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This year I have read more than I usually do in my English classes. I did slack off towards the middle of the year, but I got myself together eventually and I was able to pick up reading again.  I think that the free read structure was such a good idea because I actually enjoyed almost every book I decided to read this year. I even went out of my comfort zone at one point and reads some poetry. Did I understand most of it? Not really! But I did enjoy a lot of what I read. I loved the fact that we got to read whatever we wanted because I got to read books that made me cry and made me laugh and made me want to just throw the whole book at the wall and scream. This year, I definitely read books that I enjoyed. In fact, I think I only disliked one but then again, I was trying to read new genres and I tried to read nonfiction which was not for me in the end. One book I did end up reading was The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks and I have got to admit that it is now one of my favorite books even though it was super cliché sometimes. That was a book that I decided to read when I was trying to find new genres and I definitely do not regret it at all. The romance was so bleh sometimes but at the same time it was so cute and amazing and when the two of them broke up at one point I wanted to just slap them both for being dumb. The ending of that book had me crying so hard and I hated it at the time but now I love the fact that I found a book that got that much emotion out of me. This year I've done okay in my English class when it comes to reading. I think I could have challenged myself more when it came to reading.

The reading system you have now is great and I think that it definitely works for the kids who care or just need a little push in English. Next year you could assign maybe two good books to the class just to make sure that people read. You could give a quiz on it or something with like five questions and you could make two slightly different quizzes, so kids don’t have a high chance of getting the same quiz (got that idea from my algebra teacher). Honestly, I don’t think that you can really force someone who refuses to listen, to read. The way you have the class organized now is actually pretty good and the enthusiasm you give when we do read is really encouraging too.

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This week was a huge plot twist for me. I started the week off when the detectives found this book with Terry Maitland's finger prints on it, proving that he was in fact in an entirely different city than the one that the murder occurred in. At that point I was like okay makes sense, the author is trying to make me think. Well, I did end up thinking. I thought that maybe he was in fact framed or that maybe they just had the wrong person without meaning to. That's what I tried making myself believe anyway because in all honesty I had no clue what was going on and I still don't have a solid idea of what's going on. HOWEVER, I do understand that something is very off in the situation because there is equal amounts of proof proving that he didn't commit the crime and that he did commit the crime. So basically, I've gotten absolutely nowhere near predicting what's going to happen in this book but there was still a huge plot twist that I was not expecting at all. So everything is going on with the detectives finding evidence proving them wrong and proving them right but in all of this I figured that there was no way Stephen King could get rid of the main characters considering the fact that every single one was playing a significant role in figuring out what was going on. Well Stephen King proved me wrong. In fact, he didn't just kill off some random character. He killed off THE main character. He killed off Terry Maitland and that had to be the biggest plot twist I have ever seen in a book. This has honestly just confused me more because now I really don't know what's going to happen at the end of this book. I actually really like this book because it's not so predictable and it's so out of the ordinary. When you think you know one thing, something else happens and it has me thinking of a whole new plot. I don't see how they're going to play this story out if they need Terry to show up in court. And now it's a cold case and honestly if the book ends and it's still a cold case then I'm going to be super disappointed. For now though, this week was like a spiral of emotions. At one point I felt so sad for the family and then I felt like yelling "ha you stupid idiot" to the detective and then I was anxious when the boy was shooting the gun and then I was just shocked when I found out Terry Maitland was shot. This week was an unpredictable one and it has definitely encouraged me to read more Stephen King books because the fact that I can't figure out what's going on shows me that King put a lot of thought into the detail in the story rather than just letting there be one prominent outcome.

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**Okay so I haven't read much of Act 1 of Julius Caesar but I'm going to talk about the theme I have noticed so far to my best extent**

In Julius Caesar, one major theme is that not everyone you meet can be trusted although you may think the opposite because you're close to them or they're family. This connects to my book a lot because the plot of the book surrounds a lot of trust issues. In the book, there is a man named Terry Maitland and he is a well-known man in the town. This man is now being accused of brutally murdering a young boy. This accusation proved that not even the kindest people are safe and trustworthy. In Julius Caesar, Caesar puts his trust into the wrong people and it eventually gets him killed. In The Outsider, one of the most trusted men in the town is accused of murder, proving to the people in the city that they put their trust into the wrong person. Some of the main characters have a personal relation of some sort with the suspect as well considering the fact that he was a baseball coach for young boys. Both of the stories, tell a story of putting trust into the wrong people and the consequences of doing so. Another theme in Julius Caesar *again, from what I’ve read* is that the universe will try to help you and you need to listen to its message. This theme doesn’t really relate to my book all that much BUT it can kind of be seen in a different form. In The Outsider, there are so many things pointing towards the idea that Maitland killed the boy but there is also strong proof against that idea. The proof that has more strength is the video and the fingerprint proof that proves the theory of him killing the boy wrong. HOWEVER, there is also proof such as fingerprints and witnesses saying that he did not kill the boy. The detective on the case is struggling on what to believe and is making up excuses for the proof that is clearly in front of him physically showing him that Maitland in innocent. This is kind of similar to how Caesar ignored everything in front of him and went to the capitol anyway but in this case the detective is choosing to believe what others are telling him rather than face the hard proof that there is another side to the case.

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Themes:
Majority of the time, acting upon assumption does not offer the best solution. Therefore, one needs to think of all of the consequences of their actions before one acts.

One needs to hear every side of the story (even the suspect's side) before one takes any action against anyone in a situation.

Questions:
If all evidence is against someone, should the assumption be made that that person did, in fact, do something wrong without questioning the suspect? Should the person have a chance to defend themselves? Should the person automatically be considered guilty?

What type of evidence is sufficient enough to accuse someone of murder? Should eye witness proof triumph physical proof?

If someone is accused of doing something wrong, should their punishment/consequence be made public, or do they still deserve a quiet, respectful punishment?

If someone is suspected to be a danger to the community, and there is verbal proof that a crime has been committed, should they be given the right to explain themselves or do they lose that right?

Is it okay to assume that a person committed a crime if more than two people have matching stories, or is the suspect innocent until proven guilty?

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When I first started this book, I expected it to be a cliche love story. It definitely was what I expected but it was also so much more and I loved it. The way that Ronnie and Will form a bond with each other is so expected yet it had me crying as soon as they almost had to end it towards the end of the book. That's not the main reason I loved this book though. At the beginning of the book, Ronnie had such a bad relationship with her dad that she didn't even want to be in the house with him. I understood where her anger came from too. She thought her dad left them and didn't look back. Honestly, I thought her dad was one of the worst dads too at first and that he was just faking being nice to try to gain her trust or something. However, that was not the case. In fact, her father really showed Ronnie and her brother Jonah so much genuine love and he was one of the best fathers there could ever be. I would love to have a father like that in all honesty. Throughout the book I began to love this character as a fatherly figure too and I didn't even realize it until the very end. When I found out he had terminal cancer I cried literal tears and I wished so hard that some dumb cliche thing would happen and he wouldn't die after all. Of course my wishes did not come true because authors hate readers and they want to make us cry as much as possible. Well, towards the end of the book Ronnie finds out about the cancer and she has this breakdown and the way the author describes it made me have a breakdown too. The way the author wrote this book to the point where you get so attached to these characters and don't even realize it till the character is gone, is just so sad yet so impressive all at once. This book had me crying so hard at the end especially when Ronnie is trying to get to know her father and especially when she's thinking about how she knows that she's not going to be able to share important moments with her father again. Just the whole ending of the book in general was so heart wrenching and it wasn't an ending that made me want to throw the book against the wall because I understood why everything happened. It was an ending that taught me a lesson. Cliche...I know. It felt all too real and all I could think was, "This could be someone in my family and I don't even know it right now." As soon as that thought was in my head, I couldn't get it out and every time something would happen with Steve (Ronnie's dad) I imagined that being someone in my family and I cried. The reality was that it could all go away just like that. Something like that could happen in the real world in the blink of an eye and I couldn't figure out what I would do after that. It made me realize that I can think about it and think I know what I would do about it but the reality is that I don't know what I would do and I'm not expected to have a plan either. This book taught me that all I can do is spend as much good time with my family as possible because it could all be gone in a moment and then I'd be regretting the fact that I didn't spend enough time appreciating what I had. This book taught me a lot actually but that was the main thing it taught me. I wasn't expecting this book to be this good but I love the fact that it was.

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In this book, the author uses characterization especially at the beginning of the book when he is first introducing the characters. One specific moment when the author used characterization was when he introduces the character Marcus. First, the author uses indirect characterization in which he introduces Marcus from Ronnie's perspective. The first impressions of the character are someone who is daring (because he's playing with fire when he's first introduced) and someone who is also mean (because he threw a ball of fire at Ronnie basically just because). Those are indirect characterizations of the character based off of his actions from another character's point of view. In the following chapter the point of view switches to Marcus' point of view which is pretty cool in my opinion because it gave me more insight to what kind of person he was. The first switch shows that Marcus is in fact a manipulative person and he does it on purpose. His thoughts reveal that he's also disloyal and is used to being chased by girls and he seems to be used to the attention as well. In the following chapters from his point of view, he ruins a friendship between Ronnie and another girl Blaze who Ronnie had just become friends with after her arrival to the beach all because Ronnie could see that Marcus didn't have good intentions with her. As soon as she turned him down (after he was flirting with her at Bower's Point) he got mad and manipulated the situation to where it sounded as if Ronnie was flirting with him. This made Blaze mad because she's dating Marcus. Anyways back to the point. Nicholas Sparks used a lot of characterization (indirect and direct) to introduce a lot of his characters in this book but Marcus was the one that stuck with me the most. By using characterization, I got to see the story play out from different perspectives rather than just hearing the story from say, Ronnie who is usually just thinking about getting away from her family and going out and doing whatever she wants. Now I get to hear about Will (the boy Ronnie ends up falling in love with) and I get to hear his thoughts on everything around him and especially his thoughts on Ronnie. I also get to hear from Steve (Ronnie's dad) who is struggling a lot with keeping Ronnie under control but is honestly just too shy to actually yell at his daughter which I think is kind of stupid because he only makes it worse by not putting some sort of authority down. I also get to hear the story from Marcus who causes nothing but intentional trouble wherever he goes. By using characterization, I not only get insight on the character on the outside but also about the character on the inside based off of their thoughts.

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In my current book, the main character, Ronnie, is being forced to spend the summer with her dad away from her home in New York. This is a major pivotal point in the book because it sets the whole story line for the book considering the fact that Ronnie is going to fall in love with one of the boys in the new town. It also gives me some insight on the main character and how she interacts with her family without this pivotal point the story would be missing the complicated relationship between her and her dad which is one of the reasons she acts out a lot in the book. In addition to that, Ronnie meets two boys in this town that she ends up falling in love with. If she wouldn’t have moved to this new town then she would not have met these two boys in the first place. Basically, moving to this town sets up the whole story because everything important in the book is supposed to happen during the time that she is in this town. If she wouldn’t have moved into this town then she probably would have ended up having a normal summer with her mom and brother in New York with people that she was familiar with and she would also be in a situation that was more beneficial to her considering her mother lets her run wild mostly because she doesn’t know how to punish Ronnie anymore. The story would have been completely different if Ronnie was still in New York rather than in North Carolina with her father.

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This year I have definitely not reached my reading goal. I feel like I slacked off a lot during the time that you were gone. If someone else looked at my reading list then they would definitely say that I have not read enough. I did read some books and I did end up going out and exploring new genres that I hadn't tried before. I read a biography about Nelson Mandela and some life lessons that we as individuals could learn from him. I actually enjoyed the book which was surprising because I've never been much of a biographies kind of person. I've also tried reading some poetry. Its honestly a bit confusing sometimes but I can definitely say that I enjoy reading poetry. Moving forward I would like to get back on track with reading. I want to have at least finished one book a week. I also want to continue trying out new genres so my next genre is most likely going to be something nonfictional. I can push myself as a reader if I read more nonfiction. I've noticed that the vocabulary in the nonfictional books is different from the usual genres I read. Therefore, by reading nonfiction books I believe that I will challenge myself to learn new words and expand my vocabulary which could also improve my writing.

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The Safest Lies: Week Three (final week)

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The Safest Lies: Week Three (final week)

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This book explores many dangerous issues that people mentally prepare themselves and their children for but never truly believe that it will ever happen to them. One of the main issues that are explored is breaking and entering. This is a common issue that we see at least once or twice a week on the morning news or hear stories about from other people. The book explores the issue by having the father of the main character (Kelsey) break into her home to try to get her and *spoiler alert* the $20,000 in the safe room in her basement. At least five tense chapters are dedicated to the situation that she and three other people are put in while the men are breaking into the house. I think that this fed to the main idea that we need to be careful everyday and that we can’t always trust everyone around us. The irony of the men getting into the house is that the house was specifically built so that nobody could ever break into it. The author is just saying that no matter how safe you try to be, there is always that small odd that something will go wrong and that’s what you must be prepared for. I agree with this idea. People doubt that they will ever be put into situations like these because the chances are so slim, so a lot of people don’t prepare themselves mentally for the small chance that something does happen. I agree with the idea that there is no such thing as 100% safe. With the world we live in today, there are so many dangerous things and so many people willing to hurt other people to get what they want. As morbid as it sounds, everyone is always in danger. Simply leaving the house is a danger. Even being in your house has a small percent of danger. I don’t think my opinion about this would be the same if we didn’t have so much crime going on but because of the way society acts nowadays, I completely agree with the idea that the author is trying to send.

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The book makes me rethink the safety of the world around me. I'm the kind of person who trusts easily until I'm given a reason not to trust anymore. I thought this was a good trait to have but in this book it looks like Kelsey's mother also had that same nature and she ended up kidnapped and in someone's basement for years. The book isn't really the only thing that has been making me trust the world a little less. The morning news gives me a lot of reasons not to trust the world around me as well so the book was just a small reminder that I can't always trust the things around me. In the book I thought I would be affected by the main character, Kelsey, more than anything so when I was impacted by the story of her mother, it caught me a little off guard. One of the main messages in the book has a lot to do with trusting your surroundings so this book did make me think about not only the world but also just the people I know and talk to in my everyday life. I may feel safe around certain people but can you really trust everything you see? The book makes the reader question the world, the people they're around, their lives in general, and even themselves; at least that's what it made me think of. I’m not saying that the book has me so impacted that I won’t even go outside of my house if I don’t have to. I’m saying that the book made me second guess the day to day things around me and it was just a small reminder that not everything around me is always something that I can trust. Again, the news shows me enough reasons not to trust the things around me and this book just gave me a small push telling me to be cautious instead of just trusting everyone I meet instantly. So yes, I can say that this book has made me rethink some things in the world and kind of put a new perspective into my head about my surroundings especially since the mother was kidnapped at the age of seventeen.

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This book is centered around a girl who is the daughter of a woman who was kidnapped and raped by a man that was never caught. So far the book is pretty good and very detailed which adds a lot of mood to it. There was a part where the plan to save the girl from the crashed car hanging over a cliff goes wrong and the girl ends up holding on tight for the sake of her life and the other boy's (Ryan's) life. The author described every little thing in this situation from the way that the car was hanging to the way that the girl felt as if she was going to slip sometime soon. So far the book looks like it might become a favorite book. The main character's name is Kelsey and I feel like I can somewhat relate to her. Her mother is strict, but with good reason. She keeps her daughter really sheltered for the sake of keeping an eye on her and knowing that she's alive. Her mother was kidnapped as a young girl and she was raped by a man (who is also Kelsey's father) that nobody ever found. Ever since then, she does her best to keep everything in check meaning that she's strict. I can relate to having strict parents who are very protective. Although the strictness isn't for the same reason, they still do it to make sure everything around me and me myself are okay. In the book the character feels as if sometimes that over-protectiveness can be suffocating and I also understand that feeling. I get how it's out of love but sometimes it can feel as if there's no room to breathe. The character herself is the kind of person who seems quiet on the outside but as soon as you get to know her, you see the sarcastic, joking, louder side of her. I used to be like this and it usually kept me out of trouble but that changed around the beginning of last year. Honestly, sometimes I wish I could just go back to being a quiet person who keeps to myself and a few close friends because it saved me a lot of time from people who aren't really there for my best intentions. Overall I really like the main character because she seems like someone that I want to be personally.

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This book is not going to be one of my favorite books. I'm almost finished with it and nothing interesting has really happened. I could tell where the climax was suppose to be but it didn't really get me hyped up. I'm kind of disappointed because the overall story line of the book could've really been good but the author didn't really write it all out too well. The book surrounds three teenagers who each have a supernatural power that they soon find out that they've had since they were children. At the beginning of the book, the teenagers each start off with a normal day. Ondine is saying goodbye to her family that's moving to Chicago. Nix is at work having a frustrating day. Morgan is at home with her mother who the reader soon learns that she hates. Morgan and Ondine are already familiar with each other and are planning a house party as soon as Ondine's parents leave town. However, Nix is not familiar with either girl. That night, Nix returns to his squat where he finds out about the house party which is how he ends up meeting both Morgan and Ondine. This is the beginning of their journey together. By the end of the party all three teenagers are told a date, location, and time of something called the "Rig of Fire." Each one of them thinks it's another party but eventually they figure out that it has something to do with their abilities. The beginning of the book was written really well. I really did enjoy the beginning but it took the author so long to get to the part about the Ring of Fire and not much happened in between the time of the party ad the time of the Ring of Fire. At first I thought maybe she needed to include a specific detail or something but then I just got bored with the situation because it felt like she was just unnecessarily dragging on the story. I really wish she would have just stopped giving so much detail on unimportant things and focused on the main exciting things instead. I got through more than half of the book by the time the Ring of Fire came around. And then the Ring of Fire only lasted about two short chapters. This really frustrated me because what the author should've given more detail to, she only gave a vague story. I guess I can see if she wanted to give the situation some mystery but I'm almost done with the book and I'm still lost. This book is just not keeping my attention anymore but I don't want to abandon it. So basically the only reason I'm finishing this book is because I don't want to make myself feel like I gave up on a book

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*Quick Note* I finished my other book and I have to say that it is one of my new favorite books. It had such a good story line and not once did it drag. I really enjoyed the book and I guess I really appreciated the realness of the book. The author was straight up and didn't try to sugarcoat the situation which I really did appreciate her doing.

My book is written in third person. The book also alternates between people in each chapter (like one chapter will be about one person and the next is about the other person). It gives the book a mysterious tone because the author gives little hints about what another person is thinking. This gives the reader a little more insight than the character has and it honestly helps me to connect to all the characters because it gives me insight to what everyone is feeling about the situation instead of just focusing on one sole character. I honestly appreciate the way that the book is written because I get to focus on more than one thing. The book wouldn't be so different if the point of view was different. The plot wouldn't even be changed. The only thing that would really be different if the POV were to be changed is the amount of information that the reader receives. Right now, I receive information about multiple people at once but if the POV were to be say, first person, I would only get one person's perspective on the situation and not really any surrounding information aside from what that person is feeling.

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I cannot say that there has been a book like this one. Not one that I've read before. I did read a book called Faking Normal this summer that was also written from the perspective of a teenage girl in high school but it was not written the same way this book is written. I have to say that this book has its own kind of narration. The book is written in a way that you understand what it's saying but it's not necessarily the way you speak. With no disrespect, the way the book is written is the way people from the lower class supposedly speak. The book seems like something a teenager has really written. As the reader I was shocked to see how much slang was in this book. I was also shocked to see that there was no filter. At the beginning of the book the narrator mentions things that teens may see as normal such as house parties, alcohol, and drugs. The narrator speaks in a way that a teenager would speak. A week ago I never would have thought that a book like this one would have any affect on me. I always thought that writing in that kind of slang was not okay. I have to say that at the beginning of the book I struggled to not cry. I've never seen anyone get shot like the main character did but I kind of understand the area she's living in. I understand why she tries to just fit in with the people at her school even though they've grown up privileged and don't really understand the value of a dollar. I know for a fact that this book is going to be an emotional roller coaster because I can actually relate to this girl's feelings. I have to say that so far this book is like something telling me not to forget where I came from. That's not one of the main points of the book but it was like a reality check for me. It was like someone screaming in my face telling me not to forget that I wasn't always where I am now and I didn't always have what I have now. I'm not even half way through this book yet and already I'd have to say that this book has had a heavy impact on me.

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A conflict in my book was when Gem gets bit by a snake. This snake just so happens to be a venomous snake and the man who kidnapped her (Ty) has been trying to make antivenom but it isn't ready yet. So basically she almost dies and Ty must choose between her death or his capture. SPOILER ALERT: He chooses to take her to the hospital after all. This is how he gets caught and ends up in jail. This book's ending made me want to scream. Personally I was kind of disappointed because the ending of the book could've been so much better. I was hoping she would fight her way out and barely make it. Honestly my ending would have been so much better. This problem could relate to the real world because people get bit by snakes all the time. I know some hospitals do carry antivenom for those kinds of situations which makes the situation in the book a little more realistic considering he took her to a hospital. I'm still so upset by the ending though. When I finished the book, I wanted to throw it across the room because it could have been so much better. Don't get me wrong; the book was a good book but the ending could have gone so many ways and it just seem like the author chose the weakest one. If I would've been in this situation I think I would have fought the guy and then ran. Yes, it's just an open desert but she had a camel literally right outside her door so she could have ridden the camel off into the sunset and forgotten about the guy. But she didn't. Instead she got bit by a snake and was rushed to the hospital. Sure, it was an okay way to end a book but it's the fact that it could have been so much better. This week's reading really upset me because I had so much faith that the author was going to give it a good ending and then she didn't.

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I chose this book because a friend recommended it to me. I honestly wasn't sure if this book was my kind of book, but I tried it anyway. I have to say that so far, the book has impressed me. The point of view that the book is written in is what caught my attention the most. The book is written from the perspective of a teenage girl. The narrator is speaking as if the events have already happened and she's trying to figure out where she went wrong or when certain events happened. She talks about it as if she's wondering what could've gone differently. I had some doubts about the book when I first started it. The book starts off in an airport and I already knew that the girl was going to be kidnapped but I was skeptical about how the man would go about kidnapping her. I thought he was going to be caught for sure. When she’s in the café I was so sure that something was going to happen, but the way things played out was what surprised me. He drugs her drink and waits until the drugs influence her. I was skeptical about this as well. I was so sure that someone would have stopped them and realized that he was kidnapping someone but, in the end, he just played it off as she had too much to drink. So far, I’ve gotten to the part where he’s already taken her to the middle of nowhere in Australia. The man continuously tells her that there is no escape from where she is and that she should just get used to it. I honestly don’t see how someone could find her in the middle of the desert. I do have a prediction about the book. As twisted as it may sound, I think that she’s going to end up giving up and loving the man back. It could be one of those unexpected plot twists.