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To me, this years free-read structure was wonderful. It was one of my favorite things, if not my favorite thing, of the school year. It was nice to be able to take a break from school work and be able to enjoy many different stories. It also reminded me how great reading could be, and has probably made me into a reader for life.
I think our ability to choose freely between the multitude of books available has definitely made me look into new ways of thinking. Each book represents a different idea that might not have been one i had thought about in the past and has maybe made me more open minded and more aware of each side of common issues in the world. For example, The Hate U Give made me more aware of the unfair treatment of people of color. I was aware of it before reading this book, but by putting yourself in the shoes of a character that's a person just like yourself makes it more real I think, and it has made me realize that there is a serious need of fixing racial issues like the character in the book attempted to do.
I think I could have challenged myself a lot more with my book selection this year. Most books of mine were novels with the one exception of Invisible Man which was a little more complicated to read. In the future, I will try to challenge myself more, as it is one of the best ways of improving my comprehension of things. My favorite book this year was Before I Fall. Originally, i was going to abandon the book because I found the main character a little bit annoying, but i decided to stick around. In the end I was very glad I did. I loved watching the character change so much for the better, and I also liked the fact that one major topic of the book was how well you manage your time and how much of an impact your decisions and behavior have on yourself and those around you. Before reading the book, I happened to be rethinking my usage of time as well, so being able to see what other people thought about the matter was helpful.
In my opinion, everything is working really well and don't think there's anything that has to be done to make it better.

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I recently started a new book called, "As Easy As Falling Off the Face of the Earth." This week's reading was enjoyable. The author's responses to the conflict he faces were funny. He joked around instead of worrying and created a fun mood even though he was in a very difficult situation. I also liked that the author included sketches of the character while he's doing something that was mentioned earlier. The main character's issue with finding a food source in the middle of nowhere and trying to find somewhere to go made me wonder what i would do if I got stranded somewhere like the character did. For example, he mentions how he doesn't know how to start a fire, and i realized that I also lack that simple yet important skill and I'd be helpless out there all by myself. The only thing the character could do was wander around and try to contact others through his phone, but was unsuccessful because there was no reception. This made me think about how much we rely on technology and no longer learn about things that might be necessary in situations like this. It makes sense that we don't because it's unlikely to get lost in the middle of nowhere these days, but I think it'd still be beneficial to know how to, for example, start a fire without a lighter. When Del found the main character and fed him and gave him a place to sleep, it made me happy to think that there still is some good people left in the world. I know that the people in this book are fictional, but I think that sometimes we forget that there is good people out there because we only see the bad most of the time. My prediction is that Ry, the main character, will continue to grow closer to the people he has met, and will probably be conflicted when he has to go back home. These people took him in and will probably become like a second family to him, but he must also miss his parents and friends, so he'll have a hard time leaving.

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In the book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, I think one prominent theme is that people unconsciously make assumptions about others. For example, in the book, Simon, the main character, assumed that the person he was emailing was white, which was not the case. He also says that people always assume others are straight and that just makes it more difficult for those who are not.
I think some discussion questions about this theme are:
- What automatic assumptions do you make about others before knowing for sure? Why do you think that is? Is it likely that however much we don't want it to be true, we make these assumptions because of the standards society has created about which race or sexuality is superior?
- What could be done in order to change this about society?
Another theme in this book is that sometimes we are too enveloped in our own lives that we ignore what is going on with those around us. In the book, Simon realizes, after getting into a fight with most of his friends and trying to put together his information about Blue together, that he doesn't know the important things about his friends, only the "funny" things.
Some discussion questions could be:
- Are you aware of what's going on in your friends life? Are they aware of what's going on in yours? In your last conversation, how many times did you use I or me? How many times did you ask the other person a question about them?
- From these questions, can you tell if you have a good relationship with them or could it be improved? Do you mostly have close friends who you connect emotions with or friends who you only have fun with?

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On Friday I finished the book Brown Girl Dreaming. I enjoyed the poems and the author's writing style, but i think that there could have been a better, more impactful way of ending the book. While it did leave off on a motivational note saying that you shouldn't let other's prevent you from following your dreams, i feel like the book felt kind of empty because it left us without a lot of information about the characters and how their life continued afterwards. I do understand that the book wasn't really about the characters, it was based more on the main character finding her dream and following it, but in the end, I feel like people get attached to the characters of books and would like to know how their story ends, or at least get proper closure.
Besides the ending, I really liked her writing style and how she tied in the uniqueness of it in the story, and her experiences while trying to find it. It's impressive that she was able to tell her entire story through poems instead of the usual writing style, and it was nice knowing of her experience of creating her style as a young kid, and how not only is her writing style unique but so was her way of learning, showing how she is really different from other authors. I also really liked that with just a few lines she was able to still create a very meaningful story and give so much detail about certain things without writing so much about them.
Lastly, I think I would like to read more of her books. I liked that this one stood up for African American's rights, and from certain awards that she has won, such as the GLAAD award, it can be assumed that she constantly stands up for people's rights and if she writes books to do so, I think they'd be fun to read and would definitely want to.

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In the book Brown Girl Dreaming, the author has an interesting writing style. Instead of writing like most other books, she writes her story in poem form. The poems are not very long, but she is still able to be very descriptive and give meaning to little things, which she often references to in the future, with the occasional use of metaphors and other figurative language methods. She's able to show her emotions and give off her mood as effectively, if not better than, books that are structured with normal paragraphs. I like that she has this style because it's very unique, and I think the way she writes it makes her story more impactful. It makes the story brief, yet it also is very detailed in showing her feelings or the negative/positive outcomes of certain situations. Her metaphors are also great because they make good comparisons that are able to get her point across even better. For example, she compared the painted-over words saying "White Only" to a ghost because even though they were supposed to be no longer visible, they were, and the words were still keeping people of her race away.
I think it would be very difficult to incorporate the techniques the author of this book used since it seems to require much skill to write something like hers, but one way I could try to do it would be to try to use more figurative language in my writing like she does, and when I do use figurative language, I should try to make better comparisons that are more related to each other and not completely random. For example, her comparison of a ghost and words being semi-visible, the two are actually kind of related, unlike a random comparison made between two things that happen to have one quality that is the same. Technically, just making more effective comparisons is my goal. And I could also try to make some sentences shorter yet descriptive. It would be a bit difficult using her poetic style seeing as we don't write poems that often, but if we do, i could try to organize my lines and information more carefully. She seems to put her lines in the perfect order to make the story more intense and interesting.

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I think one prominent theme in Julius Caesar is about manipulation. The fact that you can't always believe everything you see/hear because people often do things for their own gains. This is shown by Cassius in the play when he is trying to get people to join his group working to kill Caesar by saying it's for the good of the people, when really, it's just because he thinks Caesar shouldn't be king, not necessarily because he did anything wrong, just based on his personal opinion. In my current book, The Dangerous Art of Blending In, I think this same theme is shown by the main character's mother. She goes through a lot of trouble to make it seem like her family is perfect to everyone else, when it's actually far from perfection. She treats Evan, the main character, lovingly in public, acting like they have a perfect relationship, while at home, she beats him and tells him she wished he wasn't born for no reason. Just like Cassius convinces Brutus to join him in betraying his friend through his careful selection of words, Evan's mother convinces everyone that she has the perfect family by carefully planning every single aspect of their lives, such as their clothing, her tone of speech, and making them sound like the nicest people possible. Aside from Evan's mother, he himself also manages to manipulate others in a way. He convinces everyone that his life is completely normal and tells them that the bruises he gets from his mother are because he's clumsy and falls off of his bike. He is also able to convince everyone he wasn't gay even though he was. The only difference is that Evan, unlike his mother as well as Cassius, used a form of manipulation for his own well being, not selfish reasons.

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In my previous book, The Sun is Also a Star, (I abandoned my current book before any meaningful changes occurred) a pivotal moment was when Natasha coincidentally met Daniel on a plane after many years.  I think this was important to the plot of the book because it happened just as the book was finishing, and instead of leaving the readers to wonder what would happen with them in the future, or if anything would happen, we know that it is likely that they are going to reconnect. Aside from the readers' curiosity being fulfilled, both of the characters' was as well, since they always wonder what would have happened if  Natasha never had to leave, and if the two are to reconnect, it'll most likely change the course of their life just as it did the first time they met.
I think the plot of the story would be impacted negatively if the moment never happened because the two had strong feelings for each other and i feel like they would have had a hard time moving on considering it has been many years and they still think about each other. Daniel still wrote poems about her and it didn't seem like he'd be able to or even want to move on. Natasha also had trouble moving past her unbelief of love and was only able to do so with Daniel and I think she would have started doubting the feeling again, or just not want to move on either, but not doing anything about it because it would be nearly impossible to find each other and abandon their lives just like that. They would have probably kept living the way they had been for the past few years, being sad that they slowly drifted apart after Natasha moved away, and wondering what could have been. Daniel would probably write many more poems, unable to find someone to love like he did Natasha. Natasha would probably keep working hard and not think about trying to find love, but live slightly differently than before she met Daniel because of her new belief that there is, in fact, things that could possibly be meant to be, and that life doesn't have to go according to science and facts all of the time.

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I think my reading list of this year would tell others that I'm mostly up for reading anything. Most times after finishing a book, I chose whichever book seemed interesting, i didn't necessarily stick to one genre. From this, I think that people could figure out that I'm an open-minded person. Like I am with my books, I think i can be a pretty open-minded person about many things in life.
I do not believe i have been pushing myself as much as i could/should with my reading. I did try to step out of my comfort zone and go with a more difficult book in the beginning of the year (Invisible Man), but after that book, i decided i wanted to simply be entertained, not challenged, and since then I have stuck to less complex books, which i now realize was probably a mistake on my part as it is important to constantly challenge yourself with your reading. In order to challenge myself on my next book, I need to find one that uses more advanced vocabulary like Invisible Man did. Perhaps try to get farther than the first ten pages of 1984. It was a difficult book so I stopped trying after some time and moved to more simple novels. It was an interesting book, as was Invisible Man, so I think the challenge will be worth it in the end anyways.
Some ways to improve my reading skills are to, as I mentioned before, read more difficult books, and probably to take my time while trying to read those books. Sometimes I have to go back and reread a sentence many times to finally understand it, and I think that maybe could be because I'm trying to finish reading the book in a similar pace to when I'm reading other novels, and while it may also be useful since it will help me be able to better comprehend things I have to read in the future, but it's reasonable for me to take a little bit longer with these types of books rather than simple novels. It's also important for me to fully grasp what the book is trying to say, and to do that, you have to pay attention to all the details. It's very likely that I will miss many of these important details when I'm trying to read as fast as lightning, leading me to miss key things to the story line. It's also a skill that will certainly help me while taking the STAAR test, as small details contribute a lot to making inferences or answering questions on the passage.

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I recently finished reading Invisible Man, and am a little over halfway through "Under Rose-Tainted Skies" by Louise Gornall. In this book, the social topic of mental health is largely discussed. The issue is explored through the main character, Norah. She suffers the mental illness called agoraphobia which basically makes her think about many ways doing things could go wrong, so she stays at her house for the majority of the time, only going out when it is necessary for her therapy meetings. A message conveyed about this issue is that living a life with mental illnesses can be rather difficult. This message is conveyed both explicitly and implicitly. The main character shares her thoughts about how living a life like her is very difficult, but sometimes things happen and it isn't necessary to have the author tell us that having a mental disorder makes life ten times harder to live. For example, when Norah meets Amy, a beautiful and popular girl who likes Norah's neighbor, Luke, who Norah likes as well, she gets upset because she thinks she could never be a good enough girlfriend for Luke since she can't do most things Amy can because of her illness. She also mentions her wish of being able to go outside and feel the sun and the air, and also wishes she could interact more with others and not have panic attacks when she is touched by a person she does not know, but she is not capable of doing these things. One way this message is shown implicitly is when the people that bring her groceries come to drop them off, but the man who comes does not bring the groceries inside and leaves them on her porch instead. Since she isn't able to go outside without freaking out, she tries to get her groceries in with a broom stick, but it's ineffective. If it weren't for Luke's help in bringing the groceries in, she wouldn't have had any food until her mom came back. In this part of the book, it's evident that having a mental illness makes living life more difficult, because any person without a mental illness is able to go outside without any problems.
I definitely agree with the message because having a mental illness makes living life harder. Aside from the mental illness that Norah suffers from, there are many other illnesses that limit the ease of living life. For example, people who suffer from Alzheimer's forget many, if not all, things/people/events. One can imagine that not being able to remember things must cause great difficulties and sadness to the person.

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This book (I am still reading Invisible Man) hasn't really made me reconsider anything, but it has made me think a lot about the racial inequalities people faced back then.
The book is about an African American man in a society where people of color are treated poorly. Throughout the story, he shares many of his experiences with such treatment, whether its towards him, or others. For example, in a recent chapter, his friend, Tod Cliffton, was murdered by a police officer, and the main character was there to experience it. The situation showed this mistreatment because Tod had done nothing harmful enough to be killed, and it's obvious that if he were white, he wouldn't have been killed. In addition, there was one time when the main character had some trash he had to throw away, and once he did, a lady came out of the building that owned the trash can he used and told him to take out his trash and put it somewhere else, and, in a much worse way, she told him she didn't want all the people of his race to ruin things for her like they always do. Later in the same day, he dropped the trash on the floor because, as people say now-a-days, he was tired of the disrespect people had towards him, but then a man chased after him and told him he dropped something. The character acted like he hadn't dropped anything and the man started worrying and saying that the package probably contained something dangerous like a bomb. These situations made me feel sad and also angry towards the racial inequalities of the past because people shouldn't be killed so easily like Tod Cliffton was, the lady had no right to talk to the main character in such a rude manner and say such racist things, and one doesn't simply (reference to the meme bellow) accuse others of carrying a bomb because they are African American. Over all, this book constantly makes me think of the racial problems in the world because there are many things that occur based on the race of the people in the book, and it's enraging that things like this happened before and quite possibly still do, seeing as police brutality has been a major issue lately.

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There is a character in the book (Invisible Man) called Dr. Bledsoe who is the president of the school that the main character used to go to before he was kicked out of it. To everyone else in the campus, he seems like the most humble and kind human being ever, he would often bow in respect to white visitors, he would wait until they finished eating to eat his own meal, and even then he would eat standing up holding his hat in his hands, and he would also preach about living a humble life. However, this wasn't the truth about him. The character soon found out his true identity when he was being kicked out of the school. It was revealed that it was all an act by Dr. Bledsoe in order to attain his high position in society.
The character, Dr. Bledsoe definitely comes off as unlikeable because of the way he created a fake personality that manipulated others into making him the president of the school, and also because of the insults he made towards the character, calling him by a word that hurt his whole race, and also said that, because he was an African-American, that none of the white people in control of the school would believe him if he told everyone what he was really like since he was not specifically liked and respected by them like Dr. Bledsoe was. I'm almost certain that the author tried to make him unlikeable so that we could identify with the character in the manner of the hatred and resentment he holds towards Dr. Bledsoe. He constantly brings him up in his thoughts even though its been quite some time since they last interacted, and if we didn't feel the hate towards him, we wouldn't be able to connect with the character in that way.
I don't think I'm similar to the character, at least I'd hope not, and I would never want to imitate his personality because I wouldn't want to create a fake personality to be liked by everyone, but in reality be an evil person who talks poorly/insults his own race, and exploits his power/position, which was not gained respectfully, to bring others down. A good person should be good at all times, not just put up an act for your own benefit. I strive to be a good person, not an imitation of one.

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I recently started reading "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison. So far, the book has been kind of interesting, but it isn't a book that I'm constantly excited to keep reading, such as when i was reading "Gathering Blue" by Lois Lowry last year, or "The Compound" by S. A. Bodeen. The book is interesting in the sense that I might be able to relate to the character in his "invisible ways," and I also find it engaging to see the way the author thinks and what goes on in his life. The reason I might not be as into this book could be because it's a different genre from the books I usually enjoy, and/or sometimes it is a bit difficult to understand what is going on because of the author's advanced use of words. However, I might also just be judging the book too soon, after all, I have only read 84 pages, and the book was even recommended by the IB program, a higher education program in some high schools, so I'm assuming it must be a good book. Additionally, I think it's beneficial to challenge my comprehension levels so that they can improve, therefore, I have chosen to not give up on the book and finish reading it.  While reading this week, I was very astonished by the content of the chapter. To cut it short, the main character met a man who sexually assaulted his daughter, and she ended up pregnant, but that's not it, his wife was also pregnant at the same time. I was extremely surprised that something like this would occur in this book, regardless of all the other negative things that are mentioned, and it caused me to be angry/disgusted towards the man for ever doing such a thing, and even after, still trying to defend himself by saying it was all because of a dream he was having, and I also felt bad for both the daughter and her mother because I'm sure they never expected a man they trust and is part of their family to do such an awful thing. Another significant highlight was when the main character was talking to an older man, and the older man told him the story of his beautiful daughter, and the way she died. It was a very sad moment in the book because, first of all, the man lost his daughter. Losing a child is a dreadful thing, but to add on to his pain, he felt that it was his fault that she died, so he constantly held remorse in his heart, and he lived his life trying to do honorable things and directing them towards his daughter.