Reading Wishlist

Some books I hope to read in the futre are The Wolf on Wallstreet, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Thirteen Reasons Why and Lone Survivor. For book 4 I would like to read Lone Survivor.

Rachel's books

The Hunger Games

by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire

by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay

by Suzanne Collins

The Giver

by Lois Lowry

Divergent

by Veronica Roth

Book Talk Presentation

Book 3 Review

I am reviewing the book Allegiant by Veronica Roth. It is the third book in the Divergent series. Allegiant is another best-selling book in the dystopia genre. While there are many dystopia books being made, the Divergent series is the best I have read. I read Allegiant as my book 3 and it is just as good as the first book in the series, which is hard to say about many series books. Basically it is about Tris and Tobias (with others) escaping the factioned society, broken by war and power struggles to finally find out what lies beyond the fence. What they find is not the easy, simple life Tris so desperately wanted. She finds new truths that change the people she loves and once again she must fight against a new human nature she is brought into.

The plot Veronica uses is unique. While for its genre it has to be about a future society, Veronica does that in a distinctive way. Her love story is perfectly incorporated with the war and action. Tris and Tobias’s love is not written in a sappy way, but still is written in a way that we feel how strong their love is. The way she writes when Tobias describes Tris in the book shows how he loves her for the strength he sees when he looks at her. She doesn’t write that he thinks she is the most beautiful girl in the world because the love story in the book isn’t sappy. “We are not people who touch each other carelessly, every point of contact between us feels important, a rush of energy and relief.” That quote shows how Veronica incorporated a non-sappy love story into the plot, which makes the book better. In most stories, the plots involve some kinds of sappy love story, but not for Veronica. Also, Veronica comes up with many different characteristics for wars and fights to make them different from others. Like simulation, peace, truth, memory and death serums. There’s a scene written at the end where the memory serum starts the last fight/war and that makes the conflict in Allegiant different from other books. Another aspect of Allegiant having a unique plot.

Veronica mixes the perfect amount of action, dialogue and description of scene to the book. An example of description was when she was describing what the fringe looked like. We got to make a visual in our mind of the place that people had to live in, so we could feel their hardship. The pace of the book is fast and instead of dragging your way through the book, you can’t wait to read more. What makes the book even better is that it is written in first person. We really get a feel for what the characters are feeling and thinking. Like when Tobias describes how he feel when he is with Tris. It shows us how much he loves her and what he thinks about her. She also switches off narrating from Tris’s point of view and Tobias’s point of view, so we get to feel what both Tris and Tobias are feeling and thinking. “I choke on a sob as the image of Tobias comes into mind, of how strong and warm his hand was when we first stood face-to-face.” That quote helps us feel what Tris is feeling and shows us how much she loves Tobias. It wouldn’t be the same if Tris wasn’t the one explaining it.

The characters in the book are great. I like how she has to main characters instead of just one. You can really see how Tris and Tobias change over the course of the book and the whole series. In a book the characters should change throughout the story. In the beginning of the book Tris and Tobias became stronger, braver and more selfless and that really impacted the book in a good way. It makes the book better and makes it easier to relate to the characters. and even though the story is futuristic. I was still able to relate to how the charters felt. In the book when Tobias lost Tris, I could really relate to the feeling of loss.

On a scale of 1-10, I would have to give Allegiant a 9. Allegiant is not just another dystopia book. It’s different and unique and is a great ending to the series. I was not disappointed. I would recommend that people who read Divergent or Insurgent should keep going until they are done with Allegiant.

 

Veronica Roth on her ending- http://www.hypable.com/2013/10/28/allegiant-review-tris-dies-veronica-roth-response/

Blog Post 9

Likeability

The narrator of my book is likeable. She is also one of the hero’s in the book. She prevails in extreme circumstances, has extreme courage and makes sacrifises to show humanity at its best. I think her being a hero makes her likeable. She fights for what’s right and stands up for what she believes in. She is also likeable because she is brave, smart, honest, strong, and caring.

The narrators name is Tris. Tris is a female character. Claire Messud fought that books are less literary with a likeable protagonist or narrator. She also said that with a female protagonist or narrator, the book is more woo-hoo sisterhood. So basically she is saying it can’t be taken seriously and is not very good. But in my book, that is not the case. The narrator is both likeable and female and it is a great book. I agree more with Jennifer Weiner’s argument. Jennifer Weiner fought that books with likeable protagonists and narrators can be just as good of a book and just as literary. There are plenty of good books with likeable and/or female narrators and protagonists. The major best-selling book, The Hunger Games, has a female narrator and if a book is that popular, I think it has to be a pretty good book. That proves that good books can have female narrators or protagonists. And that they can be likeable too. 2 bestselling books have likeable, female narrators/protagonists. There are also literary books with female protagonists. I think it’s really sexist for Claire Messud to say that books with female narrators/protagonists can’t be literary, great and/or taken seriously. So, I highly disagree with Claire Messusd. I think that books with either gender for a narrator or protagonist can be literary and a great book.  

I don’t think there is a connection between my books genre and the type of narrator it has. I think that with sci-fi, more specifically dystopia, that either gender can narrate the book and that they can be likeable or not. I personally think that books are better with a likeable narrator as long as there is some kind of conflict in the book.

Blog Post 8

    I personally think that half-truths are okay if it’s a good story. If you thought that the book was great before you knew not all of it was true. Then why does it matter if not all of it is? Does that change the words in the book magically? No, so I think if it’s a good book, it’s a good book and the genre or truth of it should not matter. I just don’t get how that changes the book. Some people might say that they felt emotional about how the book was true. But just because some truths were bent, so it might not have happened to the author, doesn’t mean it has never happened to anyone before. Or they could feel emotional about what if it happened to someone. So what I don’t understand is how someone would stop liking a book just because not all of it was true or the truth was bent a little. I personally don’t think it matters that some memoirists bend the truth. Everybody bends the truth.  I think as a memoir the truth can be bent, unlike an autobiography. If the whole memoir wasn’t true, then I think it is wrong. The memoir Love and Consequences is all made up and I think that is wrong. It should not be considered a memoir if none of it is true; it should be put in the fiction section. But I think if the truth is bent just a little, then it should still be considered a memoir and should not change a readers point of view on the book.

Blog Post 7

Blog Post 6

I think we should be adding more genre fiction, such as fantasy, dystopia, sci-fi, mystery, etc., to the school’s curriculum. I think that is what the 21^st century English class reading list should look like. If those are the kinds of books being made from this century, why are we reading books from different centuries? Some of the books are not that old, but they are still older writing. What can we learn from those books that we can’t learn from genre fiction books? Obviously genre fiction books aren’t real, but we can still learn many things from them. We can still learn ways of writing, bigger vocabularies, etc. From older books we can learn an older way of speaking, but why should we need to know older English? Last time I checked we aren’t speaking the same way as Shakespeare. When we read Romeo and Juliet in class, the whole time I didn’t understand why we were reading it. We mainly just learned how to read older English, that’s all we learned from Romeo and Juliet that we couldn’t learn from a genre fiction book. That’s not what we speak now, so why should we know it? Why should we be studying it? When I go out and look for a job, even if I were writing a book, I am most likely never going to need to know old English. Unless I was writing a book in old English, but that’s not the kind of writing people like to read now! If you looked at the kind of books kids liked to read, the majority would show genre fiction. Sometimes I feel like teachers wonder why their students sometimes don’t read their books that they chose. But the majority of their students don’t like the kind of genre they are reading. We should be learning what people are reading now. Bestselling books from now, not from many years ago! Kids are more likely to read it if they like it. They won’t be dreading every single page they are reading. Of course that sounds like an opinion, but when kids are asked in most studies the majority is genre fiction. So I think the school’s English curriculum should be changed.