IfI Stay: REVIEW

I finished If I Stay! It didn't disappoint me, at all! I know why everyone loves the book, and the movie. It's intriguing, and feelings of happiness, sadness, and confusion happen all the while. It's inspiring, and you can take this however you would like. It could be taken as an inspiration to do more with your life because any day it could be over, or help you think through decisions more carefully.

If I Stay is about a girl named Mia, and her family. One day when school was cancelled for a snow day, Mia's family went out for a drive to visit their friends, seeing as they just had their first child. It was just a normal drive any family would have; fights, and conversations. After a little disagreement on what to play on the radio for the lengthy drive, another car collides into theirs. Mia doesn't know it yet, but she is outside of her body. She and her family, have serious injuries. She finds her parents, but not her little brother. She begins to get worried, and tries to search more, but the ambulance arrives at the scene for their bodies. From then on, Mia is in her hospital bed, piecing together the parts of what happened.

If you get this book, you'll read about Mia's memories, and how she finds herself. This is, again, an awesome book a lot of people need to read. I recommend it.

If I Stay

I'm doing another blog about If I Stay. This book is really nice, I like this thing I kind of took from it. I take a lot of things from the book, but I'll share two with you.

Decided whether you stay or not: I take this in everyday life; sometimes you feel you have nothing to live for, but you do.
Mia thinks her family is gone now, there's nothing to live for. Then she sees her friends, and her grandparents (how they visit her/seem worried). When you're in a position where you have an option, go or stay, what will you pick? Stay with your family, or end your misery. Either option has a consequence; so what will you do?

Don't care what others think!
I see Mia as being someone who looks at how people see her; how her boyfriend and her look like, and what people perceive her as because she plays the cello, and likes classical music. She tries to change herself in one of her memories she explains, she says that she attempted to abandon her cello. When she did, her friend Kim noticed. Mia-because it was her decision-didn't see anything wrong with it, but Kim told her it what makes her Mia. It doesn't matter if people label her as "cellist," if she enjoys it, she should continue. She's happy as she is.
If you're happy the way you are, don't care what anyone says/thinks about you! You're you, and only you have the power for happiness.

If I Stay

I've gotten a little into the book, and I can honestly say I know why everyone loves it. So far, everything is so normal. I love that Mia has such a normal life; the boyfriend, the parents, and her little brother Teddy. I think that with Mia's parents being "punk", or used to be punk at her age, is a nice touch. She is different in her own ways from her family, not only her cello loving (instead of guitar. drums, etc) but how she also looks different from her family. She says that when her dad jokes about how she isn't realy apart of the family, and got switched when she was a baby, she kind of takes it to heart. I'm sure a lot of people have thought this, or feel like this a lot in their lives.

Mia can relate to me, and many others; this is another thing I really love about the book. As a suggestion, anyone who reads this book should try to connect Mia's life with theirs. For me, it's the feeling like you're not apart of the family. Sometimes I feel like my family are all fighters, and gregarious people. They are hard workers, which I do admit, I think I am (more like I hand it to myself). I am not a people-person at all; I do have my moments where I love talking, but that's not a lot of times. I do have to say, I feel like I'm a complete different person compared to my family.

You can feel like this, but just remember the most important part: It's not if you feel you're not like them, it's the fact they care. Always remember that!

If I Stay

I know, almost everyone has read the book or seen the movie already... I wanted to read the book, and watch the movie. Of course, I enjoy reading so much, I'd rather read to the book over watching the movie any day. I saw the previews, saw the book in stores, and in my classmate's hands. I was intrigued to read it; almost itching to. Now, I've finally found that no is is reading it, and I can. I'm really excited to see what happens in the book since everyone liked it.

I have a couple predictions maybe: I think (from the previews) she will stay alive. Although, with her choosing to live, she might have hard times she faces and wishes she chose the other option. She will miss her family, and wonder why she is even alive to begin with (taking a guess). I know that if I had the choice and chose to live, I would want my life to go back to the way it was before; it's just a thing that is too hard to deal with. Regardless on my beliefs, I think I'll really like this book.

Imaginary Girls

I tried reading this book for about a week, or a little bit over. I thought I was going to like it; it sounded intriguing. There was right away conflict about a dead body being found, and a bond of two sisters being broken. From what I understood, Chloe seems to have this sort of thing against her sister (I'm not sure how to describe it). They were pulled away from each other for some time. I think that is the mystery of this book, to find out why Chloe was taken away.

From what I read, it seemed to be really weird. One of the things I really didn't like about it was how it was set up; Chloe was an excellent swimmer and her sister Ruby told everyone out of how proud she was. I find it unrealistic that two sisters could get along so well with the age difference, not to mention Ruby is supposed to be the one in the spotlight. Why would Ruby put Chloe higher than her? There is a place where they swim (and are not supposed to) that has "swallowed" whole towns. It's just a little too far fetched for me...  It isn't as appealing as the summary on the back of the book is. I didn't like the plot, is what I guess I'm trying to say (as harsh as it sounds). If you like that kind of thing, you should read this book.

This Song Will Save Your Life

The theme of This Song Will Save Your Life's theme to me is to not care whether you have friends or not. You shouldn't try to change yourself for anyone, especially just to fit in. You may not be happy the way you are, or want a new group of friends, or more friends. That's okay, but you shouldn't try to change yourself as a person. Never lose sight of who you are. And things will always get better.

The conflict of this book is Elise vs everyone at her school. Man vs Society. Her bullies, her tormentors, (which is about everyone in school) make her life a horrible mess. They constantly bully her because of the way she looks, the way she acts, the way she is, and because she doesn't have many friends. Basically, for no good reason.

Tolerance

Tolerance:  Willingness to accept feelings, habits, or beliefs that are different from your own.

Someone could be more tolerant of others by trying to put themselves in the person's position. Imagine being one race, religion, or anything different from a lot others, and being told mean intolerant things. Everyone would not want that to happen to them, obviously. It doesn't feel "good" in a way; it feels like a thousand little knives puncturing you with negativity. 
Tolerance to me means not caring in simplest terms. Not the bad kind of not caring, but more pushing it aside. "I know you're (whatever race) and do things pretty differently than me, but that doesn't matter. I'll talk to you because I like you." A lot of races, or more people of specific races, don't allow their children, cousins, or anyone be in a relationship with someone outside of their race. People are entitled to their own opinions and beliefs, but it may be for a specific reason (a false assumption) of the race. "This race is very different than ours; they don't understand our language, our food, or anything else." Sure, they might not understand, but it's what is inside. No matter your religion, race, sexual orientation, anything...It's about you as a person; who you are inside. 
You're perfect the way you are.

This Song Will Save Your Life

This book is about a girl named Elise who doesn't have any friends. She has never been the popular girl, and never had any friends. She was always ignored, or picked on. So during the summer transitioning from freshman to sophomore in high school, she decided she had about enough of it. She spent the whole summer reading magazines, blogs, and looking at what was popular. Fashion, the way you act, the music you listen to, your makeup, physical appearance could all be changed. But Elise noticed that no matter how much she changed herself, she can't change her personality. She'll always go back, always be the girl who has no friends... So she gives up. When a bad day happened, and nothing is working, she decides to commit suicide. It doesn't go as planned, but she managed to cut herself. The book fast forwards months after this, and her parents know about the incident. She tries to put her mind at ease by taking a midnight run. She discovers an under ground party called Start, with dancing, sweating people. Elise talks to some people and she notices that it gives her a different vibe. So she keeps going back to forget her troubles, and eventually becomes a DJ. She goes to Start every Thursday to make the attacks at school disappear.

Elise is a kind, misunderstood girl. She is nice to everyone; even the girl's who put her down at school. I don't understand why she wouldn't be able to make any friends. She loves her family to death. Her half brother and sister, her mother, her father, and her stepfather. She is loving to the new friends she makes at Start. Overall, I think she would be a great friend if I could be friends with her. She seems funny, too. Like an average girl, and not what everyone wants her to be. Elise is the opposite of what is expected; what is wanted. It's really cool to read a book with the main character finding another out lit to fill in the bad stuff for school.

The Mayor Of Castro Street

I'm still reading The Mayor Of Castro Street, it's a pretty long book. I'll be doing the sign posts Again and Again, and Tough Questions.

I noticed while reading this book, although it isn't really directly tied to (related to) Harvey, it was something that occurred a lot. When Harvey was alive (50's), homosexuality was greatly frowned upon. If you were gay, you were automatically pushed aside, teased, or even physically hurt. This brings me to the first Again and Again: Men kept their orientation to themselves, due to the fear they had of straight men, or anyone who wasn't as accepting. A second one was gay bars, clubs, or anywhere a lot of them went, were often raided. What I mean by raided is police officers would go into the places a lot of gay men were, and beat them. It was illegal to even serve a gay man a drink at the time.

Now for Tough Questions, I found a tough question as soon as I read it. Since I am both researching Harvey for an essay project I have, I've been looking at tons of different sources with information about his life. All of them, including my book, pretty much say he wanted to put both of his lives together. His lives as in his gay life, and his family life. Things would become to difficult to combine; If he did, his family/friends life would become ruined. People would attack him, tease him, and possibly break off all connection with him. He was a popular, smart, and athletic person in high school, so it would definitely be hard if he did it. If he did do it, getting something off your chest is always a good thing. You feel better about yourself, and maybe he was happier with the gay lifestyle he hid.

The Mayor of Castro Street

I've started a new book! A biography of Harvey Milk. Seeing as I'm writing an essay on him already, having a more detailed look into his life and actions from a young age is a great source. Although I'm only a little into the book, I really like it. So for this blog, I'll be doing Character Analysis, and theme. 

Harvey was a very separate person. In the time when it was "in" to be copies, Harvey strayed away. He wasn't like the rest of the children. He asked for money to go to the opera; instead of  most children at the time asking for sweets. It wasn't until he was going more frequently to the Met. that his mother sat him down and told him about the dangers of a boy his age walking through the neighborhoods he was. I believe he was about 12 or so, close to his teens or in. In those times, homosexuality was especially frowned upon. Gays were labeled as dangerous; people too dangerous to even look at your children. Harvey kept what his mother said in mind, but he wanted to see what happened. I think it was then he was exploring his sexuality. 

Harvey as a child was different, and courageous. Courageous for the risks he took just to see what it would be like being by the gays. 

I think the theme of the book so far is don't let society's idealistic ways corrupt who you want to be. 

Harvey wasn't like the children, and asks for sweets. He asked to go to the opera. While other's thought gays were pretty much a plague to humanity, Harvey wanted to walk through them; just to see what it was like. He wasn't like anyone else, he was his own person. He made his own decisions, and didn't let other influence him. 

Don't be afraid to be who you want to be. You're in control. You're you, not everyone else. Don't let other tell you what you should or shouldn't do, either. It's all about what you want. Who you want to be, and what you want to do. 

Final "Curveball The Year I Lost My Grip" Blog

This is the last blog I'll be doing on this book; I finished it! I'll be doing a summary of the book (try not to give spoilers), and what I believe is the theme. 

The summary, as the last summary I did, is just a boy named Peter. He was a pitcher, but due to an unfortunate accident, he is unable to play at all anymore. Not only is this the beginning to a horrible first year of high school, but adding onto that, Peter's grandfather is showing the early symptoms of a disease. He's really close to his grandpa, so he isn't ready to accept it. With all this going on, Peter takes a liking to a girl named Angelika. 

Now, from where I left off, all I can really say is Angelika and Peter work with each other in class quite a lot. That leads them to begin liking each other more than friends. Since this is in Peter's P.O.V, he's been wanting to date her and get closer to her ever since he saw her, do he's thrilled. Which makes one thing to brighten his year up. 

Now, for the theme. I believe the theme is that no matter what happens, things get better. Peter had baseball, pretty much the only thing he loves, and it was ripped away from him. He began photography with his grandfather, but as I said, he is beginning to get sick. Now his grandfather, the person he's the closest to, is about gone. He isn't the same, so he can't enjoy photography anymore with him. Right there, with the stress of school as well, everything is just piling up. It seems like nothing will ever be the same again, like you'll never be as happy as you were before everything went bad. But, with just the right people, they make you forget. New things happen; exciting things. They soon replace the old things. What you thought would never happen again, has happened. You're happy again, possibly even happier. 

That's my take on it. I'm sure other will think differently, but I like to think this is it. 

Curveball The Year I Lost My Grip

This week, I'll be doing character analysis. The character I'll be analyzing will be, Peter. He is the main character of the story, as you might recall from the last blog. I wrote about his personality, and a little about what the story is about.
Peter seems to be really, there really is no words to describe this... The only thing I can kind of think of for it is, disconnected from his feelings. I know that with him being injured, and not being able to ever pitch again, it will have some serious damage to his emotions since he enjoyed baseball so much. One of the things that keeps standing out to me is when he says how bad his elbow hurts from the surgery, and how he wants to cry, and how much he misses playing baseball. Peter holds back his emotions, in my opinion. Another thing, probably the biggest one, is how he didn't tell anyone at all, not a single soul, how bad he was really hurt in the first place, just so he could continue playing baseball. He also doesn't tell anyone, especially his best friend, AJ, that he can never play again. AJ always tells Peter things like, "Don't worry, everything will get better when you can start playing again." Peter's excuse for him not telling AJ about this is that he thinks he won't be his friend anymore. He thinks AJ will just leave him, and forget about him, only because he can't play anymore.
The second subject, or topic, I'll be doing this blog is Tough Questions. I immediately thought of Tough Questions when I was reading last night. Peter's grandfather is showing early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, according to his new friend, Angelika. He turns to her, late one night when he has no one else to talk to. He explains to Angelika how earlier that day, his grandfather had called him twice. He missed the first phone call, but answered the second. His grandpa had called to ask Peter to come over, because he has fallen. When he rushes over to his house, his grandfather tells him to not tell his mother (which is his daughter) about the incident. Peter called Angelika to ask her what she would do, and what she thinks would be the right thing to do. Peter knows how important his grandfather's health is, especially how serious falling is in elders. At the same time, though, he doesn't want to betray his grandfather. This is a really tough spot for Peter; I would imagine it would be for about anyone who is really close to their grandfather, like Peter is.
I'd like to think if I was Peter, I would tell my mother. I know that I told my grandpa I wouldn't, but some things are just too big to keep secret.  

Curveball The Year I Lost My Grip

This time, I am reading a teen fiction kind of book. I think what made me attracted to the book was the summary. Pretty much, the book is set on a freshman in high school. This freshman's name is Pete. Pete is a great pitcher for his baseball team, until he gets hurt and is unable to play anymore. Pete and his family thought, because he was such a great pitcher, and getting so many opportunities from baseball, he should be fine in high school. This really changes everything for him, playing was everything for Pete. Now that he can't play, what is he to do?
I can kind of relate to this. Although, I am not the athletic type, and far from it. When you have something you enjoy doing, and you have support from others, you want to continue doing it. Especially if it's something beneficial to your future (like a baseball career). When it's taken away from you, you have no idea what to do anymore. It was your main activity to do, the thing that soothed you, the thing that kept you going. It almost feels like, you're lost. A little part of you is gone, that some may know you for, and you identify yourself with. It's actually sort of sad now that I think about it... Nonetheless, I think I'm really going to enjoy the book.

Scary Stories Treasury

This short scary story is called, "Cemetery Soup." As the title sort of hints at, it's about food; soup to be exact. I'll be doing a character analysis:
So, one of the characters is a women. She is more of the main character to me, since she is the first introduced, and the one that is drawn in the picture. She seems like she is a normal, kind, woman. She is just calmly walking through the cemetery took a short cut. She just sees the bone sticking out of the ground and thinks that it could make a good edition to her soup. Because of this, I also think she might be a little unobservant, or maybe might not be a clear thinker. I know it's just a short, scary, story, but I can't help but to think that really no one would do that.

I'm now doing the plot analysis:
The women just ate the soup she had made out of the bone in the cemetery, and of course, nothing goes without consequence in this book. She is later haunted by the person the bone belonged to. I think it was a little weird how after all the yelling, and chaos trying to figure out who took her bone out of her final resting place, the woman just got up from bed after she threw the bone back and served herself some more soup. It's definitely odd...but I like odd! This is the weirdest, grossest, story I think I have ever read.

Scary Stories Treasury

This blog is again on Scary Stories Treasury, or Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. In this post, instead of a summary, or something like that, I'll be doing the conflict and theme. Wonderful Sausage is the short story this time.

The conflict in this is Man vs Man, or it even could be Man vs Society. The butcher of the town, Samuel Blunt, had an argument with his wife and killed her. To hide the murder, he grounded her body up, and buried her bones. After adding a couple indigents to his wife's meat, he displayed it, and she was available to purchase. People of the town bought it, ate it, and loved it. So demand was high for his new "special sausage." That was Man vs Man, now this is the part that gets to Man vs Society. Obviously, because of high demand, and a chance to get money (which is the reason his wife and him were fighting) he saw an opportunity. He began killing plump children, animals, and adults, that came into his shop. Into the grinder, all of them; just like his wife.

I think the theme of the story is two things. There is really nothing since it's a short movie, and a scary story. This will be kind of funny, but then kind of weird.
Try not to fight the ones you love; you'll do things you'll regret later on. Seems a bit odd, but murder is something you might regret, especially if it's your loved one.
The other one is, karma. Karma comes back, eventually. Samuel gets caught in the end...It could be a metaphor for not getting away with something so horrible without a consequence.

Scary Stories Treasury

This short story I will be blogging about this week is, Harold. Again, like the two previous times, this is from the book of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. I forgot to say who the author and illustrator are in the two other blogs, so I'll state them today. The author of all the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark series is Alvin Schwartz. He has, over the years, collected numerous stories in several places for his books. The person he is working with who illustrates for the books is Stephen Gammell. By looking at the pictures he has created, they fit well into the story. The creepy/scary vibe it gives off.

Harold is about two men, Thomas and Alfred, who are working at night in a field, scaring away birds. During the day, they tended to their cows. They didn't hate their jobs, but everyday they did the same thing. Their routine became boring, so Thomas got an idea. "Let's make a doll the size of a man," With this, he was thinking of hanging up the doll, to make their jobs easier in the later hours. "It would be fun to make, and we could put it in the garden to scare the birds away."
Alfred agreed, with the exception of making it a bit of a revenge doll. The two men decided it should look like a farmer they both despised, Harold. They made the facial features out to be, as best they could do, Harold. So, sure enough, they had created a scarecrow. They put him out each night, bringing him in during the day to ensure he would not get rained on. Both Alfred and Thomas made fun of the doll, asking it questions like, "How are the crops growing, Harold?" Whenever one was upset, they would take their anger out on him by kicking or punching him. Other times, since they were sick of the stew they had for supper, they'd often smear it on his face.
One night, while the men were eating their stew, and smeared some on Harold's face, he grunted. Of course, they were confused on what the noise was. Thomas was the one who wiped the food on his face, so he told Alfred, the one who questioned it, that it was him. Alfred didn't believe him, for obvious reasons. Thomas was contemplating plans to get rid of the odd scarecrow, but it was a one sided thought.
They left Harold alone for some time, maybe hoping the grunt didn't really come from him and was one of the cows or something. Now and then, he grunted. They debunked it as a rodent that had crawled inside of him, so they continued their vicious ways with him.
Soon, things began getting even weirder with Harold. They both agreed, but quickly brushed it off and thought there really was nothing to be afraid of. One day they were going somewhere and left their hut. Thomas looked back to the hut to look for Alfred, Harold was on the roof of the hut. Thomas was confused since he only saw him and not Alfred.  He watched closely as Harold knelt down only to stretch out bloody skin to dry in the sun.       Summary, character analysis

Goals!

An academic goal for me this quarter is either, teach myself, watch from others, or learn more in class to improve my writing skills. I plan to write more descriptively, use better vocabulary, and learn more about proper punctuation. This is probably the thing I want to achieve the most this quarter, and most likely for the rest of the year. But, for now I focus on just this quarter instead of the rest of the year. I want to do this because I feel as if I can do a lot better on my writing than what I'm doing now, and with just some practice I can and will do so. I think that, even if I don't succeed, I would be learning useful things. I plan on getting there by teaching myself, reading, or during assignments that require paragraphs to be written. Definitely, a lot of practice. I plan to write a lot this quarter, in and out of school.
A personal goal for me would probably have to be a tie between drawing, and controlling my emotions better. Drawing is more of a thing that would be nice to have and to do, since it mostly cheers me up. Although, at times, it could be really frustrating. I look at the drawing and always pick at it, saying the hair could be better, I did bad on the face, and all these different things. I believe that doing better would probably make me less frustrated so I will at least be content with it instead of picking at it.
Controlling my emotions, there are a lot of emotions going on in my brain right now. So many, that even if someone asked what I was feeling, I would have to sit there contemplating which one would be better to say. I know this isn't the easiest thing to control, or may even be impossible to control, but I would like to at least try. With controlling my emotions, I'd be a better person in my opinion. I won't be so, confused. I won't get so easily hurt, offended, or angry with a conversation. Being too sensitive like I am is a difficult thing, even if something little was muttered or said, I assume the worst. I'm really paranoid about people talking about me, so I try to trick myself into thinking that there really isn't a reason for people to speak about me behind my back. It works, for the most part.
Hopefully, all these things will be accomplished! I'm wishing for the best.  

Winter Book: Scary Stories Treasury

Again, another short story from the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark series.
This is by far my favorite story of all the books. This short story is titled, "Wolf Girl." It's about a couple who lived where Dry Creek runs into Devil's River in Texas. Mollie, the wife was pregnant after a while of living there. Her husband, John, went on horseback to find their nearest neighbors when her water broke. After he got to their neighbors, they agreed to help them, unfortunately, a storm came along just before they could get going. Along the lines, John had died. The couple who had agreed to help Mollie give birth still went to search for their cabin. They did manage to find it, although it was the next day. When they got to Mollie, she was dead as well. It looked like she gave birth, but they baby could not be found. With the wolf tracks all around, the couple had made the assumption the wolves had gotten to it. Years later, reports began rolling in left and right of the wolves killing animals. It wasn't something serious in these days however (1830's), the thing that was really being reported was the girl like thing running with the wolves. She was seen and hunted after for some while as sighs became reoccurring. Soon, everyone was making stories, wondering, or spreading rumors that this "wolf girl" was really the missing child of deceased Mollie and John Dent.
This story is probably my favorite because of the time, it was the 1830's, which means things weren't as simple as today. Babies would pass away during birth, so would mothers, technology was not how it is today. This is also kind of hard to believe that the wolves raised her as a cub instead of eating her, which I liked since it was less brutal. In my opinion, this story is the best one out of the book, from it's actual stories going on in and around Texas. It's really not something people think about today, wolves, or wolf girls. It seems more of a story from before, which is still really cool to me.

Winter Book: Scary Stories Treasury

I have been reading a complete collection of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, although these are just short stories it really is a great read. It's something for when you're bored, don't really have a good attention span, or maybe just don't have as much time to read an actual book where you have to keep up with the characters to understand what is going on. I'll be doing one blog for one short story.

This is one one of my favorites because of, I guess the story. It's titled, "Clinkity-Clink." It is about an old women who passes away, she has no family or friends. Her neighbors were caring enough to get a gravedigger for her, they have a coffin made, everything they had taken care of for her. The only faulty thing about this, though, is that her eyes were wide open. So, to solve this problem, the neighbors found two silver dollar on her dresser and set them on her eyes to keep them closed. It worked, so the next day a preacher came to say some prayers before her burial. The gravedigger decided to take her silver dollars, not knowing of why they were on her eyelids. Obviously, her eyes opened. He was startled, but still decided to take them anyway. After he did that however, her ghosts haunted him for taking her money. She does various other things as an attempt to get her money back, and make him realize what he did was wrong of him. 

I think why I like this story so much is probably because it's sort of like karma in a way. It's almost as if it's teaching you a lesson: Do not take anything, from the dead or living, it'll come back to haunt you. Well, really not just taking something, doing anything with severe consequences.

As weird as it sounds, I think this little story is cute.