# data[].attributes.body
Script:
At its core, ‘Send’ is a book about depression, suicide, overcoming challenges, coping with difficult situations, finding real friends through hard times… and love, because reasons.

I feel like it’s a requirement at this point for literally every young adult book written to include a romantic subplot. In kids’ books, it literally never happens. In adults’ books, it usually happens, but there are exceptions. But in young adult books? It’s like publishers won’t even consider them unless there’s a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.

It actually makes me kind of worried for the generation of young adults in this decade - like all we can think about is love. Kind of like how the Vikings were totally war-obsessed, and they needed something to justify that, so basically every Norse god was a god of war. We needed something to justify our desperate need of romance, so basically every young adult book is a love story.

But what is my point? you may be demanding of the computer you may be reading this on. (Give it up. I don’t live in the computer, and it certainly won’t respond on its own.) (Unless you have Alexa or Cortana or whatever the newest Siri is. Then maybe.) Luckily, I’m choosing to cover all my bases. I actually didn’t start this rant with a point in mind, but, since I don’t want to have to delete all that writing, I have arrived at the conclusion that my point is: ‘Send’ would’ve been much, much better without any romance, most of which I believe is the fault of Julie.

She’s not necessarily a bad character - or at least, she wouldn’t be. However, she’s very erratic, and her opinion of Daniel is constantly changing based on seemingly nothing at all. As I’ve covered before, she hates him at the beginning of the book because he caused her brother to commit suicide. Then, when she sees him helping out a little girl and her mother, she instantly falls in love with him like the star-struck, obsessive, idiotic girl that she his. The book tries to address this in some capacity when Daniel has a conversation with his mother. She explains that teenage girls are often quite erratic and that Daniel shouldn’t let this scare him off. However, being ‘erratic’ is no excuse for FORGIVING THE BOY WHO PRETTY MUCH KILLED YOUR BROTHER WHOM YOU LOVED.

At the end of the book, Julie tells her father that Liam, her brother, would be ashamed of him. She’s… right, but not fully right. While Liam would be very ashamed of their father, he’d be even more ashamed of Julie. As inexplicably great of a person as Daniel may be, Julie, you really shouldn’t get into an intimate relationship with him after watching him do one good thing for one person, especially if you were previously enraged with him. While Daniel may not have deserved his punishment, he also doesn’t deserve someone as seemingly awesome as you.

And it’s not like there’s no ‘Send’ without Julie. In fact, you could still keep Julie in as a friend instead of a lover and have the exact same plot, except without all the awkward sexual tension that I believe ruins the book. Julie and Daniel still team up to help save Brandon from killing himself and his bully, she still helps talk her father down from killing Daniel, and the story doesn’t feel quite as overblown. Kenny can still be in love with Julie, but, by the end of the book, Daniel can help him realize how stupid that is.

I don’t know. To me, it definitely seems like a better story, prioritizing the things that actually seem like priorities. Instead of ‘a book about love with a dash of important issues’, it becomes ‘a book about important issues with a friendship that helps address these important issues’.

Maybe I’m taking all this too seriously. Maybe ‘Send’ is just a love story for the sake of being a love story, some mindless entertainment that doesn’t try too hard to convince you of its point. But I don’t think you should be allowed to put depression and suicide in a mindless entertainment in a book. It trivializes their importance and makes them seem secondary to some basic boy-meets-girl plot when they’re 143% not.

In conclusion, I AM TOTALLY FED UP WITH ROMANCE, IN BOOKS AND OUTSIDE OF THEM. SERIOUSLY, FELLOW TEENS, DO SOMETHING WITH YOUR LIVES INSTEAD OF CONSTANTLY THINKING ABOUT LOVE…

It was at this point in writing the script that I realized that I was being a complete hypocrite, since I wrote it while listening to the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack, which is almost all love songs. WHATEVER. THEY’RE STILL GOOD SONGS. WHO CARES IF THEY MAKE ME A HYPOCRITE?!?!?!?

Probably everyone.

I’m going to end this response before I contradict myself even more.

# data[].attributes.body
Script:
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is the story of a brave, heroic mongoose fighting against the cruel, evil snakes to protect the people and animals of the garden. What a guy! He sure is really heroic!

Except… is he?

This story centers around, as I said, a mongoose who is taken in by a very nice family and proceeds to repeatedly save them from a pair of cobras, Nag and Nagaina, and their kid, Karait. Helping him out are Darzee the tailorbird, the obnoxious singing guy who wants his kids to be protected from Nag; Darzee’s wife, the smart one; and Chuchundra, a cowardly muskrat who gives Rikki advice. With their help, Rikki kills Karait, kills Nag, breaks Nag and Nagaina’s eggs, and kills Nagaina, keeping the family safe. However, this doesn’t automatically make Rikki heroic.

At the beginning of this story, Nag poses an interesting question: “You eat eggs. Why should not I eat birds?” Of course, this is just a setup to lure Rikki into letting his guard down and engaging in conversation so that Nagaina can attack him from behind. Still, it calls into question everything about Rikki’s heroism.

I mean, think about it. Rikki isn’t protecting Darzee because he has care and respect for all Earth’s creatures. It’s because the mongoose and the snake are natural enemies, and they would’ve ended up fighting even if Darzee weren’t involved. Same with Teddy and his family - the only reason Rikki is protecting them is for the reason I just mentioned and because it gives Rikki a whole new environment to explore. If mongeese and humans or mongeese and birds were natural enemies, Rikki would’ve just as easily turned on Darzee’s family and Teddy’s family. In short, he’s not helping Darzee and Teddy because they’re sweet and kind (although they are), and he’s not fighting Nag, Nagaina, and Karait because they’re malicious and evil (which may not even be the case). If their personalities had been reversed, he still would’ve fought Nag, Nagaina, and Karait, because it’s just what mongeese do.

The ending of the book describes what happens afterwards - Rikki keeps protecting the garden from snakes, and everyone lives happily ever after. However, it doesn’t describe what happens with Darzee, and, given what I already know about mongeese from this book, I have a guess.

Here goes: Darzee’s descendants, some of whom were devoured by Nag and Nagaina but some of whom survived, grow up and lay eggs, and Rikki eats them. Because, even though he appeared to be friends with Darzee and it was assumed that he would respect his descendents, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi eats eggs. Mongeese eat eggs, so Rikki eats eggs, too.

In conclusion, WHY ARE THE KEYSTONE TESTS EVEN A THING???? WHY DO THEY EXIST? Is it purely to torment students? I’m 94% sure it’s purely to torment students.

# data[].attributes.body
Time: 133 minutes
Pages: 287
(This is a pictorial response. The picture's at the bottom; you just have to scroll down a lot.)
As I mentioned in my previous response on this book, JULIE IS A FREAKING IDIOT. SERIOUSLY, SHE IS TOTALLY INCONSISTENT AND BORING AND ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Sorry. Julie gets me incredibly triggered.
At first, she's this really cool character who hates Daniel's guts and who Daniel hates as well. However, Kenny, who you may remember as the voice in Daniel's head, falls in love with her. This eventually evolves into Daniel's love, as well, and Julie is just... okay with this?
She goes from being stubborn, cold, and just really cool to swoony and completely in love with Daniel. And, sure, she DOES make the decision to leave Daniel at the end of the movie, which I personally think was a good choice for her, but still, she makes it very clear that she really likes him anyway and it wasn't really her choice to leave him.
There is one somewhat cool thing about her, though: her purse.
Okay, in and of itself, the purse isn't all that cool. In fact, it's one of the things I hate about her, since I don't like purses - I prefer satchels myself. It's what's inside the purse that really counts in this case: memories of her brother.
Years ago, Daniel caused Julie's brother Liam to commit suicide. Julie came home that day to find her father trashing her brother's room. She grabbed everything from his room that she could get before making her escape, since her father is not exactly the most stable person in the multiverse. She carries all of that stuff inside her purse, which I think is sweet - she's taking a little of the best parts of her brother wherever she goes with that purse.
In a way, this is a metaphor for the entire book. Every major character is carrying around a piece of their past, a piece that, at most times, they'd rather forget - Liam's death. In Julie's case, it's physical - the things Liam loved, or was working on but never got to finish. In the case of Daniel, it's Kenny, who he's forced to take with him everywhere and can't get rid of, no matter how much he wants to. Even Daniel's grandfather, in a way, although his is a different tragedy. In his case, it's the guilt of accidentally letting his army friend die. No matter how metaphorical, everyone in this book has their own purse of painful memories.
Okay, so it might not be my best metaphor, but it's definitely not my worst. And anyway, it comes with imagery, so I can at least use it for  a pictorial response!
In conclusion, this response might be shorter than I'd like for it to be, but it still counts, and that's all that matters.

# data[].attributes.body
Time: 139
Pages: 309
From the inside cover, this book looked at least a bit interesting. It's about, as the title suggests, an eighth day between Tuesday and Wednesday and a small group of people that can access this day. Despite this, I was surprised and disappointed at how juvenile, predictable, and formulaic this book was. (I do accuse books of being this a lot, but it's at least true this time.)
I tried to take this book seriously, I really did. But it uses so many tropes - the clueless caretaker is secretly the most competent one there with all the secrets of the universe, a boy and a girl can't figure out any way to be together but still end up kissing at the end of the book, the strange side characters who never really got a second thought from the main character are actually incredibly important, etc. etc. etc. It just wasn't a very good book, and, while it had its moments of humour and charm, it's so child-focused that I couldn't bring myself to like it.
Not that child-focused books can't be good, it's just that...
Now that I think about it, maybe the only reason I didn't like this book was because I wasn't part of its demographic. I probably would've loved it when I was younger.
Crap, now I'm embarrassed.
Whatever. Acknowledging my past mistakes is NOT going to stop me from doubling down on them and pretending that they weren't mistakes at all, so I'm going to scrutinize this book as though it's the book's (and the author's) own fault.
Aha! Something I can feasibly judge this book for: Jax, the main character, is a COMPLETE AND TOTAL INCOMPETENT IDIOT.
The plot centers around Jax waking up on his birthday after Tuesday and discovering that every living thing around him has completely vanished. Panicked, he starts stocking up for the zombie apocalypse. (I would judge him for this, but it's probably exactly what I would do if i were in his situation, and hey, if it had been a zombie apocalypse, he would've been extremely well-prepared.) The next day, however, everything is back to normal. Jax is completely confused, but dismisses it as a freak accident... until it happens again.
This time, his somewhat incompetent caretaker, Riley, is home. He explains to Jax that there's an eighth day between Wednesday and Thursday that only a select few people can get into. There are even some people who exist only on the eighth day, like his neighbor, Evangeline. Plot-conveniently, Jax is a 'late bloomer', since most people who have this power attain it when they turn twelve and Jax attained it when he turned thirteen. This eighth day was created by a bunch of historicy-mythology-y people, like Merlin and King Arthur, for reasons that are either never explained or were too stupid for me to register. I think it was supposed to be a time prison for a bunch of people or something, I don't know.
Anyway, as a testament to Jax's stupidity, he gets himself kidnapped by REVEALING HIS NAME AND ADDRESS TO A RANDOM STRANGER ON THE INTERNET AND PROMPTLY GETTING KIDNAPPED. TWICE. FREAKING IDIOT.
After the first time, which was just some random dude with a taser, Jax ends up getting kidnapped along with Evangeline by a bunch of really weird people. Aforementioned really weird people want to end the eighth day (again, probably for some inconsequential reason), but doing so would kill everyone living there, including Evangeline. At this point, Jax and Evangeline are really close friends for some unfathomable reason, just like basically every relationship between a boy and a girl in every book ever. Jax saves her practically singlehandedly despite earlier having been shown to be gullible and useless, one guy who was literally introduced a few pages before dies, and everything turns out PERFECTLY because OF COURSE IT DOES.
By the way, Jax has this special gift. He's an Inquisitor, meaning that he can get a straight answer to any question out of anything as long as the person isn't too strong-willed or whatever, and it's more powerful the more he cares about it. This would actually be a pretty neat idea if it weren't TOTALLY OUT OF CONTEXT.
Sorry, how did we get from 'being able to enter a secret eighth day' to 'having an ability that's basically equivalent to reading people's minds'? HOW ARE THOSE TWO THINGS EVEN REMOTELY RELATED?!?!?!?!??!?
Also, there's another type of power that's more in tune with people's emotions. According to the book, male Inquisitors are more powerful than female Inquisitors, and it's the opposite for whatever the emotion thing was, I've already forgotten its name, which is SUCH a stereotype - guys get the awesome, badass power that gives them an enormous advantage in everything, and girls ALWAYS get a power directly correlating with people's emotions. Dear authors of the multiverse: TRY SOMETHING NEW WITH THIS FOR ONCE. You might like it, and so might potential fans like me. Just a hunch I've got.
Anyway. I've completely forgotten what I was talking about at this point, so I'll go back to insulting Jax. According to him, he uses the same password for everything and includes his real first name in his email. SERIOUSLY?!?!!???!? JAX, ARE YOU ACTUALLY ASKING FOR EVERY SINGLE ACCOUNT YOU HAVE TO GET HACKED?!?!?!? That's, like, internet safety 101.
Riley's no better, dodging pretty much all responsibility for everything except explaining basic life lessons that he never bothered to learn himself to Jax. Riley, I get that all your family was killed as a child, but like Rocket Raccoon said, that is no excuse to get everyone else killed along with them! And you're definitely going to get everyone else killed unless you stop being a potato and start being a humanoid being.
Then there's his super-scary girlfriend who wields a knife that Jax describes as 'delicate and feminine, but still terrifying'. Another stereotype among female characters - nothing they do can be as up-front and awesome as guys. They have to be all subtly deadly. Well, universe, I'M NOT GOOD AT BEING SUBTLE WITH MY WEAPONRY, so TONE DOWN YOUR CLICHES, K?
K.
Anyway, Riley's super-scary girlfriend is probably the least fleshed-out character in this book. She's deadly and terrifying and always carrying around guns, and, even though she and Riley are about to marry at the end of the book, she BREAKS UP WITH HIM for something that wasn't even his fault. I'm starting to think that this girl is just a sociopath who loves playing soul-crushing, life-destroying games like Russian Roulette and Monopoly with Riley's heart before repeatedly stabbing it with her extremely subtle knife and burning it to ashes with her undoubtedly abundant flamethrowers.
There are a couple of other characters - all archetypes. Billy, the clueless best friend; Tegan and Tommy, the troublemaking twins; some lady whose name I can't remember, that mom who ALWAYS seems to know when you're lying.
In conclusion, I'm tired.
Also, why is the spacing in Microsoft Word so weird? Am I the only one who notices this? It always starts you off with a double-spaced sheets, and then, when you adjust your preferences, everything is the way you want it except for the last line and the line before, which don't have exactly the same spacing, except sometimes this goes away when you click off, but sometimes it doesn't - am I really the only one who notices this? IS IT ALL IN MY HEAD?!!???

# data[].attributes.body
Time: 43 minutes
Pages read: 66
Earlier today, I was in a frenzied state of panic as I attempted to find a book that I wanted to write a response on, since I had procrastinated for way too long, was rapidly approaching the due date for this assignment, and had literally nothing done. Even when I picked it out of desperation, I was worried that it wouldn't have enough content for me to go into detail about. However, I was extremely surprised at exactly how much there was for me to cover.
It explores some interesting viewpoints about guilt, the legal system, fairness, and how far is too far in terms of punishment, and if I can't find anything else to read, I will BLEED THIS BOOK DRY looking for things to write about it!!
I haven't finished it yet, but the plot so far is:
After bullying a child into unintentionally causing him to commit suicide, Kenny is convicted for a crime much worse than the one he actually committed, since there was no actual law against what he did. He gets sent to juvenile detention for almost a year but is attacked by the father of the boy he killed. He changes his name to Daniel and his whole family is forced to move.
On his first day at his new school, he breaks up a fight, attracting the attention of a beautiful girl who shares a last name with the boy he killed. That's as far as the story goes at this point.
There are a lot of questions that this plot brings up, which I'll be covering in a later response because I have to really drag out this book - if I don't, I will have literally nothing to respond on. The one I'll be covering in this response is whether or not Daniel's sentencing was fair.
(By the way, the name of 'Kenny' has gone to the voice in his head that sometimes materializes in front of him. It's weird, and I'll cover it in another response if I don't forget like I know I will.)
Obvious reason he shouldn't have gotten the punishment that he did #1: THERE WAS NO LAW AGAINST WHAT HE DID. What he did was take a picture of a kid in Scooby-Doo underwear and post it online. This caused him to commit suicide. However, there's actually no law against it. Daniel says it himself, and since he's the one who went to trial for it, he would know. What he actually did was cyberbully, but there was no law against cyberbullying, so he shouldn't have been convicted of what he was convicted of. (I'm not sure whether or not listing what he was actually convicted of would get me in trouble, although I know that swearing does. On that topic, if we're not allowed to swear when responding to books, WHY DOES THE LIBRARY STOCK BOOKS [and not very good ones at that] THAT CONTAIN 'F-WORDS' IN PRETTY MUCH EVERY CHAPTER???? THIS IS NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT. I HAVE WITNESSED MANY A BOOK LIKE THIS. SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE ACTION.)
Rant aside, why was Daniel convicted of this when there was actually no law against what he did? The answer may lie with the somewhat unrighteous anger of Julie's father. Even though what he did technically wasn't illegal, Julie's father managed to convince the judge that it should be. He is highly committed to destroying Daniel, after all - in fact, he actually tries to murder Daniel at the end of the book. Maybe he threatened the judge, maybe he just managed to convince them, but whatever the case, Julie's father probably played at least some part in David's harsh sentence.
Obvious reason #2: He probably would've been fine if the lawyers in this book weren't IDIOTS. The first lawyer Daniel's family hired wouldn't do anything except advise Daniel to plead guilty! The second one couldn't win the case even though he had a lot to work with! I probably could've handled this case better, and I have serious issues with public speaking!
To make matters worse, his 'Pop' (who I'm assuming is his grandfather) fires the first lawyer on the spot instead of giving him a chance to actually try to make a case for it, forcing them to spend money on a second lawyer and probably wasting a lot of their money. Couldn't they just have given him a second chance or forced him to help with their case or SOMETHING? Plus, why didn't he fire the second lawyer as well, since he LOST THEM THE CASE? Is that not how it works? Do I just know nothing about the American judicial system?
It's probably the last option, but STILL.
Anyway. The lawyers are idiots, Daniel's Pop is an idiot, I'm an idiot, everyone is an idiot. Moving on.
Finally (because I'm too lazy to write anymore), #3: I... can't think of one.
I KNOW, IT'S A COP-OUT. But I'm lazy, I'm tired, I'm really running out of time, and I actually can't think of anything else, but I didn't think of that before I started this response, so I'm just going to keep it with those two.
In fact, this only drives my point home! I can't think of any more real reasons that Daniel should've gotten the punishment that he did, which pretty much PROVES that he shouldn't have! It makes no sense, and maybe that's supposed to be the point, but still, it doesn't seem very realistic.
In conclusion, I am KIND OF PANICKING BECAUSE I AM SERIOUSLY RUNNING OUT OF TIME.

# data[].attributes.body
Time: 133 minutes
Pages: 287
Even if a book is absolutely AMAZING, even if the plot is intriguing and vivid and it's the best-written piece of work that I've ever seen or heard of in my life, I will throw it out of a fifth-story window and start screaming my head off if it has terrible characters. (Well, at least in my head.) That's pretty much what happened with this book.
It has some seriously interesting concepts, like the idea that Daniel has this separate personality in his head that he can have full-on conversations with and even sometimes materializes in front of him. However, the ultimate downfall of this book is the fact that none of the characters are in any way interesting or deep or complex beyond the basic fact that they have different personalities. Actually, now that I think about it, I've found this to be the case for many a young adult book - great ideas, but characters that aren't nearly fleshed out well enough. Maybe that's why I do character analyses like this so often - the characters in young adult books are usually absolute garbage.
Also, the whole 'romance' plot line REALLY does not work, which I'll get to either later in this response or in another one, depending on how soon I decide to cut this one off due to extreme boredom.
The main character is Daniel, who accidentally caused a kid his age to commit suicide when he was twelve. He's spent almost a year in juvie and had to change his name and move so that the father of the boy he killed wouldn't hunt him down and try to kill him as well. (For a book mainly about suicide, it contains an awful lot of murder/attempted murder.)
The back cover describes Daniel as a reformed bully, but the book never goes into much detail about his past. It just repeats over and over that he killed Liam Murphy and he feels really terrible about it. Okay, sure, but you're not a bully if you do something to one kid once. Bullying has to be a recurring pattern, and I'm pretty sure you have to do it to multiple people. Therefore, this description of him doesn't make very much sense.
In fact, instead of going into more detail about how much of a bully he is, Send doubles down on the idea that Daniel is a completely sweet kid who never deserved his punishment and just thought that picking on Liam would be funny. I can relate to accidentally hurting someone when you're just trying to make a joke. I do it probably more often than I'd like to admit.
I feel like Daniel doesn't really deserve all the terrible things that happen to him in this book. He's constantly beaten up and encountering bad luck, all of which seems a bit undeserved given that, as far as I could tell, the only bad thing he'd ever done in his life, despite being a horrible, horrific thing, was meant as a joke. He never intended to kill anybody and thus doesn't deserve the bad reputation that this book would lead you to believe he has.
I'm counting Daniel and Kenny as two separate entities here, since, although they're technically one person, they have vastly different tastes, personalities, and priorities. Kenny, as I briefly touched on in my last response on this book, is the voice in Daniel's head that he can actually hold full two-sided conversations with, which doesn't seem like it should work. Instead of just being an imaginary friend, a figment of Daniel's imagination, or a coping mechanism like in most cases, Kenny is actually Daniel's thirteen-year-old self who first appeared when he was being brutally attacked in juvie. He's a bit different from the voices in most people's heads, however (at least, I can only assume): instead of being confined to think and see only what Daniel thinks and sees, Kenny appears to be a different person altogether. He can even point out things that there's no way Daniel would've known. For example, when there's someone sneaking up behind him, Kenny warns him about it before Daniel even knows that the person is there. Daniel probably never would've learned how to fight if it weren't for Kenny.
Kenny's personality fluctuates quite a bit. At first, he's nothing more than an obnoxious, sarcastic jerk (like most adolescents - nothing against my classmates, it's just that that is the stereotype), but he completely falls in love with Julie and demands that Daniel become close friends with her even when Daniel hates her so that they can both be her boyfriend. Kenny's love eventually morphs into Daniel's love as Daniel begins to realize that he shouldn't have jumped to conclusions about her, which seems like a pretty bad moral message to be teaching. Hey, kids, d'ya wanna know a secret? If you listen to the voices in your head that occasionally take physical form to warn you about upcoming attacks, you'll find true love!
Despite what I initially thought, Kenny's not a complete psychopath, in that he's not just a personification of all Daniel's worst personality traits as he seems to think. In fact, he seems to be the version of Daniel that everyone (including him) believes that he used to be but, as I covered before, really never was. He's reduced to a terrified, sobbing little kid by the end of the book when David and he are being threatened by a gun. He's a normal person with a normal human personality, and, while he might not experience nearly the same emotions Daniel experiences at the same time, he does experience very human emotions.
JULIE IS THE MOST FRUSTRATING BEING IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. Like, I get that I'm supposed to love her, since she's the female protagonist and she's supposedly super smart and she's undergone all this trauma and stuff, but her character arc is just STUPID. She absolutely despises Daniel when they first meet, talks to him ONE TIME, and then suddenly FALLS IN LOVE WITH HIM and starts COMPLETELY ADORING HIM despite the fact that HE CAUSED HER BROTHER TO COMMIT SUICIDE. JULIE, YOU IDIOT.
It's just SO DAM (it's not cursing if you're talking about the Hoover Dam) STUPID THAT I CANNOT EVEN TAKE IT AND THUS REFUSE TO ELABORATE.
In conclusion, I barely got to any characters, but like I said, I'm really running out of time. And lazy. I'm also very, very lazy. Eh, this is good enough, right?