Exit Here

    I am almost done reading Exit Here, by Jason Myers.  So far I think it’s pretty good.  It is about a teenage boy named Travis.  He has finished high school, but quickly dropped out of college.  He and everyone he knows do drugs and drink all the time, they are all pretty messed up.  In my opinion, the most important change occurring in the book is Travis realizing that this is not what he wants for his life.  I think this happens as a combination of a couple of events.  

    A couple of events influenced the beginning of this important change in Travis.  One is something that happened to him while on vacation in Hawaii.  Basically, he met this girl, they went back to her house and lost control, and he might have killed her, but he was not even sure.  The next morning, knowing that he could have possibly killed this girl who is practically a stranger, he just left her house.  When he finally tells one of his friends about it and sees how extreme their reaction is, he realizes the seriousness of what he did.  I think this whole event really shocked him, and he certainly did not ever want to make that type of mistake again.  

A smaller one is Travis watching his sister.  I think she is about fifteen years old, and she is already completely messed up.  I think Travis might see some of himself in her (but probably worse,) and he knows that she will not listen if he tries to help her, but seeing someone similar to him at that age is showing him how wrong many aspects of his life are.  

A major event that helped trigger this change in Travis was something that happened to one of his friends.  In general though, he is seeing many of his friends similarly to how he is seeing his sister and this affects him similarly.  This specific event was caused by Kyle, one of Travis’s oldest, closest friends.  Kyle had been doing drugs and drinking with his girlfriend, and they got in Kyle’s car to drive home.  While Kyle was driving, something went drastically wrong and they ended up in the side of a house resulting in the death of Kyle’s girlfriend, and two boys living in the house (ages eight and ten.)  Kyle is know in jail for a very long time at least.  His whole life disappeared in the fifteen minutes that he was driving that car.  When Travis goes to visit Kyle in jail, what he sees scares him.  Kyle is there, in the same conditions as the other people, yet he’s half their age and not nearly as violent.  He sees his childhood friend locked away for a good part of his life.  It’s like this event has caused Travis to think more seriously about his life.  They are not invincible, and things like that can happen if that is how you are living.  

    Aside from this change in Travis and what caused it, I have noticed that the book is very symbolic.  For example, I think that the title, Exit Here, is referring to the point where Travis can exit the life he is living now.  He is realizing that it is not at the life he wants, and he just needs to get to the exit point.  Two other examples occur when Travis goes over to his friends Michael’s apartment.  First Michael shows Travis a song he wrote for his band.  It talks all about being cornered into something you don’t want, and desperately trying to get away.  Which is what Travis is trying to do with his life.  One of the lines is, “When you’ve reached the breaking point, grown tired of despair . . .”  I think this really shows where Travis is at in the book right now.  Right after that, Michael and Travis watch a TV show about a kid trying to think about the future, and get past the life he is in currently.  This also mimics Travis’s position now.  These are only three of many examples of symbolism in Exit Here.  

    In conclusion, I am enjoying the book and have noticed that it contains a lot of symbolism, and Travis is going through an important change for the better.  Hopefully he continues to turn his life around. 

Say You're One of Them: Luxurious Hearses

    I am still reading the same book, Say You're One of Them (it has about five short      stories in it, they are fiction, but based on realistic events) and I am now on to a completely different story.  This story is about Jubril, a Muslim boy in a country in Africa (the country is unknown, but I think it might be Nigeria because Jubril lives in Khamfi.)  There are huge fights breaking out now in his country between Muslim and Christian people, especially in Khamfi, the city where he has lived for most of his life.  He Jubril was born and baptized in the southern part of the country (the “Christian part,”) but was raised in the north (Khamfi,) where the majority of people are Muslim and where he has been Muslim for most of his life.  Religion is incredibly important to him and everyone around him so when people start killing others only because they are the opposite religion, his friends are swept up in this and accuse him of being both religions.  They try to kill him and he is run out of the city.  His only option now is to return to the village in the south where he was born, and where his father still lives.  This is incredibly problematic because he is Muslim and travelling on a bus full of Christians to the “Christian part of the country”.  The story is about how he has to travel for days on this bus, where the people would kill him if his religion was discovered.  He is very faithful to his religion so he is uncomfortable with pretending to be another religion, and he is also terrified that someone would discover him, which would not be too difficult; he knows nothing about Christianity, he has the accent of someone from the distinctly Muslim part of the country, and his hand was chopped off for stealing, which was a Muslim practice.  

    First of all, I think that it is interesting how the people on the bus actually like Jubril, as well as support and help him.  Because of the religious fights in the country, they would beat and kill him if they knew his real religion.  They consider a person’s religion more important than who they actually are.  Before this situation Jubril was like this too.  His brother converted to Christianity a while ago.  Jubril and the rest of his family watched as the brother was stoned to death for being Christian, and none of them did a thing about it.  They just accepted that they must stay faithful to their own religion, and that Jubril’s brother had not done that, and therefore he deserved to die.  In Khamfi, Jubril killed Christian people, just as the Christian people were doing to the Muslim people.  He just accepted that all of this was part of his religion.  I think that being on the opposite side, where he has to protect himselfand is outnumbered, might make him realize that what they are doing to each other is wrong.  Hopefully Jubril will acknowledge that people should not judge and kill others because of their religion, and he might have more respect for other people’s beliefs.  

    I also think that the different viewpoints in this book are interesting and completely different from those that we might have or know.  For example, to Jubril men are far superior to women.  When he gets on the bus, he is shocked to see women without they’re hair covered and wearing shorts.  At one point, two of the characters (one is a girl, one a guy,) disagree on a political view, and they argue about it.  Jubril is appalled that a woman would talk back to a man and challenge him.  This is completely wrong, but it is also all he has ever known.  

    In conclusion, I think that the story is very interesting, and it brings up many issues and viewpoints that are completely different from what we know.  I am really enjoying the book and cannot wait to finish this section of it. 

Say You're One of Them

I recently began reading Say You're One of Them, by Uwem Akpan.  The book contains several stories about children in Africa and the extreme troubles and difficulties they face on a daily basis. I just finished the first one which was about a kid growing up in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya.  His large family lives in a tiny shack made out of whatever materials they can find, and they all sniff glue to prevent themselves from being hungry.  It’s very sad, and there are many hard things going on in the text.  

    First of all, there are many obvious hard things going on in this book.  Some of them are poverty, hunger, homelessness, getting an education, street gangs, and child prostitution.  The main character’s family is practically homeless, they have no money, and they are constantly hungry.  They have many children, but can only afford to send one, the main character, to school.  Even paying for the education of this one boy is a great burden on the family.  This is also tough for everyone because all of their hope is relying on whether or not he can at least make it through enough school to get a job, and that he might make something out of this education that few people in their area are lucky enough to have.  Street gangs are an issue because most boys the main character’s age are not in school, but have just begun to join gangs, and participate in crime.  If the main character were not in school, he would be doing the same thing.  One of the main character’s older sister’s is a prostitute and that’s where that issue comes in.  His other sisters have a high chance of also becoming prostitutes, and that is another part of why his education is so valued, and he should appreciate it.  While the boys are in gangs and many of the girls are prostitutes, he gets to go to school.  In his family, only one of them gets to really have a chance at life through education.  

    Secondly, the seeing things through the perspective of this main character does not seem crucial to the story, although this perspective might be a bit more interesting than maybe that of the parents because he is still growing up and learning how to deal with his situation.  I have started reading the second story though, which is about two children (siblings, and older brother and his younger sister,) living with their uncle, and everything is very mysterious; I’m not entirely sure what’s going on.  I think perspective is important in this story because the older brother does not fully understand what is going on, but he is smarter than the sister and can figure things out more easily.  He does not see everything, but he sees a lot for a ten year old.  The fact that he is kind of in the middle makes his perspective interesting, but I am not even very far into that story yet, so I do not really know.  

    The text definitely made me think about justice and the world.  I do not think it is just for them to be living in the conditions that they are living in.  I did not see any specific people who brought or blocked justice, but their situation did not really change so I figured that justice probably had not been served.  

    I resisted quite a few points in the text.  When they refer to his sister and her job as a prostitute, or the fact that they have no food is mentioned.  I am aware of issues like these, but of course I cannot even imagine what being in a situation actually like this would be like.  Maybe I resist because I am uncomfortable with the issues.  

    In conclusion, I am really enjoying this book although I do find it very sad.  Absolutely terrible things are everyday life for these children, but I can’t wait to start reading the other stories the book contains. 

The Help (2nd post)

    Right now I'm close to finishing The Help, by Katheryn Stockett.  I think it's a great book, and the main characters are very interesting.  My other post on The Help focused on the three main characters, Skeeter, Minny, and Abileen, so this time I will write my blog post on some of the less important characters like Mrs. Celia, Elizabeth, and Hilly.  

    First of all, Mrs. Celia isn't nearly as important as any of the main characters, but I still think that she is important to the book, and an interesting character.  Most of the people in Jackson, Mississippi, (the setting of The Help,) are either middle-class/rich white people, or the African American people who work for them (the book takes place a while ago, so most of the white people are very racist.)  Mrs. Celia originally comes from a white family possibly poorer than any of the black families in Jackson.  She met Mister Johnny though, who is rich and white, and has married him.  They live together in Jackson, and Mrs. Celia is different because she doesn't quite understand how things work there.  Minny is her maid, yet she insists that she eat at the same table as Minny, and they have conversations all the time.  Mrs. Celia was not raised by a black maid, as most of the white girls in Jackson were, Minny is the first maid she has ever had.  She does not see the boundaries that separate black and white people.  But as Abileen recently realized, those boundaries or lines do not actually exist, they are only imaginary and they are only what many white people want them to believe in.  In a way, Mrs. Celia shows how crazy those fake boundaries actually are.  She thinks of Minny more as a friend than as a maid.  Minny is opposed to this because it's what she has always known, but I think that she is growing to appreciate it.

    Hilly Holbrook is another secondary character.  I often like Celia, but Hilly is always terrible.  She totally racist, and although she may pretend to have good intentions, she is always mean and selfish.  She is president of the Jackson, Mississippi branch of a national social organization, and takes huge pride in it.  The goal of the organization is to donate food to the Poor Starving Children of Africa.  She probably does this for the status, not actually to help people.  I like how Skeeter once points out that while she will say that helping the Poor Starving Children of Africa is a cause dear to her heart, she will do anything in her power to ruin any black person she does not like.  She likes black people in Africa, just not in the U.S.  Of course Hilly fails to see what is wrong in this.  Overall, I think Hilly is a pretty terrible person and I do not like her.
    
    My opinion of Elizabeth Leefolt is similar to my opinion of Hilly.  Elizabeth would follow Hilly into anything.  This might be because of her low economic status compared to Hilly, and because she knows that Hilly would not be very nice to her if she did not act this way.  Elizabeth needs to stop doing everything only to get Hilly's approval.  On top of having no ideas of her own, Elizabeth is also a horrible parent.  As Abileen says in the book, the one good thing about Hilly is her love for her children.  Abileen says she hugs them all the time, and makes sure they know that they are loved and special.  I strongly doubt that Hilly is teaching her children the right lessons, but at least she cares about them.  Elizabeth physically and verbally abuses her daughter Mae Mobley.  She does not care about her at all.  On Mae Mobley's third birthday Elizabeth was off getting her hair done while Abileen was at home making sure Mae Mobley's birthday was special.  Abileen has raised Mae Mobley without Elizabeth to the extent that Mae Mobley thinks of Abileen as her mother, not Elizabeth.  Elizabeth is oblivious to this and has been for long enough that Mae Mobley barely even minds that Elizabeth ignores her.  Elizabeth only cares that Mae Mobley looks cute, nothing else about Mae Mobley matters to Elizabeth.  Elizabeth has been worrying about Mae Mobley being ugly and fat since Mae Mobley was two.  What toddler is not kind of chubby?

    In conclusion, I really like Mrs. Celia, and I think that she shows an interesting perspective on things in Jackson Mississippi.  I don't really like Hilly or Elizabeth, but for different reasons.  Hilly is mean, selfish, and manipulative, but at least she is a loving mother.  Elizabeth needs to get her priorities straight; raising her daughter should come far before impressing Hilly.  In general, I am loving this book and I think that it has many interesting characters.

The Help

    I am currently in the middle of reading Kathryn Stockett's, The Help.  I really like the book and I think that the story is very creative and a great idea.  The Help is about Skeeter, Abileen, and Minny.  It takes place 1962, Jackson, Mississippi.  Skeeter is white, Abileen and Minny are black maids, and Skeeter would like to write a book using their stories and perspective to show what it's like to be a black maid in Mississippi at this time.  They have to keep it a secret because aside from Skeeter, the town is completely racist, as most white people probably were in states like Mississippi in 1962.  

    Skeeter is a young, white, socialite, who lives on a large plantation.  She has just returned from college.  Unlike most of her friends who just went to find a husband and then drop-out, she got a degree and graduated fourth (I think) in her class.  In general Skeeter is just different from the other ladies in her town.  Her main goal in life is to write a book, or become a journalist.  Most of her friends of the same age are already married and have kids.  Another thing that differentiates her, is that she understands that racism is wrong.  That's why she is writing this book with Abileen and Minny (and hopefully more maids will come.)  I think that she understands how messed up things in the South are, and is not afraid of change.  I think that this also comes from the fact that her maid Constantine has always been like a combination of a mother, sister, and best friend to her.  She taught Skeeter everything, and raised her.  When Skeeter returns from college, Constantine is gone.  Her mother denies it at first, but she fired Constantine.  Skeeter is very sad, and appalled that her mother would do that.  I think that that is part of what motivates her to write the book with Abileen and Minny.  While she writes the book, Skeeter also changes, as well as learns, a lot.  

    Abileen has been working as a maid for white people since she was in her early teens and had to drop out of school to be a maid to earn money.  She is very smart, and is respected by her whole community.  She is also aware of the risks she is taking by telling Skeeter these personal stories.  I think she trusts Skeeter, and sees that she is different, but is afraid that someone could find out.  Recently, an African American kid in their town was beaten until he was blind for accidentally using the white bathroom.  If one bad thing is heard was heard about Abileen, she would be fired and never have another job in that town in her life.  But even with the risks, Abileen has chosen to do this.  I think it is partially because she is sick of just quietly taking orders and letting things go on as they are.  I also think it has to do with the children she raises.  She raises all of these white kids better than any of their own mothers ever would, and loves them, but they turn out to be just like their parents in their racism when they get older.  Abileen describes it as one day they start thinking that black people are just inferior to themselves, and from then on nothing is the same.  Her son, Treelore, was hit by a truck several years ago and killed.  The white people driving the truck just threw his dead body in the back of the truck and dumped him onto the ground in front of the hospital.  This has left Abileen devastated.  She loved him more than anyone else in the world, and was so proud of him.  He was smart and kind, and the one who came up with the idea of showing African American perspectives in the South, (Abileen told Skeeter, who decided that they should write the book.) I think that Abileen is sad that while she was raising kids that were not her own at other people’s houses, other’s were raising her  own child at home.  She is now ready to tell people about these things.  

    Minny is Abileen’s best friend and tells the stories to Skeeter for the book as well, but does not have the same trust for Skeeter that Abileen does.  I’m only half way through the book though, so that could completely change.  Minny is also known everywhere for her absolutely amazing cooking.  Her pride and love for her own food and food in general come second only to her children.  Despite her incredible food, Minny has a problem with talking back to people.  Clearly it hurts her sometimes by causing her to get fired; but I kind of respect it.  Right now, Minny is in an interesting position: she is working for a newcomer with many secrets, who can be pretty weird, but this Mrs. Celia also doesn’t order Minny around.  Mrs. Celia comes from a different type of background than most of the ladies in Jackson, but this poorer background results in her treating African American people better.  She wasn’t raised around the principle that white people are superior to black people; she just sees Minny as a person who keeps her company during the day.  Mrs. Celia and Minny are more compatible because of this, and Minny is certainly glad to not have orders all day.  Minny began working for Mrs. Celia in the first place, because she was fired from her job.  Her previous employer had told the rest of the town that Minny had stolen from her.  This was a total lie, but Minny also soon realized that she would never get another job in Jackson again.  Until she heard of Mrs. Celia.  Mrs. Celia is new, and not accepted into the social circle, and other groups for one particular reason.  This means that she never heard about the Minny stealing silver rumor.  So when she needed a maid, she hired Minny.  I don’t think Mrs. Celia would have really cared to much anyway.  This whole ordeal has changed Minny and might have played some part in her deciding to tell stories for the book.  

    In conclusion, I am loving this book and think that the viewpoints are so interesting.  Especially when I read an essay the author had written in the back of the book, and it was about her personal connection to this issue.  She was pretty much raised by a black maid, in her Southern home.  She had experienced first-hand, the complicated relationship that occurred during that time, in the South.  She loved her family’s maid Demetrie, and Skeeter loved Constantine in the book.  I think her idea of trying to show these perspectives is great.  Although Minny, Abileen, and Skeeter are all pretty different (mostly Skeeter from Minny and Abileen,) they all have views that in their small southern town are far ahead of their time. 

The Lovely Bones: Appreciation

     Yesterday, I finished The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold.  The book is about how George Harvey rapes and murders Susie Salmon.  He has been murdering and raping girls ranging from ages eight to about fifty throughout his life.  He has never been caught, and when he does this to Susie Salmon, she is just another girl on his list.  Sadly, he still never gets caught, partially because after years of outsmarting the police about his various murders, he is a master.  He pretends to be a sad man whose wife died many years ago (he killed her,) who is all alone, and when they search his house, they repeatedly find nothing due to his expertise at hiding the evidence.  The whole town mostly thinks that although he is a little weird, he's far from being a murderer.  For the majority of the first half of the book, Susie's father, Jack Salmon knows that it was Mr. Harvey.  He has since the first time he saw Mr. Harvey after the murder.  Sadly no one believes Jack until Mr. Harvey is long gone, and unfortunately, Mr. Harvey never is caught.

     When I first read the blurb of this book, I expected it to not be that great, and to be incredibly sad.  Once I started reading though, I realized that the book is incredibly well written, and the author makes what could have been a very boring story, into a great one.  I loved the book.  After reading the book, I looked through the "special features" type things it contained, and when I read the about the author and other stuff I realized that Alice Sebold, the author, had actually had an experience similar to her character Susie's, at around the same time, except for the fact that it occurred while the author was attending college.  Her first book was a memoir about the horrific experience, and what happened was she was raped, and they caught the guy afterwards.  The man, like George Harvey, had killed and raped many girls before.  The author was told that she was lucky she had not been killed as some of the other victims of this man had been.  I think think that is very sad, and that she definitely got the idea for The Lovely Bones from her own experience.  Maybe it was even meant to represent what she thinks could have happened to her if she had been killed.

    I think that the book is actually more about what happens on earth after Susie is gone.  In the end of the book, she mentions the lovely bones that grew after her death.  The connections and relationships that were formed and changed by her death, and what grew around her death.  Obviously, things change in a huge way for everyone who knew her.  The whole time, Susie is up in Heaven, and she has the ability to watch and listen to everything that goes on on earth.  She sees the different affects her death had.  Obviously, her family is affected.  Her mother goes and tries to find comfort in secretly being with Len Fenerman, the policeman appointed to solve Susie's murder.  Eventually, her mother just leaves for California because she can't endure what is happening at home after Susie dies.  This really hurts everyone else in the family, especially Susie's father.  After Susie's mom left, Jack really tried to talk to his kids about it (Buckley, the youngest, and Lindsey, slightly younger than Susie,) but unlike him, they were slightly more closed off about the issue at first.  Jack also carries the burden, for a while, of being 100 percent sure that George Harvey is guilty, when the police don't even suspect him.  Few people believe Jack.  Jack is most hurt in my opinion by Susie's mother leaving.  I thought it was interesting that Susie's mom thought herself the stronger one on their relationship for her ability to leave their house, but later she realizes what I think is definitely the truth, that Jack is the stronger one for having the ability to stay.  At the time of Lindsey's death, Buckley is too young to even get the concept of murder.  But when he's older, he has a great relationship with his dad, but he hasn't seen his mother is many, many years and he is rightfully mad at her when she returns at the end of the book.  From heaven, Susie describes Buckley's heart as freezing up, and melting again and I think this is a very accurate comparison.  His mother leaving has seriously hurt him.  Lindsey, on the other hand, is definitely old enough to fully realize Susie's death right from the start.  She hates always being indentified as the dead girl's sister, and is even afraid to look in the mirror at herself because she knows that in her eyes, she like everyone else sees Susie's eyes.  Lindsey has great support from two other characters.  One of them is Samuel, who she starts dating at age thirteen or fourteen and eventually marries.  He's a great person and I think that to some extent, he actually understands Susie's death and how it affected Lindsey.  He had known her pretty much during it.  Another character, who I really liked, was Susie's grandmother; her mom's mom.  She acts as a mother for Lindsey in a way that Lindsey's real mother was not able to after Susie's death at home, or in California.  She teaches Lindsey how to put on make-up, and is the first to realize that Lindsey has a boyfriend.  Their grandmother seems to realize far before the rest of them that they can't dwell on Susie's death forever and she really helps the whole family a lot with just that.  (She moves in right after Susie's death.) 

     There are also two character's greatly affected by Susie's death that are not in her family, and don't really even know them well.  Ray Singh loved Susie and was her first kiss.  Without her death, they probably would have gotten married.  The other character is Ruth.  Ruth also loved Susie, and always felt connected to her in some way.  They never really knew each other, but both realized afterwards their connection.  When Susie dies, Ray and Ruth really find comfort in each other.  They were the two people who loved Susie, but were not family members.  They eventually become great friends.  Their friendship develops from being only about Susie, to being a real friendship where they discuss and think about many things besides Susie; although they both always are aware of how much they miss her.  I think that this is one of the relationships that grew from Susie's death, from the lovely bones.  They would have both known Susie, but maybe not each other quite as well.  Another one of these relationships is the one that forms between Susie's whole family and Susie's grandmother.  I don't think they would have gotten to know each other as well as they do if Susie had not died.  Susie's grandmother has the ability (maybe because she is new to living with the family and not completely familiar with their ways of coping with their issues,) to see all of the problems, and have a greater understanding of their family.  She really connects with Jack, Susie's mom, Lindsey, and Buckley each and forms a special relationship with each individual. 

     In conclusion, I thought The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, was a fantastic book that includes many interesting relationships.  I also think that's it's an interesting idea to write about how the death of someone affects others long-term, but from the dead person's point of view.  What also makes it interesting is how since Susie can see everything from her heaven, her point of view also includes all kinds of opinions and thoughts of others.

Blog Review on Kara Gurls blogpost: Whose Perspective is Missing in Fallout?

I just finished reading Kara's blogpost called Whose Perspective is Missing in Fallout?.  It is based on the book Fallout, by Ellen Hopkins.  Although I have read some other books by this author, I haven't read this one. I like how she goes more deeply into why one important perspective is missing (Kristina’s perspective) and the effect it has on the book, compared to the other books in the trilogy which only have Kristina’s perspective.  She also makes the post engaging by giving plenty of examples and backing up all of the points she makes.  

I liked how Kara talked about how Kristina's perspective was left out to make her seem worse to people.  Then anything she might be doing to reconnect with her kids or end her drug addiction is not shown, and therefore, the reader does not sympathize with her at all.  She also talks about how the author only shows her kids perspectives.  Kristina left her children very early on.  They barely know each other and it sounds like she has been an absolutely terrible mother overall.  By only showing the kids perspectives, people who she has been terrible to, it seems like the reader would dislike her even more.  This sends a strong message to the reader showing what drugs can do to your life.  

Although we cannot see Kristina's perspective and whether or not she has been trying to help her children, is what she has done to her kids really forgivable?  Kara mentions that they are now teenagers, so she has had plenty of time.  Although it is sad for her that she is totally addicted, she has clearly really hurt her kids for life and would probably have to do a lot to even get them to consider forgiving her.

She also points out the kids perspectives were not shown in the earlier books of the trilogy (Fallout is the third,) because the children were too young.  That is a good point but I would like to know if there are other reasons for the kids perspectives only being shown in this one book.  

I also liked Kara's other blogpost on Fallout, Tearing Apart Families, One at a Time.  The perspective post of hers didn't really explain the story much, but this post did a great job of that, which helped me write about and understand both posts.  I also liked how she began it with a meaningful quote.  It seemed to very relevant to the post.  She showed the effects that drug addictions have on families.  This other post also reminded me of her social action picture book, which seemed to also be about the affect drugs have on families.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading both of Kara's blogposts on Fallout, by Ellen Hopkins, especially the one on perspective.  I haven't read the book, but the post makes me want to.  It also brings up some important, meaningful points, while using details to make it engaging.