This book was quite fascinating, but depressing as well. I have a picture of a boarding school because in the beginning of this novel Jam Gallahue talks about being sent to one in Vermont called The Wooden Barn. She was sent their by her parents because of “the lingering effects of trauma.” (Wolitzer 1) The reason she is so sensitive is because of a guy named Reeve Maxfield, a 10th grade foreign exchange student from London. Jam was in love with him, but he “died.” By the end of the book we soon realize the true story. He was dead in her mind because of what he had done to her. They were secret lovers, but he was also dating a girl named Dana Sapol. Well Jam thought he loved her, but one night when she saw them together she soon realized he did not. He just thought of her as a casual hook up. It was at that moment when she felt …show more content…
A girl named Sierra Stokes lost her brother three years ago. He disappeared when he was going to the store alone to get cookie dough to make cookies that night and he never came back. Then there was a girl named Casey Cramer. He mother was a drunk and she did all the driving as well. Well one night her mom picked her and a few others up from the beach, and she was drunk. Her mom drove them into a “stonewall” and Casey had “trauma to her head.” (Wolitzer 102) There is a picture of a jar of strawberry jam because Reeve had given her strawberry jam at Dana’s party where they also kissed above Courtney’s, Dana sister, dollhouse. Lastly, there is a picture of a journal because in the book students write in their journals for an English class and they soon realize that they go to a place they named Belzhar. They go to this supposed “place” after they write five pages worth in their journals. This place is where they go “when they can’t take reality, because it’s too depressing.” (Wolitzer 107) They see the people/events that caused them the trauma in
This book is about a girl name Ellen Foster who is ten years old. Her mother committed suicide by over dosing on her medication. When Ellen tried to go look for help for her mother her father stopped her. He told them that if she looked for helped he would kill them both. After her mother died she was left under her fathers custody. Her father was a drunk. He would physically and mentally abuse her. Ellen was forced to pay bills, go grocery shopping, cook for herself, and do everything else for herself. Ellen couldn't take it any more so she ran away her friends house. Starletta and her parents lived in a small cabin with one small bathroom. One day at school a teacher found a bruise on Ellen's arm. She sends Ellen to live with Julia the school's art teacher. Julia had a husband named Roy. They were both hippies. Julia and Roy cared a lot about Ellen. After Ellen turned 11 years old she was forced to go live with her grandmother. Ellen didn't want to leave Julia and Roy but her grandmother had won custody. Her grandmother was a cruel old lady. Ellen spends the summer with her grandmother. Living with her makes her very unhappy. Since her grandmother owns farmland she forces Ellen to work on the field with her black servants. Ellen meets a black woman named Mavis. Mavis and her become good friends. Mavis would talk about how she knew Ellen's mother and how much Ellen resembled her mother. Her grandmother didn't think the same. She thought that Ellen resembled her father. She also hated that man. Her grandmother would often compare her with her father. Her grandmother would torture her because she wanted revenge from her father. Her grandmother also blames her for the death of her mother. While Ellen was staying with her grandmother her father died. When her father died she didn't feel sad because she had always fantasized about killing her father. Ellen just felt a distant sadness. Ellen cried just a little bit. Her grandmother was furious because Ellen showed some emotions. She told her to never cry again. After that Ellen becomes scarred for a long time. One day her uncle Rudolph bought the flag that had been on Ellen's father's casket. Her grandmother turns him away. Later that day she burned the flag.
The main idea of the book was a girl learning to cope with her past and and trying to grow from it. Charlie starts of in a mental institution for self-harm. She is then taken out of the place because of her mother’s lack of money. She goes to Arizona to be helped out by her friend Mikey, which is gone most of the time. Charlie gets a job at a weird coffee place and meets a guy named Riley, where they instantly get a connection. The rest of the book is Charlie trying to learn how to deal with all of her past hardships and find a better way to deal with the memories and pain. The only two coping methods she seemed
Gene's story is set in a boarding school called Devon during World War II and
Their pain isn’t something I can understand, but if I try to apply it to certain things in my life, I think I can get a little bit of an idea. They just want to be kids but they’re dealing with problems that not even adults can understand fully. There are always bumps in the road, but the biggest one comes when Gus gets sick again. Hazel was convinced she was a bomb who would destroy everything, but Gus takes that title. He tries to ignore his illness, but that doesn’t make him better. He eventually ends up passing away, leaving Hazel with nothing but good memories and a desire to live the way he did. At his funeral, Peter Van Houten delivers Hazel a note that Gus wanted him to write… the note shocks Hazel but gives her some peace too. The book is about suffering and how to cope with it, I think it helps a lot. It gives you the chance to be in someone else’s head and to understand to the best of your
A twelve year old young lady named Jamie Kelly lives in a major house with her puppy, Stinker, and her mother and father. She goes to Mackerel Middle School. Her closest companion is eleven year old Isabella. Her unbest companion is Angeline. Jamie is compelled to compose this journal. She realizes that her past journals have been silly so she flushes them out of her head.
Rachel was Melinda's friend all of middle school but she turned out to be a complete jerk to Melinda. Heather was a fake friend who only stuck by her side until she was accepted in a ¨cool¨ group. David Petrakis is a nerd who is almost in every one of Melinda's classes. They grow close mostly because they both have no friends, but he is a true friend. Towards the end of the group Melinda starts to come out to Rachel about why she called the police, but Rachel just got even more upset. Melinda thankfully realizes how bad of a friend Rachel is on page 198 ¨I don't want to be cool. I want to grab her by the neck and shake her and scream at her to stop treating me like dirt. She didn't even bother to find out the truth – what kind of friend is that? ¨ Melinda gets close to her art teacher. Art is the one class that Melinda enjoys because she gets to be with her new friend Ivy. Ivy and David are the only people Melinda has, but that is enough for her. On the first day of school Melinda recalls being the only person sitting alone on page 134.¨ I see a few friends people I used to think were my friends—but they look away. ¨ Positively Melinda has found the two only true friends in her school and starts to become a more optimistic
Alaska’s mother died. After she had died, Alaska took in guilt and as quoted in the book Looking for Alaska “Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.” The author, John Green made it clear that Alaska did not want to be alive. Further into the novel, Alaska ends up taking her life by driving drunk. The accident changed the lives of Chip and Miles drastically. “Sara slammed the door so hard that a sizable biography of Leo Tolstoy fell off my bookshelf and landed with a thud on our checkered floor like an echo of the slamming door. (pg. 36)”. As Green describes how the book fell, it made the story come to life. Not only describing what the floor looked like, it described how it sounded like a door was slamming shut and he made the event seem so real. “Broken glass glittered in the blare of the sun like the road was wearing jewelry. (pg.213)” this is an excellent example of personification, Green made it sound like the road was actually wearing a shiny piece of jewelry.
At first glance, the story “Barn burning” seems just to be about a tyrannical father and a son who is in the grips of that tyranny. I think Faulkner explores at least one important philosophical question in this story were he asks at what point should a person make a choice between what his parent(s) and / or family believes and his own values?
Laurel has to write a letter to a dead person. She chooses Kurt Cobain because of her sister May, who is also dead, loved him. What once was a simple assignment turned into an entire notebook. Laurel informs Kurt and other famous people like Janis Joplin about her daily occurrences. Things like making new friendships that she never thought would exist, finding her first love and heartbreak and experiencing the transition from middle school to high school without the help of her big sister. She also talked about her family 's smaller tragedies within the larger one. Her parents got divorced, and her mother moved all the way across the country. When she first wrote about it, I believed that she shouldn’t forgive her mother for leaving her and her father, but throughout the book, I realized that death affects people in so many different
She continues in this sequel to talk about the abuse she faced and the dysfunction that surrounded her life as a child and as a teen, and the ‘empty space’ in which she lived in as a result. She talks about the multiple personalities she was exhibiting, the rebellious “Willie” and the kind “Carol”; as well as hearing noises and her sensory problems. In this book, the author puts more emphasis on the “consciousness” and “awareness” and how important that was for her therapeutic process. She could not just be on “auto-pilot” and act normal; the road to recovery was filled with self-awareness and the need to process all the pieces of the puzzle—often with the guidance and assistance of her therapist. She had a need to analyze the abstract concept of emotions as well as feelings and thoughts. Connecting with others who go through what she did was also integral to her
I can tell it's about five o'clock in the morning when we reach enough distance between the barn so that we can't hear walkers screeching and moaning. “I think we are safe” Alex says, “for now” Desiree replies in a sarcastic manner. Jessica breaks it up and interrupts them and suggest we should set up camp and I agree with her. “Grab some firewood Jessica” I say. “Desiree you go hunting and get some food” Alex says. “The rest of us will set up some basic defenses around the small little area.” Everyone then gets to work and in about three hours we have a simple tent made with some sticks and a tarp we found in the barn. We even have a small campfire built with stone and the firewood that Jessica gathered. Soon Desiree showed up and we had
The story follows three different women through a day in their individual lives: Clarissa Vaughn, Laura Brown, and Virginia Woolf. Each of these women show us different examples of how this fascination (with death) manifests and impacts our lives. Clarissa's day exemplifies the avoidance of death, Laura's, the ponderance, and Virginia's, the acceptance.
This is the last summer that I will spend with my brother. This is the heart. This is. Ever day, this is”(213). Joshua had been killed by a drunk driver, and here is where the frustration built. “The drunk driver was in his forties and White. My brother was nineteen and Black” she ends, “five fucking years, I thought. This is what my brother’s life is worth in Mississippi. Five years”(234-235). In the lives that were taken Ward became more aware of this overwhelming sense of difference and struggle that was faced by those in her community as well as, family. Culture can be defined in the way one comes to view life and Ward found that in these deaths a larger weight of nothingness had been placed on the young people of Mississippi, there was this idea and need to escape this place that was home because of what it brought on internally. “We tried to outpace the thing that chased us, that said: You are nothing. We tried to ignore it, but sometimes we caught ourselves repeating what history said, mumbling along. brainwashed: I am nothing”(249). Though Ward could only speculate, it seems as though she leads to this point where she finds in time the people of her community continue on in this thought that nothing is all they can be, separated from this ideal of the American dream, where the only possible answer is perhaps drugs or death. Her culture and her thoughts lie in this community and they continue to change. She thinks leaving will
In the poems “The Wood-Pile” , “Two Tramps in Mud Time”, and “Mowing” Robert Frost explores the theme of the nature and value of work, and that manual labor functions as a tool for self-analysis, self-realization, or self-discovery.
Reading the story “Barn Burning” has not only given me another reason to just do another typical assignment, it has also shown how all the events that occurred can happen at any time to a regular civilian. A main character in the story would be Abner Snopes who has the characteristic of a cold hearted individual. He has let the fact of his poor conditions lead him on to make disastrous decisions.