Throw Away By Heather Huffman

Throw Away is about the love story of two characters named Jessie Jones, a prostitute and Gabriel Adam, a cop. Although I'm only half way done I know that Jessie's and Gabriel's love will only cause complications. Jessie, who fell into the wrong hands when she was kicked out of foster care at 18 tries really hard to stay positive about her job. Then her boss gets into trouble with the "big dogs" and attracts the attention from the police so he makes Jessie and her roommate work along a dangerous street so that they can report back to him anything they find unusual. Then Jessie meets Gabriel (on her day off) and without knowing he's the cop investigating her bosses case she falls in love with him. Things start getting worse and worse because first Jessie can't date, second her boss is getting into a lot of debt and trouble and third Gabriel is drafted and has to go to Vietnam not knowing that Jessie is now pregnant (Jessie doesn't know either). So now Jessie is trying to solve things her own way, which I don't think its a great idea because the way she's handing things is by living with Spencer to become a spy for the police. It's not like he's touching her or anything but I'm really excited to learn what happens next. I think Spencer is going to get beat up or worse killed. 

Tough Questions Note and Notice: 
So when Jessie starts dating Gabriel they always get into an argument about Jessie quitting her job but its not that simple. Because Jessie is Spencer's "favorite employee" he has her on a leash, repeatedly saying that Jessie is his property and that she will never have a life of her own. Jessie knows that if she tries to quite her job she could put both Gabriel and herself into extreme danger although it could also mean living her life with Gabriel. Gabriel has offered to take Jessie to the small town he grew up in, where he is sure Spencer and his screw won't find them but Jessie is hesitant. Jessie has to ask herself if she is welling to live a hidden and fear filled life with Gabriel or ending Spencer so that other girls can live their lives at the cost of maybe even getting killed.    

Night By: Elie Wiesel

So the book I'm reading in my Lit Circle is called Night by Elie Wiesel and the story is about the author's life during the Holocaust. See the events in the story happen very quickly and at the beginning of the story Elie and his family are very religious Jews who live in a community that is full of others like them. Then they start hearing rumors about the concentration camps and how the German military (Nazis) are conquering places in a matter of months but, they never really believe the rumors because, after all, its not happening in their community. Until the day did come when they are being moved out of the ghettoes and taken to an unknown destination. When they got to there distention they realized that they had been tricked and had arrived in a crematorium camp and they were going to get separated. Elie and his father were separated from the women in their family and they were then lead into a concentration camp, they were lucky. During the time that Elie and his father were in the concentration camp they had to do hard labor and survived only on soup, bread and coffee. I'd say the real story began during the winter of 1944. It was the start of the end of the Nazis so things became ruff, there were executions, beatings and less food. The concentration camp they were in got shut down and they had to run for miles to a far away deserted town until the Nazis could find another camp to send the Jews too. During their journey most died because of the snow or because they were shot by Nazi soldiers. By the end of the story Elie has to struggle to take care of his father, who became very ill and even though Elie nows that his father won't make it, he keeps taking care of him until the last day. Fortunately, as the Jews watched, the Russians were able to invade the camp and defeat the Nazi soldiers but even then, when the Jews were free they didn't think of revenge, only of provision.

The genre of this book is historical non-fiction. Elie Wiesel is a real person who went through something that really happened. Night is somewhat of a autobiography because the story is about someone's life written by that same person.

Holocaust Upstander/Bystander

After reading so much about the up standers and bystanders during the Holocaust, I think I understand a little about why people chose to stand up or stand by. First I would like to talk about why people became bystanders and stood by while they saw these horrible things happening to their neighbors, colleagues and friends. I believe the main reason why they stood by is because of fear. They saw how badly the Jews were being treated, plus the threat of being killed if they stood against the Nazis. People had to think about their families and themselves before they thought about other people. They were afraid for their lives and for those of their loved ones. Another major reason why people stood by was because they felt it didn't concern them. During Literature Class we read a poem written by a priest who spent eight and a half years in a Nazi concentration camp. In his poem he talked about how the Nazis came for the Jews, communists and trade unionist but he never spoke for them because he was none of those things. Until the Nazis came for him, then because no one was left to stand up for him he was taken. See being a bystander means being a person who witness but is not directly affected by actions of perpetrators but because they stand by and don't do anything they help shape their society in major ways. What the poem taught me was that because people never stood up for others the Nazis didn't have people standing against them so they did as they pleased, which was a major point in the Nazi success. On the other hand being an up stander means standing up for what you believe in and doing against what the perpetrator is doing. During class we learned about both Jewish resistance and non-jewish resistance. I know that the Jews could only do little because they had the Nazis against them but they managed to stand up for the reason of have the state of mind that if they are going to die they might as well die fighting. Jews started armed revolts in the ghettoes and attacked German tanks and soldiers. They joined Soviet partisan units to harass German soldiers and did everything to preserve their religion and traditions. Non-Jewish people helped too. Many people refused to join the German military and sheltered Jews in their homes. In fact they tried to assassinate Hitler although they only killed a high ranking Nazi Officer.

Since I started learning about the Holocaust, I keep asking myself whether I would have been an up stander or bystander. Honesty, I feel like I would have been a bystander because I would have been afraid. I'm always worried about the well being of my family so I think I would have been a bystander.

Ender's Game

So the book I'm reading is called Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. At first I thought that Ender's Game was dragging and that because the book was so long that there would be a lot of spaces where the book was really boring. In reality Ender's Game is full of battles, insight and there wasn't ever a place in the book where I wanted to stop reading. So the book is in the genre of futuristic fiction, which really helps the reader understand whats going on in the beginning. So the book is about how there are these aliens called buggers and since they had attacked Earth in the past, the government made up I.F which basically teaches children to becomes soldiers. The thing is that they need to find a commander for fleets heading towards the bugger's world within about twelve years. Because the I.F. need to find a commander for the upcoming Third Invasion every child around the world is inserted a chip in the back of their neck when they are born. This chip is to help the I.F. find the right children for battle school and Ender is one of them. The chip is taken off and Ender is proven battle school material so Ender has to leave his family, to train. Ender doesn't know that he is the one chosen by the I.F. to become commander of the Third Invasion but what he does know is that the teachers of I.F are doing everything they can to make hime the best and really he is.

So the plot, I'd say, starts when Ender is transfered to Commander School several years early, but ready non the less. At Commander School he meet Mazer Rackham the only person who has ever gotten even a little close to understanding the buggers. Mazer is there to teach Ender every thing he knows and he does. Mazer inrolls Ender in a simulator game in which he tries to beat buggers but then Mazer replaces the computer and starts to battle Ender and his team. Ender is given the last test while all the most emportant people from the I.F. are watching. This test is the hardest Ender has ever taken, it seems impossible at first but Ender is able to pass. It all seems great and now Ender feels like he is truly going to be able to be commander, but then Mazer tells him that since Ender started playing agaimst him, Ender has really been in real life missions, only commanding from a computer. This leads to Ender finding out that everything that happened from the moment he stepped into Battle School, all his choices and battles were influenced and planned out because as the teachers said "was for our best". This is the conflict and what Ender needed to do was gain control over his own self before it was to late, for the battle over the buggers was over but the battle over Ender was not. 

Counting By 7s By: Holly Goldberg Sloan

So right know the book I'm reading is called Counting By 7s and at first I was like "this book is boring and slow" but then the parents died all the sudden and then I was like "Omg what will Willow do? Is she going to be thrown into foster care where she will be treated unfairly and then this book is going to end up being one of those book." Anyway right now the book is about this girl named Willow Chance, thats a complete genius but her principle thinks that she's really just a cheater which got me really mad, so if we as students pass every test at a new school and show that we already understand the topic we get in as much trouble as not doing your homework, because thats what happened to Willow and now she has to go to therapy. Now Willow's problem isn't even that she has to meet with a councilor that doesn't even like his job but that her whole world has been chewed and spit out into the opposite of a descent life. So towards the end of what I have already read Willow's parents die in a car accident on their way to this appointment the mom had because she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. This makes me wonder, what if the parents hadn't died. Would this book have turned out to be the story of a girl that had to deal with her mother's caner( by the way they weren't even intending to tell Willow until the mom was cancer free) instead of the story of a girl that has to deal with her depression over her parents dyeing. I think the theme of this book is going to be the classic,"Things always turn out for the better even when it seems your life is emotionally over."

The genre of Counting By 7s is realistic fiction. There isn't any magic or anything like that but it also talks about things that do happen, so I know that it's realistic fiction. The book is about a fictional character (Willow), going through something that often happens in real life. Its not historical fiction because although loosing your parents does happen, the story isn't about a specific person but more of an excample of someting that does happen.

Worker's Rights Article and Poem

In the article called Coca Cola Accused of Using Death Squad to Target Union Leader I learned that in Colombia there is a paramilitary group called AUC. This group targets unionist and labor leaders which helps Coca Cola factories get rid of them in their factories. See the Coca Cola factories organize raids in which the AUC comes in and murders, tortures and kidnaps and worker that has any association with union. According to the article a lawsuit was filed by the U.S District Court in Florida which accused the company, it's Colombian subsidiary and business affiliates of using the AUC to do these things to its workers. In my opinion I think that the lawsuit should have been field earlier. It can't be possible for no one in authority to have field a lawsuit count have known. Although I don't want to appear ungrateful because after all the lawsuit was filed and things are being taken care of but what I do want to say is that I think other companies should see this as an example. For those companies that think they can get away with things like what happened with the Coca Cola company I want them to know that this is what happens when companies like this do things like treating workers unfairly or not paying their worker's enough or not at all.  What surprised me is that Coca Cola would actually go as far as killing their own workers but not just that but they actually think that killing their workers would always be a secret.

http://colombiajournal.org/colombia73.htm


In the poem titled Simon Weil: The Year of Factory Work (1934-1935) it talks about a worker that tells how she views her job as slavery and how she works in order to eat yet she only gets enough so that she'll eat in oder to work. She talks about how she wonders whether or not god can see her and the other workers because if he could then why would he let them live like slaves. In the poem she repeatedly says "To work in order to eat, to eat in order to work." but what she eats is cabbage, bread and wine which is considered a poor people's food, well except the wine but the poem takes place in France. In the poem the narrator also says "Surely God comes to the clumsy and inefficient, to welders in dark spectacles, and unskilled.", which has to do with her wondering whether or not God is there. Reading the poem is way different from the article. The poem's narrator talks about an actual worker and the way working at a sweat shop while the article is a report talking about the companies doings and talks about the bigger picture not about what the workers are feeling. The difference helped me understand more about the worker's feelings and how they view the way they are living, I mean when someone reads the article they think "well why don't the workers just quit" but its so muck more than just quitting. If the workers were to quit they wouldn't have any money so they think little is better than nothing and anyway if they were to quit new people would always come to replace them because there is always someone that needs the money and that is desperate enough to except the job.

Call Of Duty (Scholastic Scope)

So the article is about a soldier that steps on a bomb along side his dog. When he gets home he fights for the right to adopt the Zenit (the dog) as his own. Fortunately that wish is granted. The topic I want to talk about is whether or not the armed forces and or the executive branch should let veterans to get the chance of adopting the dogs that they once worked with. I get that sometimes veterans can develop things like depression and PTSD Post Traumatic Stress Disorder something that has to do with anxiety. The symptoms may be flash backs so realistic that can accrue over and over again. I'v e read many things in which these people aren't able to take care of themselves, much less someone else. I feel like these vets could use a companion that would help them through the tuff times. Someone that with take care of them and if the dog was malnourished or something someone else could help out with the dogs none the less the dog could help them with emotional problem just like with situations with other people with different problems. So yes I think that these vet should have the chance to keep their companions.

The Fault In Our Stars

The book I just finished is called "The Fault In Our Stars",  its a book of great love and love lost. Its about living your life surrounded with people that love you and excepting that sometimes the most perfect things can be imperfect. See Hazel the main character/narrater lives with cancer. She can't become cancer free because of the kind of lung cancer she has but she can take medication that will keep the tumors small and ineffective. In the beginning of the story Hazel is really depressed, she says she's not but really she is but then one day during a Support Group Meeting she meets Augustus Waters. They fall in love and try to live at their fullest. I think Hazel is really strong and confident but not because she is constantly dealing with her cancer but because she stays along side Augustus when everything is falling apart and because she thinks about her cancer as the worst thing but still lives on.

The conflict wasn't exactly surprising or anything just because I could sense that what the author was trying to teach was not that life is perfect but that life is imperfect and that dyeing is just one part of life. The conflict wasn't that both of them ended up having cancer because cancer isn't evil, its a part of you and its made of you but also that the only thing its trying to do is live. It wasn't that Augustus dies at the end. The real conflict was that people need to realize that death happens and that people need to realize that life isn't over for them even if it hurts like hell. The conflict was person to self because even though Agustus died, Hazel's struggle was trying to live without the "love of her life".

The Impossible Knife Of Memory

The book I'm currently reading is called "The Impossible Knife Of Memory" , this book is mind blowing.  So in the beginning the main character or narrator, Hayley Kincain is really someone you wouldn't want to hang out with but she's like this for a reason. Hayley has gone through major things in life, one of those things being having to deal with the kind of father she has. Her father is a vet from both Afghanistan and Iraq who has problems with both alcohol and drugs. He often wakes up screaming numerous times a night and he's abusive which used to be only for other people but though out the story he seemed to be loosing that control and almost hit Hayley numerous times. Afterwards Hayley starts to really enjoy the move back to their original house but her dad's condition seems to be getting worse. Then towards the end of the story Hayley's stepmom or ex-stepmom comes back into there life which causes Hayley to start to blame her for what is happening to her father, saying that because she's here her father is getting worse. In the story there is both an external and internal conflict. The external being having to deal with her father but the internal which seems to always be worse is that Hayley had to become an adult and take care for both her father and herself meaning that she feels as if she can't pay attention to her own internal problems which only causes them to get bigger and bigger over time. Although the whole story is amazing the end is completely mind-blowing and crazy. I really don't want to ruin the ending and be a spoiler but I feel like the needing really helps everyone out. Hayley and her father start to have that connection they used to have before the war and Hayley is able to become her own age again and a lot of the unnecessary responsibilities are lifted from her shoulders.

The story is written in first person point of view. Hayley is the narrator as well as the main character so she uses words such as I, me and my. Just like the book "Imperfect Spiral" the book could have been written in third person so that the reader could now more about the other smaller characters that have hidden stories. Although the third person could have helped I feel like the author was really trying to have the reader try to understand that when something happens such as the aftermath of the experiences of soldiers don't just effect the soldier himself but also his family and friends. Hayley really had to step up her game to be able to help or try to help her father, some one that no longer had any hopes in life. She also had to become an adult when she was just starting to become a teen which caused many problems by the time she became a seiner in high school, the time when everything seemed to be falling apart for her.

Summary Of Imperfect Spiral

Summary:

The book I just finished reading was called "Imperfect Spiral". This book was so good. It was really deep and had a lot of bigger insights. So the book is about this girl called Danielle but everyone calls her Danny, anyway Danny was babysitting the Danker's 5 years old boy during the summer instead of going to camp and becoming a CIT. Danny falls in love with Humphrey By the end of the summer going to the park with Danny to practice throwing a perfect spiral is natural to Humphrey but one day while walking home the football falls from Danny's arms and Humphrey goes running into the street to get it. By the time he realizes that he has made a mistake there is a speeding car coming done the street. Humphrey runs to the opposite side, into traffic and is hit by a minivan. Humphrey is rushed to the hospital were doctors  try and save his life but Humphrey dies. Through out the story Danny blames herself for what happened. Also people from the neighborhood make it there life purpose to try and improve the safety of Curry Road but the bigger problem is that people start to complain about illegal immigrants in the United States making the accident about something completely different.

Character Analysis:

The main characters are Danny and Humphrey

Humphrey is someone that is really smart and uses words like personification just because he likes to learn about "p" words. Humphrey would rather play with an artistic doll house with its many small details than play fight with a bunch of action figures. One time Humphrey got ran over by a kid on a bike and ran into a wall causing him to go to the emergency room and didn't cry but he did cry when he thought Danny had gone home without saying a proper goodnight. Although Humphrey dies at the beginning of the story his presence in the story is major so really he is one of the main characters.

Danny is a sophomore now were she goes to school with a friend she doesn't really know if she really is her "best friend". In fact throughout the story she has trouble disci ding on weather or not to take of the quotation marks off of "best friend".  Danny wants to becomes a lawyer but not just a lawyer she wants to be "the" lawyer but she has an incredible fear for public speaking which holds her back from doing the things she really enjoys doing. By the end of the story Danny uses the love she had with Humphrey to overcome her fears and step up for the illegal immigrants and the safety on Curry Road in front of the whole town, over 3,000 people.

The story is written in first person point of view. In the book the narrator, Danny is the one telling the story. She uses words like I and me which are huge clues telling the reader that it is written in first person. I think that the story being first person was a bonus because the story is about the experiences that Danny went through and it really helped to now exactly who she was and what she was thinking. What would be even better would be that the story was a part of a series because there are smaller characters in the story that aren't really important but the author kind of foreshadows that there is a greater story to their life.

Lemon Brown

Last week I read a story called "Lemon Brown" in which a boy meets a homeless man in order to learn a very valuable lesson in life. In the story the boy runs into a broken down building when it starts to rain only to meet a man by the name of Lemon Brown. During there encounter they get into trouble with a few guys, then Lemon Brown teaches him that one mans garbage is another mans treasure. Lemon Brown tells about his life and how he lost both his wife and his son. His son was killed in war in which he carried newspapers about the days Lemon Brown used to sing the blues and broken down harmonica. The lesson is that the things your parents do now might seem annoying or irrelevant at times but at the end you will know that they are just trying to protect you and hope that you will have a better life than they ever lived.

Summary Of "The Darkest Path"

Summary:

The book I just finished reading is about a 15 year old boy named Cal that was captured along side his brother, James, by a religious group called The Glorious Path. Six years in the past Cal and James were visiting their aunt and uncle when The Glorious Path released an attack on that state, killing anyone that fought back. When the brothers were captured they were given The Choice, join or die. Six years later Cal is told to requite a stray dog called Bear from the streets so that it can be converted into a fighting dog. When Cal meets her they become instant friends but when the dog couch arrives and threatens to kill both Cal and Bear, Cal shoots the trainer. Cal know has to flee to the north to save his own life, with challenges from The Glorious Path, which is set on concurring all of The United States. This book was so good. I usually drop books really quickly because I can predict what will happen next. Its like books are being made over and over again but with The Darkest Path I was in so much suspense. I would think Cal was going to do something and then he'd the exact opposite. Not that the choices he made didn't make sense, they actually made the story fit better. Leaving me thinking that if I was Cal, I would have gotten arrest or worse given The Choice.

Character Analysis:

The main characters is Cal. There was some more people in the story but they either died or they weren't included for a long time. Cal is from New York and has been trying to become a citizen in The Glorious Path to make his brother's (James) and his self's lives better even if it means staying with the Glorious Path. The camp leader tells Cal that if completes a bunch of missions with the soldiers that requite people into the camp he will grant Cal and his brother James citizenship. After having to get his arm broken with a bat, Cal gets back from the mission only to be told that because of James condition with asthma and Cal's ability to complete the mission they will not be getting citizenship but Cal will become a soldier and James a kitchen boy. Afterward Cal has to save his life and the dog he has now befriended. During throughout the story life hands Cal extremely bad luck and huge challenges while trying to show Cal that there is more to life then being alone. Cal needs to become stronger and stronger to get everyone in his life out of the grip of the Glorious Path even if it means confronting the very person the started the Glorious Path, Nathan Hill. Cal is like a hurt puppy. Like you know when you meet this really cute puppy but its scared to death and it will bite if you get to close well that was basically Cal in the beginning. Cal is a really strong person, when everything fell apart he was the one leading everyone and helping them get up off the ground. The problem was that he didn't trust anyone and it toke him a lot of work to make friends,  I mean the only reason he was able to kiss Nat was because Nat speaks her mind but by the end Cal was able to become more open and because of that he was able to become closer to his brother.