First thoughts about The Maze Runner

I just started reading The Maze Runner today and I already really like it. It's sort of a distopia world where the characters are trapped in an enclosed camp and they are surrounded by a dangerous maze. The characters all sort of lived with it and accepted that that was how there life would be until the main character, Thomas, came along.

Thomas was rebellious and was asking questions that had no answer. He ended up breaking the rules and leaving the "Glade" at night, which is a death sentence. Somehow he survived and has started a whole new way of life around the camp. I think that Thomas is a really good character because he is brave, has good morals, and is very curious. One thing that I think sort of takes away from the quality of the book is that he doesn't really have any major flaws. Of course I'm not far into the book and that could very easily change.

I'm excited to keep reading this book and finding out all the secrets about their prison-world. I hope that there is more in the book soon about the characters inner interactions with themselves and with others, instead of action and more action, which can get kind of repetitive.

Strong Character traits in The Help

There are a lot of strong characters in The Help. The three main characters, Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter, all are very complex and have a variety of different traits. Aibileen is so full of love for the white children she raises, she is kind and caring to everyone she knows, (Except the racist women who they work for) and she has so much hope and belief that the world will change. Minny is incredibly tough and resilient. She can stand through being beaten and disrespected by her husband and working for a crazy woman just to feed her children. She also has such rigid beliefs that her story needs to be heard. Skeeter has a determination to be a published author and she is not ashamed of pushing through to get there.

Aibileen is one of the most loving characters I have ever seen in a book. She tells people that she has seventeen children because she had one of her own and raised 16 white children in households she worked for. She loved all those kids like they were her own because she had lost her own son, who had been extremely loving himself. Aibileen also was really kind to her friends and neighbors. She put people in her prayers and made sure everyone was doing well. She also had a feeling deep inside her, that didn't really show much in the book, but I think I noticed it a few times. I think Aibileen knew that there was going to be a time soon when everyone could live together and not be segregated by the color of their skin. When she raised all those white babies she risked her job by teaching them that everyone was really the same, even though some were dark and some light.

Minny was also a really strong character. Minny worked very hard, despite an abusive husband, to feed a family of five children. She was extremely brave and not afraid to tell people her mind. Minny was important towards creating the book because she had the will to have her story heard that was so necessary because everyone working on it was afraid of the possible consequences if they got caught. Minny made them remember that there was a reason to what they were doing.

Skeeter is the final character I'm writing about. She is just a girl but she has dreams of being a writer and she, unlike pretty much the entire white population of Mississippi, knows that segregation is wrong. She is determined enough to try and tell people what it's like to be a colored maid. She is selfless enough that she is writing down things about her family and friends that completely disgrace them. (Anonymously of course) Skeeter had a vision and she made it real.

Really interesting viewpoints in "The Help"

In The Help, you get the viewpoint of two diFferent sides of the beginning of the civil rights movement. I think that Skeeter, the white woman who wants to write a book about the life of working as an African American maid, was put into the story because she goes through sort of comig of age, or loss of innocence. At first she had no idea at all how powerless the help was against their employers.she also had no idea of the danger she was putting all the maids who helped her in.

Aibileen, the first maid that Skeeter worked with, is the wiseman character in this book. She knows that she is risking her life but she wants to help Skeeter write her book because she wants her story to be heard. Aibileen has such a great knowledge of everything that she seems to be able to calm people. Her viewpoint is that the white people of Jackson are the enemy. This is true to her, excepting Skeeter. Aibileen understood that Skeeter wasn't racist and that Her intentions were good.

Another character who was a maid, Minny, helped Skeeter write her book as well. Minny had a very reluctant attitude towards helping because she didn't quite trust Skeeter. Minny had done something evil to Ms. Hilly, who is pretty evil herself, and since then Ms. Hilly Had been spreading bad romors about her. Minny's viewpoint is from the extremely prejudice against anyone who wasn't the same race as her.

In The Help, there are a lot of different viewpoints and I think that it really shows what life was like for everyone living in the south during segregation. There was extreme racism and some of it was just the way that people were raised. A lot of people just didn't think there could be any other way to go around life.

Review of Mahdi Taye's post:The Catcher in the Rye: Author's Intrusion

Mahdi's post, here,  is a very strong post about catcher in the rye. This post is strong because it goes deep into the character Holden Caulfield's life and also a metaphor that sort of represents how he doesn't fit in. First of all, I've read this book and I agree that Holden feels that he doesn't fit in anywhere and that his argument with Ackley is represented by the ducks in the lake. I agree that this is an intrusion made by the author to bring up the message. Also, this makes me think about how sometimes people can feel misunderstood and that they aren't respected as they should be. This is a real life issue that I think is made really clear in the book.


I agree with what Mahdi said about how the ducks in the lake are a reminder of the time when Holden was having an argument with his roommate so he went to his friend, and he didn't even fit in there. Throughout the entire book there was a lot about how Holden felt as though he didn't fit in and the author brought it up several times throughout the story, including when the thing with the ducks in the lake and Holde arguing with the taxi driver came up. It made it a really powerful theme throughout the book because of the way the author kept bringing it up, definitely an author's intrusion.



The other thing that came up when I read this blog post is the idea that some people feel as if they aren't appreciated and respected like they feel they should be. Holden wrote a paper for his roommate, Stradlater, and to Holden, (and the reader) it was a very good paper. Stradlater didn't appreciate the work at all. He thought it was bad work and didn't even respect the fact that Holden had done it for him. He felt that he wasn't appreciated and I think that this feeling continues throughout the book. It is also a feeling that is true in real life. I know I've felt that my work wasn't appreciated at times and Im sure almost everyone has.


I think that this is a really great post because it is a good analysis of an author's intrusion, but also any post that gets someone thinking about the world like I did is a good post. Mahdi wrote his ideas and supported them with strong examples. He proved his point and made the reader think about it. I really like this post and it's a great academic post overall.


FIVE STARS!!!

Review of "Decoded" by Jay-Z

When I read Decoded, I was amazed at the pain and struggle that Jay-Z went through in his road to success. Jay-Z lived a poor life, he sold drugs for money just to get by, he was in constant danger of violence for as much as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jay-Z is really inspiring, because he started in what seemed like a hopeless life, and found a talent that he could use to become successful without hurting anyone or doing something against the law. He also had to refine this talent, write down some songs, make some calls to recording companies, before he was successful, and had to keep up with his life during all this time.

I think it's a big self realization for Jay-Z to write about hist time selling drugs because it's something that he knows was illegal. He admits to the world that he was doing something wrong, because he felt it was the best way for him to earn money just to eat dinner everyday. He's sending a message to the world that there are people who have to do things they aren't proud of, even in wealthy countries like America. I think Jay-Z is trying to tell the world that something needs to be done about this because it's not going to stop without lots of enforcement and new opportunities to make money.

The other message that Jay-Z is sending is that even when it seems like there's no hope, you can search yourself and find something worth living for. Jay-Z had no hope in life but when he realized that he could rhyme, and that he had a voice, he became so self aware and determined that he was able to rise to become a legend.

Jay-Z's story is an inspiring journey from hopelessness to fame and confidence, and a message that sometimes doing the wrong thing is the only answer, which shouldn't be the case. People who have to go through tough times like Jay-Z did should know that there is a hope, that you have to search yourself for why you are great, because there is talent in everyone.

Character Developments in The Knife of Never Letting Go.

In the book, The Knife if Never Letting Go, the characters Todd and Viola are devoloping as they are faced with an unexpected adventure. When Todd first found Viola, she was scared and depressed because of her crash in this unexpected land and her parents' death. Now that shto knows that she can trust Todd, she is speaking to him and has expressed that even though she
doesn't have noise, she can still hear Todd's noise. 

Viola told Todd that she could hear all the mean and ungrateful things he thought about her. She had gone through losing her parents and they had saved each other's lives. This would seem like something that would bond them, but since Todd is being so antisocial (which I think is because he is scared and taking it out on her) and he was scared that he might give her "The germ". 


I really like this book and I'm sure the characters will continue to develop. They've already shown a lot of change and I'm interested in what will change and when.

More about The House of the Scorpion

In my last post about this book I wrote that the original Matteo Alacran was just making a clone of himself out of spite, but recently in the book I read that he just made the clone so that he could take it's organs for transplants when he was close to dying. When I read this and that he had done this before to other clones, given them the impression that they were actually loved, I was really appalled. It is sad that someone would make a clone of them self just to harvest its body and live longer. He says the reason for doing this was because all his seven siblings died when he was young and el patron thinks he deserves to live their lives by doing this.

I think that a reason he's doing this that he couldn't say was that he was scared of dying, because he had so much in his life that would fall to ruins without him. His family would let the farm fall to ruins because they would be clueless as to how to run it. El patron knew that his last days would be the last days of the empire he spent his life building. I think that he wanted to extend his life because he wanted to spend every last second that he could creating a perfect world, even if that meant cheating death and harvesting a person who's only purpose was to die for him.