her personality also makes her different. She is very curious and likes to ask questions. Her personality also includes innocence, kindness and happiness. As for her physical appearance, she is skinny and pale with dark eyes. She wears a white dress and is almost 17. Montag also described her as beautiful. As for things she says, the most important quote by her so far is, “I heard once that long time ago housed used to burn by accident and the firemen needed to stop the flames. “ That quote alone shows how different she is than everyone else. A quote said about her also shows that she is different. The quote is said by Montag and says, “But Clarisse’s favorite subject wasn’t herself, it was everyone else and me. She was the first person in a good many years I’ve really liked. She was the first person I can remember who looked straight at me as if I counted.” For the future I think that Clarisse will help montag read books and help him learn there's more to life and that she will help him find true happiness. I think she will look like. Clarissa is curious about the firemen and she thinks they are ignorant.