A Monster Calls- Revised Blog Post

“A Monster Calls” by Patrick Ness is about a teen boy named Conor who forms a bond with the mysterious monster that appears outside his window. The monster comes to tell stories of his fascinating past, and tries to help the boy apply them to his own life. Conor, the boy, has a mother who has cancer, no friends or acquaintances , and a father who abandoned his family for a new life in America. Overall these stories help Conor become a better person and resolve these conflicts in his life.

One lesson Conor learned that not being noticed by anybody was worse than only being known for his dying mother. Throughout the book, Conor is trying to find ways to be seen or to have any recognition among his peers. He even uses the fact that he is being bullied by a group of boys as an outlet for his attention. But when the bullies realize that they are making him happy by acknowledging him, they just start ignoring him. This isolates Conor further and makes him feel more useless. The monster teaches him how to cope with this by telling stories with the constant theme of characters not always having straight forward intentions. Looking further into these characters and their motivations shows that each character is both good and bad, evil and innocent, and has many different layers in their personalities. This shows conor that he doesn’t have to be completely ignored or completely acknowledged but can find a middle ground to get by.

Another lesson that the monster taught Conor was that sometimes people’s actions are not always clear but may have good reason behind them. The monster tells a story about a parson who cared so much about his daughters that he would disregard his whole religion the second they were in danger. The story also included and alchemist who punished the parson for ignoring his own religion in a time of crisis. This shows that although the alchemist may not have had good intentions, the parson deserved punishment for being disloyal to his own beliefs. For Conor, this applies to a dream he had the night before of letting his mother who was hanging of the side of a cliff go into the rocky depths below. He is scared and in denial of what the dream means, but knows in his heart what he was doing in the dream. He wanted his mother to die because he couldn’t deal with the constant false hope that she always gave him saying that she was going to get better.

The final observation I had while reading this book was that the monster actually represented total destruction in its purest form. The monster arrives as his mother begins her final stages towards death, his school life disintegrates to nothing, and his father shows Conor that he has let go of him. The monster ignites this fire in Conor which makes him break and bruise both his grandmother's home after they get in a fight, and his bullies face after the bully ignores him. The monster, while creating chaos in conors life, shows him that destruction isn’t always bad, and can even help you start and begin all over with a clean slate. Conor’s mother and grandmother both agree that destruction is a part of grief and acceptance and he learns that destruction is a way for him to accept his mothers death. This helps Conor accept that he was the one who called upon the monster and realises why he needed to learn this valuable lesson.

Overall, by telling conor stories the monster helps to not only teach conor how to overcome his struggles but to fix him as a person and help him continue on with life. The monster also replaces the lack of parenting is Conors life with a long since gone father and a dying mother. The monster helps him transition through major parts of his life when nobody else could.

The Drowning of Arthur Braxton

The book, "The Drowning of Arthur Braxton" is about a teenage boy living in London. It incorporates different story lines and by doing this creates a fairytale like setting. Mystical beings, mysterious men, and mean bullies are all characters played out in this story. Its truly a fun experience reading this book.

A major theme shown throughout this book is how young kids make big mistakes. This is extremely relatable for our grade with the stupid decisions we are making in terms of substance and sexual abuse. Everyday on social media we see classmates and many other kids doing these things and it is a very relevant problem. The kid, Arthur, in this book deals with being tricked by somebody he likes into being embarrassed all over social media. I think the reason that many kids may like this book is because they can find answers and solutions to these modern day relatable problems through the book. Because I have not read a significant enough portion of the book to understand any major plot changes or story line events, I just know the characters and their conflicts. This is almost better in a way, because I think of the characters being able to make any kind of mistake at the point they are in in the story. Teenagers need guidance from sources other than just their parents or adults, and books like this can help shed light on issues that are touchy and hard to address directly with other human beings. It is a more comfortable way to teach and learn for teens.

Overall, I am excited to learn and adventure further into this book, and to see how it affects me. I believe that it is interesting enough for teenagers to want to read, as well as informative enough to matter that their reading it. I think this book should be shared with kids our age to help them be comfortable with themselves.

Fangirl

The book Fangirl deals with many social issues such as college alcoholism and drug use. In the book there are two twin sisters who share throughout their child and teenage years an obsession with a book series called Simon Snow. But when one of the sisters upon leaving for college loses interest and strays from any relationship with her sister, Cath, she deals with the struggle of being new and alone in college,making friends, and keeping up with her love of simon snow and schoolwork.

Wren, the sister who strays from her childhood obsession finds her college life to revolve more around alcohol and dangerous experiences than actual work. As the storyline progresses, we see that wren is derailing and getting even worse. Her whole personality changes with this too. She becomes distant and hard to reach, and is more awake in her nightlife than her day life. This is a problem for many college students. When being given this whole new freedom, many young adults abuse it with illegal substances or influences like alcohol. Another example of this in the text is when CAths usually loyal kind boyfriend is seen making out with another girl while drunk at a party. IT is sad to see how substances like alcohol can easily ruin relationships. Alcohol blurs ones sense of judgement and pace. This leads to many irrational decisions and irrational behaviour. Alcohol has majorly affected the characters in this story and will continue to.

Overall, seeing how alcohol changed the people and actions in the story has made me back away from the concept of drinking in college. Something I admire about the main character Cath is that she has not had a single drink yet while in college. This shows that she has responsibility and will not have to worry about her safety in that sense. Alcoholism is a major problem for college students, and these students should be taught, beforehand, the rules of self monitoring and drinking responsibility.

Ella's Post

H’ella Cool Book Blog

Ella Torres has written yet another wonderful blog post. Whether it was the vast vocabulary or the extensive knowledge on the topic, Ella truly hit the mark on this. With her portrayal of the book "Obsessive Genius: the inner world of Marie Curie" and her thoughts on the authors perspective, she gave me a new look on not only Marie Curie's life story but her as a strong independent woman. We first get an inside look at how the author told the story of Curie. Throughout the essay she stressed the idea that because Marie was a human, she had to face many conflicts that involved her gender, beliefs, and career. As a scientist we get to say how hard she had to try to become accepted for her magnificent work.

One of the points I absolutely agree with in Ella's essay was when she spoke about how many other biographies only speak of Curies achievements and not what she had to go through or her personal experience on the journey to those achievements. I also love her point that, "One way she makes readers see the other side of Mme. Curie, however, is by showing her struggles, making her job sound unbearable and making Curie extremely relevant in this time of age." The idea that a women could excel as a scientist and make more progress than most men at the time is a foreign concept for us living in 2015. As a gender we have reached new heights and I think Curie would be proud to see this. although we still have conflicts with equal pay among race gender.

Overall I think that Ella had well rounded ideas and thoughts, used a unique perspective on the authors perspective of Marie's perspective, and left us thinking about how women will grow in the future and how they have grown in the past. Her essay was a quick delightful read that gives insight on a significant historical figure and sides of her we may have never seen.

Non Fiction Critical Analysis

In the book Eleanor and park, the issue of body image is apparent within the main character Eleanor. Throughout the book Eleanor struggles with her romantic life because her weight gets in the way. She believes that her boyfriend can not truly love her because of the fat that is on her body. Whenever he tries to interact with her romantically whether its hugging or kissing she thinks her fat will disgust him. This affects every aspect of her life because her self confidence is compromised.

This is the case with many young kids and teens today. The way they view their body negatively affects their mental and emotional health. Many times these body issues can lead to eating disorders (but you should head over to Sophie’s essay for more about that). The body issues with eleanor are definitely not being resolved by her absent father or abusive step father. Her siblings take her things from her and her mom is so involved in keeping herself safe that she can not take care of eleanor. All of these other conflicts are worsening her problems.

Although told that weight does not matter, she continues to doubt her relationships and self worth. Park, her boyfriend repeatedly tells her that she is beautiful exactly the way she is and the way she dresses or looks like does not affect his love for her. Still she is skeptical, but by the end of the book she accepts him loving her body. This will not eliminate threats of humiliation or being looked down upon by others in her life. For example her step dad writes perverted notes on her school text books about wanting to have sex or do other inappropriate things and that makes her feel extremely uncomfortable. This can compromise the structure of safety she has built against judgments of her weight. This happens to thousand of young adults around the world and is not just solvable by losing the weight.

Overall, Eleanor had many body image issues surrounding her relationship with park, but in the end accepted her weight and learned that he loved her regardless. Body image issues are a common problem and live past weight loss, with their emotional and mental toll. This issue is not easily solvable but can still be fixed by learning to love your body.

Eleanor and Park: Inquiry Questions

The book Eleanor and Park is told through two perspectives and is the story of an unconventional high school couple formed during the 1980s. It hits many different social issues from stereotyping to domestic violence and shows insight on to how teens interpret and deal with these conflicts. The relationship is not perfect and really exposes the truth of love; its not always a pretty and exciting thing. Overall I believe that showing both perspectives gave the reader a fair understanding of sides of the relationship

So what happens when these two voices and perspectives get to stand out more so than the other characters? I believe that being able to see each individual’s understanding and beliefs of their relationship makes the reading experience more intimate. If only one side is shown then there is an element of mystery as to what the other character was thinking in a certain event or situation. In many books characters may act out or do irrational things, but seeing their perspective could have helped us better understand both sides. Seeing Eleanor perspective in this book helps highlight her opinions on park and her dysfunctional home life. Seeing Richie’s , her abusive stepfather, perspective could help us better understand his mood swings and why he hurts Eleanors mom. Seeing Park’s perspective helps us understand how he feels toward his family and his interactions with the popular group. Seeing his mother’s perspective would expose her opinion on Eleanor and why she looks down on her.

Would Eleanor and Park’s point of views be overshadowed if others were introduced? I believe that they would. The whole feel of this book is to actively be a part of this relationship that is going on and having a healthy balance of perspectives. Introducing a new perspective would be like introducing another person to a couple. It just doesn’t work. I have read books with five perspectives before and the relationships between the characters became slurred and not the main priority. The extra perspectives are just not necessary. If the book was not about these two people being in a relationship but formed in some other way, I think that it would be interesting to see into some of the other characters minds and how they react and take part in things throughout the story, but a couple should be a couple of perspectives. Two to be exact.

Overall, I think that the perspectives used in the book Eleanor and park portrayed the different outlooks of each character and as individuals brought them together. It takes a well balanced view on each event that happens to them in the relationship and brings their thoughts together as one. I think letting these two perspectives stand out more helps their relationship be the main focus in the plot and if other perspectives were added, it would muddle the true motivation and point of the story. This book has a great uses of perspectives which actually adds to the story and is all in all an amazing book.

SOLD

The book Sold deals with a young girls struggle as she is forced into a sex slavery business and the hardships of living within poverty stricken Nepal. This book is written in verse which makes it poetically beautiful and overall a stunning book. Lakshmi lives on her family’s farm in a small nepalese village. When one day her selfish step father brings home a woman who evokes glamour and mystery, Lakshmi knows that something is going to change; but she never guessed this. Soon finding herself in the backstreets of India she is jailed and sold for sex, only receiving a tiny portion of the profits she makes everyday. As she finds and loses friends, has her ups and downs, in the end Lakshmi succeeds in finding hope.

Throughout the story I feel that the perspective of the father or of Mumtaz (the sex slavery leader) were major parts that were missing. I am not proposing that the book be from three perspectives but that maybe a section of dialogue could further explain the characters motives. Being able to see better into either of these characters would provide much more insight on why things in the plot are happening. Both characters play big parts in the story so they will affect how her story plays out. The father is the one who gets her into the situation in the first place so understanding why he would put his daughter into such a horrible thing, or seeing if he was genuinely doing this to help his family or not would be interesting. Mumtaz also holds Lakshmi's future in her hands because she can decide whether or not Lakshmi can get the necessary things she needs to survive like food and water. She is never really highlighted so seeing if she enjoyed her job or if she really hates it would be important.

Lakshmis point of view is highlighted solely throughout the book. I believe that this is common when writing in verse because it is hard to get multiple peoples perspectives in when trying to deeply understand one character’s emotions. It would feel crowded and the main point of view, Lakshmi's, would be drowned by others views. I think for this specific story the perspective is fine as is but having more dialogue with her father and mumtaz would give her more of an open perspective.

At the end of the book, an american who appeared to be a client but was there to try and expose the sex slavery business appear at her doorstep. We never know if she is successfully saved or if any of the other girls were saved. I think that this conclusion to the story was slightly incorrect because I do not think that they would trade a sex slavery house just for one girl. Even the slightest hint that anyone else would be saved could definitely help the story. The author might not want us to know that because it is Lakshmi's perspective and if it is being true and honest then maybe she didn’t know what was going to happen. The perspective of Lakshmi can’t just suddenly know the ending to her story because in real life she doesn't know. You could say the perspective is rolling with the punches.

Overall, the author could have provided more insight on the overall story by adding some form of others opinions on her situation. I don’t think any major structural changes need to be made to the perspective, just doing smaller things to show what a character’s reaction to something can help the plot. I feel the poetic elegance of the entire piece would be threatened if any other perspectives were added in first person to the story. The book Sold has very little things that are needing significant change and is overall a wonderful story, but would be stronger if more perspective details were added.