Prejudice in a Kingdom Far Far Away

What is the theme of your book? (How do you know?) Does the theme reinforce or go against what most people think?  (Would most people agree or disagree with this theme?)  Explain.

A theme that is possible for the Red Queen is racism. Many believe the theme could be betrayal since most characters end up betraying each other in the beginning or by the end of the story. Others believe that it is coming of age since Mare the main characters starts to grow up and discover more and more issues that she has to face and one of them is learning to control her power. The theme of this book can be racism since the characters are judged based on their blood color just like in American history people have been judged by the color of their skin. The lower class are the people with red blood who will never have power or wealth are treated like criminals by the wealthy and powerful silvers. The Silvers are the highest class in the society that Mare lives. The silvers have astonishing powers and feel superior to the reds. The world things that the reds are worthless and they are signed up to the army at soona s they are 18 because their lives do not matter. The silvers find it correct to be able to have the reds sacrifice their lives for a war that the silvers were supposed to fight and their was no real reason for it. Later on Mare explained in the story that the war was just a way to get rid of the reds and she felt angry because her older brothers were thrown to a war only because the color of his blood.

Work Cited

Aveyard, Victoria. Red Queen. New York, NY: HarperTeen, an Imprint of HarperCollins, 2015. Print.

From the Good Guy to her NighMare

Are any of the characters a developing character, changing over time?  Explain how the character changed in the story. (What were they like before? What were they like after?  Who or what changed them?)  Was the change a large or a small change?  Is the change believable for the character in his/her situation?

One of the characters in The Red Queen who slowly developed over the course of the story is Maven. Maven was described in the beginning by the protagonist as “Unlike Cal and his father, Maven is lean, with eyes like clear water”(Aveyard,86).  Mare does not see many similarities between Maven and the rest of the royal family. Mare was bethrowned to Maven as a cover as if Mare was actually a Silver lady who had gone missing. Maven and Mare will get married according to the royal family to distract the kingdom from the Scarlet Guard, a rebellion group. Slowly Maven and Mare become closer and sympathize with a young man that is risking a lot for Mare after joining the Scarlet Guards for her. Many judged Maven for the tyrannic mother he had and Mare believed that he was nothing like them and people needed to stop believing he was evil. Later the Scarlet Guard lets him witness the place where they operated and where they hide from society and keep the soldiers away from them. Mare starts to believe that Maven “Cal might be born to rule, but Maven was meant for it,” because Maven wants to change the social system but Cal does not want too. They end up plotting the  sneak attack on Archeon, where the palace stands. That is when Maven shows his true colors- He imprisons Cal and Mare and starts to fight against the rebellion and manipulates Cal to kill his own father and states that it wall to protect his kingdom. Mare reveals she truly came to love and respect him, when his family did not, she stated that “He was too perfect, too brave, too kind.he turned his back on his own to join the Guard. He pushed me at Cal. He gave me exactly what I wanted, and it made me blind”(Aveyard, 339). Maven betrayed everyone to be able to gain the crown completely changing the way everyone viewed him including his Fathers who he killed.

Work Cited

Aveyard, Victoria. Red Queen. New York, NY: HarperTeen, an Imprint of HarperCollins, 2015. Print.

The Games of Betrayal and Conflict

What is a “conflict” in literature?  What is the main conflict in your book?  Which type of conflict is it: character vs. character, character vs. nature, character vs. society, character vs. self, or character vs. technology?  Explain.

In literature, a conflict is a struggle or force that the protagonist has to face or overcome throughout the story. Sometimes the conflict can be between the protagonist and antagonist, conflict can also be the protagonist against the society he or she lives in or a struggle with their emotions or personality. In The Red Queen, there are multiple conflicts from the society that the main character lives in, to an internal battle with the emotions she feel for people. Mare Barrow, the protagonist, has to overcome the society she is being forced to live in as someone who she is not, her relationship with Cal and his younger brother Maven, and worst of all betrayal. She was born into a family of peasants who bleed the color red living in a kingdom where they were taught that the non-peasant, wealthy, powerful, people who carried silver blood in their veins, were superior and undefeated. Mare ended up getting hired at the palace to serve at an event, Queentrial, hosted by the royal family to find the most powerful lady for their two young men who were ready for the throne. Each young women would fight with each other using the powers passed down from their family for example house Giacon could freeze your blood to provoke your death. Mare ends up accidentally falling into the arena where she starts to get brutally beaten close to death by Evangeline who can manipulate metals. Mare is pushed to the limits and Evangeline decided to push her towards the palace roof that is sparking with electricity. As Mare gets closer and closer she starts to discover a tingly sensation and she accidently zaps Evangeline with lightning. That is when they discover that she won Queenstrials but she bleeds the color red. Evangeline ended up being arranged to marry Cal and Mare has to marry the younger brother, Maven. Slowly Mare starts to get feelings for Cal and Cal does not like Evangeline but likes Mare instead. Mare decides to find a cause to fight for and discovers the Guard which is a group of rebels trying to spread the message to the silvers to treat everyone the same. Maven ends up getting involved as a spy for the guard and Mare starts to like him. Cal does his best to protect his kingdom from the threats of the Guard and sends his army to kill the Guard provoking Mare to hate him. As the story continues a small rivalry starts to build between Cal and Maven fro Mare and Mare starts to notice how Maven is the perfect prince but she can not forget Cal. Maven attended meetings to help defeat the kingdom but in the process when he figured out the Mare still wanted Cal he decided to betray Mare and imprison his brother and her for treason and planned to execute both. Mare feeling hopeless and angry towards Maven she thought “He was too perfect, too brave, too kind.he turned his back on his own to join the Guard. He pushed me at Cal. He gave me exactly what I wanted, and it made me blind”(Aveyard, 339). Mare was blinded and did not see the signs that were right in front of her to prove that Maven had a plan to betray her.

Work Cited

Aveyard, Victoria. Red Queen. New York, NY: HarperTeen, an Imprint of HarperCollins, 2015. Print.

Norta the Setting to All Problems

What is the setting of the story?  How does this setting create a mood or atmosphere for the story?  Describe the mood, using evidence from the text to support your answer.

Norta is a Heavily wooded country that has been at war for many year with the Lakelands for many years. In Norta there are two main social classes that create a conflict and those are the poor, peasant reds identified by the red blood in their veins and the Upper Class the silvers who believe they are superior to the reds. The settings helps the classes be distinguished created an atmosphere of inequality. Mare the protagonist describes her community as a dark community full of mud and shadows. She later discover it’s nothing like the palace where the silvers lived.  Mare ends up getting a job at the palace and she is amazed at the huge difference between her village and the palace. She describes the palace in details and states that  ”The diamond glass walls shines ahead, reflecting the sun as it rises from the woods”(Aveyard, 53) The Setting places a huge role in the story because Mere end sup taking part of a cover up story that forces her to live like a silver and witnesses first hand the cruelty of the kingdom to the Reds and discover different parts of the kingdom like one of the cities that has the most pollution because they create all the technology for the silvers. That city which the name is not mention will never be able to see a day with blue cloud because the clouds of pollution blocking the blue sky. Another city in the novel is where all the silvers go to live and the important Government Offices are that city later takes part of the rebellion and the exposure of Mavens truth colors it is also where we see the hatred of the Silvers towards Reds and their own kind.

Work Cited

Aveyard, Victoria. Red Queen. New York, NY: HarperTeen, an Imprint of HarperCollins, 2015. Print.

The Eyes of Cody

Does the author use point of view primarily to reveal or to conceal?
The author used first person point of view to conceal. The reason why I believe this is that throughout the story we are learning about the motives Meg took her life thru the eyes of her best friend Cody. In the beginning of the story, we do not know anything about Meg but that she had committed suicide and we do not know what lead her into committing suicide. As the story slowly progresses Cody takes the challenge to know why. We learned that Cody thought her and Meg told each other everything but in reality, she finds out Meg hid a lot of things from her. Because we view the story  in Cody’s eyes we are not giving all the information about Meg at once so we stay suspenseful and wanting to read more and more  to find out the motivations and we also get to know Meg’s family slowly by the way that Cody interacts with them. We learned that Meg had a younger brother that also helped in the search to try to find why Meg had committed suicide and we know her parents are struggling to be able to recover from their lost. Cody to them was like their second daughter so they get happier when she’s around. Therefore, I believed that the author uses Cody’s point of view to conceal lots of information and slowly give it to us so we are entertained and wanting to read more.

Helping Cody Grow

Choose a character who is not the protagonist.  How does he/she help or hinder the protagonist’s growth?
A character who is not the protagonist and helps the protagonist grow is Meg. Meg was Cody’s best friend and they had known each other for a long time. Meg got accepted to Washington University and left but Cody was left in her small town. Meg ends up finding a forum that helped guide her to taker her own life by telling her what to do and instruction in notifying her parents and Cody. Meg taking her own life helped Cody grow by taking her into a long journey to try to find the guy that helped Meg commit suicide, make new friendships with Mes roommates, and even find love. Without the help of the death of her best friend Cody wouldn’t have left her small town in washington. Also because of Meg ,Cody was able to meet Ben because Cody believed that at first he was the reason why Meg had committed suicide but it turned out that it wasn’t true and they both embarked on the journey to try to find the guy that helped Meg and they end up falling in love.  

2 Conflicts is Better Than 1

Is the ending happy, unhappy, or indeterminate (just ends, leaves you hanging, the conflict is not clearly resolved). Is the ending the appropriate ending for this book?

The protagonist deals with two main conflicts in this book. The first is the death of her best friend and trying to find who guided her to commit suicide. And the second, which is her feelings towards Ben who was one of her best friends, Meg, crushes. The resolution to the first problem was that Cody had to do allot of research to be able to find who had helped Meg commit suicide and after her and Ben drove all the way from Washington to Las Vegas to find the person behind the username that helped Meg. they end up finding him and they have a short conversations and she was able to a file folder full of documents to try to get the forum that helped her best friend commit suicide to shut down. Meg’s parents later presented their case to a court and had it shut down. The Resolution to the second problem was that during the end of they journey to try to find the guy who helped Meg they both fall in love and they express their feeling and end up sleeping together but Cody later regrets it and leaves Ben in Las Vegas were the ALL_BS, the guy that helped Meg, lived and left to Washington alone. A day after Cody is home she hears Ben car and walks out of her house to find that Ben had found her and they told each other how much they loved each other and they became a couple.  The endings were appropriate for this book because it would have been disappointing if Ben did not search for Cody and if Cody’s hard work in trying to get all the information did not do anything positive or if they left us hanging.

 

I Was Here BY: Gayle Forman

Characterize the main conflicts: physical, moral, or emotional. You have to first decide what the main conflict is or the main conflicts are. Think of what the protagonist desires and who or what is keeping him/her from getting what he/she wants. Is that conflict physical (how?), moral (how?), or emotional (how? what emotion(s) and why?).

The main protagonist in the book I Was Here by Gayle Forman has to deal with an emotional conflict regarding her best friend, Meg. Meg and Cody, the main protagonist,  were inseparable they grew up together. Cody’s best friend Meg commits suicide alone in a motel room and Cody is devastated. Cody was shocked and couldn’t believe how she did not notice any change in her friend. Meg had moved to Washington University and started living in the dorms. Cody was asked by Meg’s family if she could please go to the town in Washington and pick up all of Meg’s Belongings where she was also invited the another service for Meg. That is when Cody finds out that Meg had hid so many things from her for example Meg had found a guy who was in a band and they hung out but Meg had her heartbroken. Cody even states “Meg was my best friend, and I thought we told each other everything.But it turns out, I didn’t know her at all.(54, Forman)” Cody ends up looking through Meg’s old computer to see what had lead her to commit suicide but only finds the emails between Ben, the guy who broke Meg’s heart, and Meg and a file folder that could not be opened. Cody ends up searching for Ben to try to get to know who Meg was and if he was one of the causes that Meg tried to commit suicide. But it turned out that Meg had broken his heart and he wanted to find out why Meg had committed suicide so he joins the search to find out the reason why. Cody travels back to her old town to talk to Meg’s younger brother that later hints Cody to think that someone had helped Meg plan her death. Cody then gets helped by a friend of Meg’s who was able to open it after lots of hacking and codes. In the folder they find all the steps that had helped Meg plan her death. She also finds a forum that was just for people who were trying to commit suicide and finds that Meg had gotten helped from a user named ALL_BS on a Final Solution Forum. Ben and Cody start to track down who ALL_BS was and they embarked on a journey full of emotions from Meg’s death and also there own because they started to fall in love with each other. They got to Las Vegas, Nevada where they found who it was and they found out that it was a guy in his forties who had a young boy who was around the age of 16 and Cody started to get mad and sad that a man who had a child would help a teen plan their own death by giving them guides and outlines for their parents and friends and step by step instructions. Also on the final day of the trip after Cody met ALL_BS who ended up having her first time with Ben but later regretted it and leaves Ben and travels alone back to Washington. So the protagonist , Cody, had to struggle with her friend lost and also how she felt about Ben.

About ME as a Reader

About me:My name is Francisco and I am going to start blogging about my reading experiences in my sophomore year in high school. But first let me give you a bit of background in my short reading experience. First off all I HATED reading any reading homework I would never do it until I entered my fourth grade class. To me the person who inspired me to do reading was my fourth grade teacher he would assign books we had to read and number of pages we had to read each night and in the beginning of the school year I did not do it. Mr. Brown started to give me consequences for not reading for example not going to class pizza parties. He then decided to have a long talk with my mother and me of how important reading was. I then started to do the class reading and all off a sudden my grades went up and I had really high scores on test and I started enjoying reading. During fifth grade I continued reading on my own I could finish one Diary of a Wimpy Kid in one day. My grades were the highest in the class then as the school year came to a close my teacher recommended me to join the G.A.T.E. program that stands for Gifted and Talented Education and they had my parents answer a 200 question survey about me. And the school year of 2011/2012 I was accepted into the G.A.T.E. program. While in that class we read 1793:Fever, Dragon Wings, Maniac Magee, BFG, Night Swimmers, Freak the Mighty, Hatchet, The Giver, The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, and Tom Sayer.

Books I love: The 3 top books that I love are Papertowns, If I Stay,I Was Hereand 13 Reasons Why. Papertowns is one of my favorite because it inspires me to try to go on an adventure and just leave clue for someone to find me. If I Stay inspires me to live each day to its fullest because we do not know what will happen to us the next minute and finally 13 Reasons Why taught me that my actions and words can hurt others so I have to be nice to everyone.

Books I hate: Most books I have read are really good but I do hate Harry Potter, Holes and Catching Fire. To me the most boring book series of all time has to be Harry Potter, I could never get to the 20th page cause I was already bored and falling asleep and I have never finished a Harry Potter movie because I have felt asleep threw each one that I have tried to watch. Holes is a good book until you have had to read it as homework for the 7 times honestly the book was not even entertaining but basically I was forced to read it if I did not want to fail the class. And finally Catching Fire was boring I love the Hunger Games but not Catching Fire at all.

Favorite Characters: My favorite character has to be Margo Roth Spiegeiman she is the female protagonist in Papertowns to me Margo is strong-willed, brave and a determined girl. Also my favorite thing about her is that Margo run away from home a lot but oftentimes leaving little clues for her family to follow her.

Least favorite Character: I really do not have a least favorite character because I feel like some time in some books there are horrible character but afterward you realize that without them there would be no story so you have to appreciate all characters.

 

Favorite Reading Environments: I enjoy reading in a quite relaxing place so I can concentrate and focus on what I am reading because if not then I get side tracked and have to re-read the page to understand what I read. When it comes to music , I can not listen to it during reading because I get distracted and start singing to it or I can not leave it in one place. Therefore normal I read at night before I got o bed because I can concentrate and read between 20 to 40 pages a night.

Favorite Bokk from Last Year’s IRP: My favorite book that read last year for my IRP was I Was Here because for the first time I read an adventure book that I got to choose and it was interring to find out more and more so I read the whole book in two days. I enjoyed it because it bought out many different emotions in me for example it had the mystery aspect, who was the guy that convince the protagonist friend to commit suicide, the romantic aspect , the portents starts to fall in love with her best friend s crush, the adventure aspect, how far will they travel and what they find in each place.

10 Things that I learned as a reader from last year IRP:

1. DO NOT read your book in two days because you will forget what happen and where to go back
2. While reading stop and analyze what you read
3. I enjoy a trip to library to find new books
4. I enjoy talking to a teen librarian about books they recommend
5. It is hard for me to remember all of the characters names
6. I actually enjoy young adult novels better than any
7. I can not read in a car full of people or on a road trip because I forget everything I read
8. I choose books some of my peers would never read and would not find interesting
9. I started a book club at Belle College Library for teens
10. I enjoy talking to people about what I read

Suicide Notes By: Michael Thomas Ford

 

Write about the setting: How is it unusual or unfamiliar? Where are you most comfortable in this setting and why? How is the setting in this novel an important part of the plot?

The novel Suicide Notes takes place in a psychiatric ward or know to the main character,Jeff,as the “nuthouse”. The setting is very unfamiliar to me because I have never been in a psychiatric ward but the author does an amazing job at describing the setting in detail. Ford describe how the room that Jeff is staying in looks like “hell” because the walls are a dirty white color,there are cracks in the plaster and a weird brown spot in the ceiling that according to Jeff looks like the devil’s face. The author opens up the novel by explaining how he feels like he is an astronaut floating in space and all of a sudden he is being pulled down to earth and when he wakes up he feels like vomiting because of the air on earth smells like rotting meat. As the novel progresses he starts to describe the cafeteria, Dr. Katzrupus office, the bathrooms they use and the living room where he escapes at night to talk to Sadie. The setting in this novel is important to the story because if Jeff was not in the  psychiatric ward we would not find out much about him and the other teens that have a play a huge role in discovering who he is. Jeff was hospitalized in the psychiatric ward because he tried to commit suicide but we do not find out until the end of the book. So the main setting in the book is the psychiatric ward, Jeff in the beginning acts like he does not belong there and that he did not have anything wrong with him. He has to go to therapy sessions where he meets three other teens, Juliet, Sadie and Bone. During Jeff’s first therapy he  thinks and acts like he had nothing wrong with him. As the story progresses some of the sub characters such as Bone leaves the ward and new ones come in. Other important settings in the book is the psychiatric wards bathroom and Jeff’s room. When Bone left, another character by the name of Rankin came into the story. One night Jeff goes into the bathroom to do his business when he hears the shower and peeks through the shower curtains because “There are gaps on either side, almost like steam from the shower had made the curtains shrink.”(Ford 153)  and saw that Rankin was masterbating. he then tells Sadie about what he had saw the next morning. That same night he sneaked into Sadie’s bedroom and tried to have sex but then he couldn’t continue when he put his hand on her parts so he headed for his bedroom and went to bed but  a few hours later he felt bare skin against him and he thought it was Sadie but it was Rankin. Rankin had sneaked in and started molesting him but he wanted to stop but his body told him no. Next day Jeff felt like crap and worthless. At breakfast Rankin told him that wouldn’t say anything about Jeff and Jeff felt worse. Later in the book Sadie starts to fall in love but Supposedly Jeff has a girlfriend named Allie. Then the next day Rankin comes into Jeff’s bedroom and he starts to molest Jeff again but they get caught and the next morning jeff had to speak with Dr. Katzrupus about what had happened and he could have gotten kicked out until Rankin told them the truth. Throughout the book we do not know find out why Jeff had attempted suicide but everyone believed it was because Allie once. Jeff After getting caught with Rankin he starts talking about why he tried to commit suicide the reason was that Allie was not his girlfriend but his Best Friend and Burke was Allie’s boyfriend but he had a crush on Burke. The three started going out together and right before christmas they went to a party and drank alcohol he got drunk and felt a bit sick so he went to the bathroom to throw up. While he was sitting by the toilet Burke came in and they talked about going shopping for Allie’s christmas present. After the conversation “[Jeff] leaned forward and kissed [Burke] right on the mouth.”(Ford 250)  Burke called Jeff a fag and left the bathroom. Jeff quickly left the party and for the next three day he did not heard a word from Allie. On Christmas Eve he called her up and said “Merry Christmas” but all she responded was “ I thought we were friends” and that’s what drove him to commit suicide and after those paragraphs he come to the conclusion that he was gay. The day after he tells Dr. Katzrupus that he was gay and wanted to tell his parents so for his last days in therapy he practiced telling his parents by pretending Dr. Katzrupus was his father and mother. And finally the last day he told his parents.If it wasn’t for what what had happen in the “nuthouse” Jeff would not have the guts in coming to the conclusion that he was gay.