Thirteen Reasons Why

I love this book! As I have been reading through I have gotten more and more invested. It does a really good job of pulling on my emotions. Each time another tape comes on I think it's going to be Clay's tape, and each time it isn't Clay's tape I wonder what he did. It got me thinking, have I ever done anything that I thought was miniscule that would have ended up on someone's tapes. I also question why she left tapes. It just seems strange that she would've left such detailed tapes but not had a funeral. I'm only about halfway through the book so I'm hoping I will find some resolve soon. I think this would be a good book to teach to high school, but I also think it would be very difficult. It would be good because it is a pretty easy read and the content is very real world and real life. It would be hard though, for a number of reasons. There is some language that is questionable, not that I think high school students don't know the language and probably use it, but parents are always a battle when it comes to books like this one. Also, it is a very raw story. I feel like there is no sugarcoating, no sweetening up the story to make it less depressing. I think it would be hard to get students to appreciate the severity of the story. I do think it would be good though because I think it could make students be more conscious of the things that they say. In giving this book a grade I would give it an A. I have really liked the story line, I have appreciated the realness of everything, I have wanted to keep reading it even when I have other pressing homework.

Passport

Spencer Nee

Ashley Boyd—English 325 YA Lit

September 18,2014

Passport—Blog 3

I loved “Passport”!  It was so well written that I couldn’t tell how it was going to end.  I wanted to look ahead the whole time because I didn’t want the narrator to go to boot camp.  I felt like by considering his divorced parent’s homes as two different kingdoms added to the plot.  It made it sound more war like, it convinced me that the story was going to end with him at boot camp miserable.  I also appreciate the parenthetical dialogue that the author included.  I think the story was simple enough that I would have understood the point of what the characters were saying, but the clarity made it more enjoyable.  This is my favorite type of plot because the peak of it is at the end of the story so there is no come down.  I think it makes it more fun to leave what happens after the peak up to the reader.  I found it strange that the narrator had such a feeling of lust for his father’s new girlfriend.  That just seemed strange and unnecessary to me.  The only reason it helped the story was because she was close to the narrators age which seems stereotypical of post-divorce wealthy middle-aged men.  I just don’t know why it was important to include his feelings for her, but it must have been because every word in a short story is important.

I think that this text really portrayed an interesting aspect of adolescents.  Young adults are expected to decide their future at such a confusing time in their lives and I think the author did a great job of showing an option that I think is a good option.  I have this theory that we can learn as much through travelling and being immersed in other cultures as we can in a classroom.  I also think that there is so much that changes in young adults between their last day of high school and a year later.  That year gives adolescents a chance to grow and become the person that they want to be.  I think it would be beneficial if more young adults took a year off of school to travel and to learn about another part of the world.  We have our whole lives to work, so what’s the hurry to get to a job that is just enough to get us by?  I think adolescents would benefit from reading this story because it would show them that it is possible to travel and it isn’t necessary to go straight to college or any other post high school career.  I rate this short story with an A- because while I think it was an influential piece and enjoyable I think it lacks depth.  I think it is a very simple story about teen rebellion.

Between Shades of Gray

This book automatically caught my attention.  It was so exciting and detailed that I couldn’t help but be pulled in.  It is such an intense story that I have a hard time putting the book down once I start reading it.  While I’m not extremely far into the reading I’m curious as to how the storyline is going to play out.  It seems like the buildup is incredible in the first 100 pages or so, and I hope that this isn’t going to be an anticlimactic story.  It seems like the plot is going to rise into this huge life event, but I don’t expect it to come until late in the novel.  I think this would be a great book to use when teaching about other historical events like the Holocaust.  Most schools teach about the Holocaust, but it seems like few explore the history of the Soviet Union and the issues that they faced.  I think it would be a breath of fresh air for students, especially those who have already learned about the Holocaust and World War II.  Septeys does an awesome job of portraying the struggles that Lithuanians had to face when the Soviets forced them into labor camps, much like Weisel does in his novel Night.  I think it would be a nice escape for students so that they weren’t being taught the same thing over and over.

I also think this book puts adolescents into a very adult situation.  The kids in this novel are thrown into being adults the second they are ripped from their homes.  They don’t have an option to be children anymore, and if they don’t grow up quick, they are going to have even more problems in the future.  I don’t think this book would appeal to adolescents in the same way that Eleanor and Park did, but I do think that it would appeal to their interests.  It seems like high school age students are interested in history topics like the Holocaust, and this novel very much represents a history similar to that.  I’m not sure why it is that students are interested in that history, but in my experience they are.

Thus far in the book I would only give it a B on a grade scale.  While I do think it is very interesting and I think it is important to read it just isn’t as much fun to read as other Young Adult books that I have read.  I don’t want this post to make it seem like I do not like the book, but it isn’t my favorite in terms of pure enjoyment.

Eleanor and Park Blog 1

            When I first enrolled into English 325 and I saw the reading list I was nervous.  I have never been a strong reader, and I didn’t know what to expect when I saw some of the books on the list.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m open to mostly any kind of book, but I’m always a bit nervous to try something new.  When I bought Eleanor and Park at the WSU Bookie I was not looking forward to reading it.  I noticed that the cover had two kids sitting near each other, not looking at one another, with headphones on.  At least the headphones only formed an ampersand between the names instead of a heart.  And in fact, the headphones were the one thing on the cover that made me want to read the book because I’ve always been such a fan of music.  As I was reading through I realized that it was a bit different from some teen love stories.  Typically I think of a teen story as an awkward boy and a popular girl, or vice versa.  This was different in that Park just got by, and Eleanor was one of the weirdest girls any of the other characters had seen.  Neither of them was the popular kid, so I was a little bit confused as to how the story would play out.  I think it is easy to relate this novel to the story of Romeo and Juliet.  Two star-crossed lovers, in Eleanor and Park, who come from completely different backgrounds that find a way to fall in love.  As I progressed through the novel I felt like Rowell was trying to sort of break down stereotypes.  I loved the way that plot built between Eleanor and Richie.  It was clear that there was some extreme tension, but I think Rowell did a good job of keeping the severity of it hid.  I never expected Richie to be the jerk that was writing on Eleanor’s books, and it was really bothersome when I found out.

            I think this book places adolescents in a very real environment.  Rowell does a great job of depicting what are real life problems to adolescents.  I’m going to make the assumption that a lot of adults think of teenage problems as insignificant, or material, but there were some very real problems explored in this book.  I loved how Rowell explored divorce and angry controlling step-fathers.  I thought the step-father was a very stereotypical character, but it also intensified the storyline.  I think this novel would appeal to adolescents because it is very relatable.  They can relate to the various relationship problems throughout the book.  They know that all of the problems explored in this book are real problems, and I think it would successfully interest adolescents.  In fact I have already started to think about teaching this book in my class.

            On an A-F scale I would rate this book at a solid B+.  It pulled on my emotions, it made me questions social class, it scared me, it made me happy, and it made me sad.  It did not take the place in my heart that my favorite book has, but it was a very good book.