The book I read was Pretties by: Scott Westerfeld. This book is the second book in a trilogy. The first book is Uglies. You will understand Pretties better if you read Uglies.
Pretties was about a girl named Tally who has finally turned pretty. At first she thought that was she wanted, until she rediscovered the truth of becoming pretty. In the first book Tally met David, whose parents knew that truth. And that truth was horrible. Becoming pretty had its disadvantages. When you got the operation to turn you pretty, the doctors gave you lesions in your brain, stopping you from remembering certain things from when you were an ugly. The specials especially wanted Tally to have the lesions because she knew the truth, which she wasn't supposed to know. She had also been to a secret place called the Smoke, which was destroyed in the first book. But, after Tally kisses a guy named Zane, she starts to remember. Zane had started remembering long before that and suspects that something is wrong with the pretties, but is not really sure. Since both of them were slowly remembering they decided to try and save themselves.
In the beginning of the book a friend from Tally's ugly days broke into New Pretty Town, and snuck into a party she was at. His name was Croy, and came to give Tally a note she had written to herself when she was an ugly. The letter was warning herself about the lesions, and telling her she was a "test subject" for a pill that could possibly cure the lesions. Tally also wrote to herself that she had agreed to this.
To get the pill Tally a d Zane went through a number of difficult "tests", as Tally called them. For example, to get the key they needed to get into the shed where the package was, they had to climb up a thirty story tower, which was on top of another really tall building. When she and Zane got to the package, they found the letter to herself, and the pill. But she discovered that there were two pills, not one. This confused her. Someone must have seen Tally and Zane because, the specials had arrived. Tally was hesitating to take the pills, but she couldn't let the specials see them, so she gave one to Zane and took one for herself.
In the novel, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, we learn the story of a abused girl trying to survive the world that she was placed in. She never had any friends until she was in the sixth grade, when she met Eric. Eric was also an outcast because of his weight. The other kids call him Moby because he's on the swim team and that's their clever way of saying that he is like a whale. Sarah and Eric have been friends for six years and when she stops talking and is placed in a psych ward, he questions the situation right away. Eric visits her frequently to try and get her to talk. Sarah finds a way to tell Eric part of the reason why she hasn't been talking. She is trying her best to stay away from her abusive father. In this story, Eric is fighting his hardest for someone that doesn't want his help which makes the situation more difficult, but not impossible. As you follow the story of Sarah and her struggles, the theme will scream at you what real friendship is.
Many factors contribute to the main storyline of Pretties by Scott Westerfeld. So far, Tally has attended a costume party with her best friends, received a large gash in her forehead after escaping from the party, and swallowed a white pill from a mysterious leather sack. The party and pill will be discussed and elaborated upon throughout this essay. The three most important objects in the story so far are Zane (Tally’s man friend), Champagne, and the key to open the lock on dorm room Valentino 317. One person who is crucial to the plot of the story so far is Zane.
The fourth Chapter of Estella Blackburn’s non fiction novel Broken lives “A Fathers Influence”, exposes readers to Eric Edgar Cooke and John Button’s time of adolescence. The chapter juxtaposes the two main characters too provide the reader with character analyses so later they may make judgment on the verdict. The chapter includes accounts of the crimes and punishments that Cooke contended with from 1948 to 1958. Cooke’s psychiatric assessment that he received during one of his first convictions and his life after conviction, marring Sally Lavin. It also exposes John Button’s crime of truancy, and his move from the UK to Australia.
A video is put on, and in the beginning of this video your told to count how many times the people in the white shirts pass the ball. By the time the scene is over, most of the people watching the video have a number in their head. What these people missed was the gorilla walking through as they were so focused on counting the number of passes between the white team. Would you have noticed the gorilla? According to Cathy Davidson this is called attention blindness. As said by Davidson, "Attention blindness is the key to everything we do as individuals, from how we work in groups to what we value in our classrooms, at work, and in ourselves (Davidson, 2011, pg.4)." Davidson served as the vice provost for interdisciplinary studies at Duke University helping to create the Program in Science and Information Studies and the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience. She also holds highly distinguished chairs in English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke and has written a dozen different books. By the end of the introduction Davidson poses five different questions to the general population. Davidson's questions include, "Where do our patterns of attention come from? How can what we know about attention help us change how we teach and learn? How can the science of attention alter our ideas about how we test and what we measure? How can we work better with others with different skills and expertise in order to see what we're missing in a complicated and interdependent world? How does attention change as we age, and how can understanding the science of attention actually help us along the way? (Davidson, 2011, p.19-20)." Although Davidson hits many good points in Now You See It, overall the book isn't valid. She doesn't exactly provide answers ...
Strong, self-contained, Independent, mild-mannered, and courageous are all words that come to my mind when I think about my grandmothers. These are also words that I think of when I look at other black women throughout history. Over the duration of this course I have learned about the tenacity and strength of African American Women. There are many hardships that come along with being an African American female. The trails that African American women have faced molded us into the strong people that we are today.
In the novel, Beauty by Robin Mc Kinley, the family of a wealthy merchant looses their wealth when the shipment boats get lost at sea. There are three daughters named Hope, Grace, and Honour, whom is nicknamed Beauty, and a father. The family is forced to move to the country and start a life more modest than accustomed. After the family adapts to country life, one of the older sisters gets married to an iron worker who used to work at the shipyard owned by the father. They have babies. Life goes on in the country.
The main character of this book is Susan Caraway, but everyone knows her as Stargirl. Stargirl is about 16 years old. She is in 10th grade. Her hair is the color of sand and falls to her shoulders. A “sprinkle” of freckles crosses her nose. Mostly, she looked like a hundred other girls in school, except for two things. She didn’t wear makeup and her eyes were bigger than anyone else’s in the school. Also, she wore outrageous clothes. Normal for her was a long floor-brushing pioneer dress or skirt. Stargirl is definitely different. She’s a fun loving, free-spirited girl who no one had ever met before. She was the friendliest person in school. She loves all people, even people who don’t play for her school’s team. She doesn’t care what others think about her clothes or how she acts. The lesson that Stargirl learned was that you can’t change who you are. If you change for someone else, you will only make yourself miserable. She also learned that the people who really care about you will like you for who you are. The people who truly love you won’t ask you to change who you are.
Stereotypes. Something that many women are subjected to in society and are forced to accept it like it is something that should happen. “What do women want”(Addonizio) examines the stereotypes most women face when wearing certain clothing, and the objectification of women, that is frowned upon but all women secretly want. It points out the objectification and stereotypes that women are subjected to, challenges them, and connects them to everyday life.
In this paper we will be look at the book called “Lying on the Couch”. I will be going over what I saw as the biggest ethical issues that I read about in this book, I will also go over my thoughts on this book and the ethical problems that I saw for Dr. Lash, Carol and Marshal Streider. I will explain my personal opinion regarding self-care and my reasoning as to why it is so important to maintaining clear boundaries.
When Tally reunites with Shay the Cutters, she learns the pills were to going delivered to the Crims. The Crims are a group of trouble makers. The Crim that it was supposed to be delivered is Zane.
The fundamental characteristic of magical realism is its duality, which enables the reader to experience both the character’s past and the present. In the novel, Monkey Beach, Eden Robinson uses this literary device to address the the trauma and mistreatment of the Haisla community in Canada by unveiling the intimate memories of the protagonist, Lisamarie, and the resulting consequences of this oppression. Monkey Beach illustrates how abuse in the past leads to another form of self-medication in the future - a neverending, vicious cycle for the members of the Haisla community. Many characters in Monkey Beach are scarred from childhood sexual abuse and family neglect, and resort to drug and alcohol abuse as a coping mechanism. These appalling memories are an account of the impact of colonization on the Haisla territory which continues to haunt the Aboriginal community throughout generations.
An Uncommitted Child The novel, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, describes the life of a man who lives through his music and his childish ways. Rob Fleming is a man who struggles with commitment when it comes to what he needs, yet commits to what he wants. This lack of commitment leaves Rob struggling with the relationships with the people in his daily life. Living his life in a careless and childish manner, Rob Fleming burns the bridges with those who are close to him, and as a result realizes how much he truly cares for them when it’s too late. There were many jobs that Rob had taken over over the years; with each job he has there is a lack of passion and drive which results in his lack of commitment.
Sidewalk is a book written by Mitchell Duneier, an American sociology professor at Princeton University, in 1999; where the book has gained a lot of favorable reviews, leading its winning the Los Angeles Times Book prize and C. Wright Mills Award. Similarly, the book had become a classic in urban studies, especially due to the interesting methodology, which was used by Duneier while he was conducting his research. The book is based on observations, participant observation and interviews, which gave the author the ability to live and interact with the book and magazine vendors on daily bases. Although, this gave him an insight into the life of the sidewalk, many methodological issues have concerned scholars and students of sociology since the day this book was published. Duneier had admitted during the book that he couldn’t be completely subjective while conducting his research and writing his book due to his involvement and personal relationship with people who work and live at the sidewalk, which raise the question, whether the research is still relevant if the researcher is only giving us an objective outcome?
The story that Jess Walter tells, much like any other novel, is one of joy and sorrow. Lives intersect and separate, people fall into and out of love, and dreams are made and broken. What Walter does with his plot though is quite different. He writes it in a way where the whole book itself relies on the reader’s ability to realize that though some people meet for only a brief amount of time, their dreams and hopes, can hinge on even the briefest moments. Sometimes the characters in the novel have their stories intersect, some in very interesting ways, and other times you see their story as it is and was, just them. Walter does a wonderful job of bringing together many different lives, many stories, and showing how just because you feel alone, does not mean you are, your life and story can at any moment intersect with another and create a whole different story. Perhaps, Alvis Bender puts the idea that Walter is trying to convey into the best words, “Stories are people. I’m a story, you’re a story . . . your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we’re lucky, our stories join into one, and for a while, we’re less alone.”
In “Barbie-Q,” Sandra Cisneros chooses a particular point of view in order to communicate the central points of this story. The story is narrated by one of the two young girls who are the main characters. The story begins with the following: “Yours is the one with mean eyes and a ponytail.” “Mine is the one with bubble hair.” (Cisneros 576) This clearly shows that the narrator is indeed one of the girls. Another part of the story reads, “Every time the same story. Your Barbie is roommates with my Barbie, and my Barbie’s boyfriend comes over and your Barbie steals him,” (576) This again shows that the narrator is one of the young girls because she uses words like mine and yours. There are also many other instances throughout the story that prove she is the narrator.