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.