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When Mim goes back to her old house and describes all the things in the house and the memories I can’t help but put myself in her shoes.docx

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Mim describes this feeling of placelessness all her life. She feels like a wondering traveling through the hillsides, looking for her people. That really resonated with me, aren’t we all wondering? This book is a classic tale of self-discovery. I’m really curious to see how mim’s relationship with beck pans out. He’s substantially older than her. What scares me about the family they have made is it’s so temporary… they’re all traveling to something. There is an end goal. What they all want and what they all need is different. She’s taken substantially longer to reach her mom that she had planned for. I’ve grown so attached to mim. If she gets to her mom’s house and she’s passed away I would be heart broken. I know I’ve mentioned this last week, but I can’t stress this enough, this book makes you think. I want to meet the person that wrote this, their brain is so beautiful. Walt, the boy with down syndrome that mim found on the side of the street Is still a mystery to me. He talks about his dad sometimes but as far as we know he could be dead and Walt is so innocent he doesn’t even believe it. I mean, how can a loving mother and father who have a down syndrome child not know where their child is and not even look for him. What’s going to happen to Walt after Mim reaches her mom? So far, Beck and Mim seem to be the only people in the world concerned about his existence and well being

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Mosquitoland is my favorite book I’ve ever read. I came to that conclusion tonight. The main character mim is a force to be reckoned with. Throughout the book, you read letters written by Mim to a girl named Isabel. And through each letter you get another piece of mims background story. What an exciting way to structure a story. Nothing is normal at the start. The hero doesn’t begin her story as we begin the book, her world is already shattered. We just come in right as she decides to do something about it. The inner monologue of Mim is what sets this book apart.  We enjoy first person narratives because they give an insight to what the character is feeling, right? Well Mims inner monologues aren’t just focused on what’s happening around her, it’s about everything. She is constantly expressing her opinions, her thoughts are well thought out, witty, wise, and insightful. This is the first teen book I’ve read that has really make me think, and reflect on myself. Another attribute of Mim’s that makes her so freaking likable is her huge heart. She meets a boy with down syndrome named Walt, and immediately is drawn to him. She treats Walt like a brother and see’s the beauty in his child like innocence. I know I’ve wrote about this in my last blog but, this book has an almost rape scene. When the same man attacks another little girl and succeeds in his plans, mim feels absolutely responsible for it. She makes it her fault for not speaking up earlier when she was attacked. Mim is an extremely empathetic character.

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This book explores a lot of new territory for me for a writer. I like that. My character Mim I’m suspecting has a mental disorder. She is very scatter brained and fearless and has little to no social cues. However, im pretty sure that’s just her personality. Her farther keeps hinting that something is wrong with her. I can’t decide if something actually is wrong with her and I as a reader just don’t know it yet, or if it’s a case of, “I don’t have a relationship with my daughter so something is wrong with her.” A classic tale. I’m assuming for now the latter because when she ran away her stepmom seemed to be the only person that noticed. Her dad called about four times compared to Kathy, (her step mom’s) twenty eight phone calls a day. One of my predictions did come true if I remember correctly. She was not going to get to her mom easily. Something was going to make her trip harder. Sure enough, the Greyhound Bus she was driving in got into a wreck. OH how could I forget. This is the first almost rape scene I’ve ever read in a book. There was a man that kept following her. A predator on her bus. The worst part is she can’t turn him in if she wants to get to her mom. For a girl that almost got raped by a guy that’s still on her bus, she handled it very well. Mim’s a tough cookie.

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I started a new book this week called Mosquitoland. It wasn’t my first choice for my book. I sort of bounced around every day on a different book and nothing really stuck out. Until I found mosquito land. When I first picked it up I was only half reading it. It was laid out weird. There’s a way different dynamic to this book than I have had on previous books. This girls Mim is a fearless character that just does and says what she wants and goes with the flow. She is so opposite of me. It’s so refreshing. Normally I pick people close to me with strained relationships with their mom. But this girl is taking a bus across the country by herself to save her mom. I haven’t read too far into the book yet so I don’t have as much to say as I normally do. I want to try something new though, I want to start making predictions for how the book is going to end when I start it. So I can look back and see how off I was. I think her trip to her mom is going to take way longer than she expects. She’s going to go on this huge trip of self-discovery and she’s going to meet some people along the way that change her. She’s going to run out of money and have to struggle for a little bit. Then she’s going to  finally get to her mom but she will have already died.

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I finally finished dumpling…and if I’m being honest, I felt sort of unsatisfied. It feels like the book just ends very abruptly and all of a sudden. I thought there was going to be some big defining moment for this character that changes everything and rights all the wrongs.  But there really isn’t. We literally don’t even get to learn who wins the pageant. All we know is that Millie got second place. She walks out of the auditorium before they announce the real winner. She reunites with her ex best friend Elle. They make up but it’s not really satisfying either. If my best friend ever said the things that Elle said to Willowdean, I don’t think we would ever bounce back. I felt like she was flourishing on her own. I was going to comment on how I didn’t like that Willowdean lip sync Dolly Parton’s Jolene, but now that I’m thinking about it, it’s kind of perfect for her. Dolly is who she idolizes. And she did this pageant mainly for Lucy, and Lucy loved dolly just like her. It was a moment not just for her but for the both of them. Now that I’ve finished the book, I still don’t understand what Bo contributed to the plot. They never get together in the book as far as we know, and the coupling of them two just makes her insecure. If it does teach the reader one thing, it tells us the similarity between Lucy and Willowdean. Lucy wouldn’t go to Dollywood because she was fat, Willowdean wouldn’t let Bo love her because she was fat.

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Willowdean is finally getting the confidence that she always used Ellen as a Krutch for. Ellen told Willowdean that she was holding her back, but I think it was the other way around. Ellen was always Willowdean’s comfort zone. Honestly, looking back at the conversations between the two, they didn’t really have much chemistry as friends. I understand that it can be hard to realize that a friendship has gone sour when it’s been going on for so long. Willowdean doesn’t have her “best friend” anymore, but she does have a group of girls who are on the same journey as her. They keep each other accountable when one of them gets discouraged about the pageant. Ellen could not have possibly related to the struggles and insecurities Willowdean was facing and didn’t even try to. Since she was forced out of her element, she’s really been working on being her own reason for being happy. The pageant with the combination of Lucy dying, really drives Willowdean to make her life hers. I like that. She sees an injustice and she does what she can to put a stop to it. In a weird way, the way Lucy lived her life was an injustice to herself. She was so heavy that she deprived herself of living the life she deserved. She serves as sort of a cautionary tale for Willowdean. ALSO, Bo is back in the picture and is sweeter than ever. He’s soft spoken and really balances out Willowdean’s Explosive emotions. I can’t wait for them to go public with their relationship.

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Things for Willowdean have gone from bad to worse. Her car is broken and can’t be fixed. Her boy toy Bo is moving on to THE IT girl at their high school named bekah right in front of her eyes. She’s entered a pageant that has her questioning her worth more than ever before, and her mom is not supporting her at all. OH, almost forgot, she lost her best friend Ellen and Ellen seems happier than ever. I never liked Ellen she seemed like a very flighty person. Her loyalty only ran so deep. It seemed like she was embarrassed of Willowdean and was just sticking with her because they had so much history. Willowdean is an extremely stubborn and hard-headed character. While it makes her to be determined and do things even when everyone around her is trying to shame her out of it, it also makes her push away the people she loves. Bo never really did anything too substantial to make her think he was ashamed of her, she was ashamed of herself. She didn’t think she was the right type of beautiful for Bo and in turn…left Bo before he had the chance to leave her.  I wonder the difference her mom could have made on her daughter’s life for just loving her as she is. The one person that should never be ashamed of you is your mom, and Willodean’s is. How can you learn to truly love yourself if the woman that raised you isn’t even content with what you look like. One thing that has really never dawned on me till now is… Where is Willodean’s dad? They might have mentioned it briefly but he’s absent. With a mother that’s Ashamed of her and a dad that isn’t even present in her life, she lacks the reassurance and love that only family can give you.

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When I read books with teenage girls as the main character I normally get frustrated. Because I really don’t agree with the choices they make or why they choose to keep themselves in bad situations. For example, in Dreamland, I would have never stayed in an abusive relationship and then fought so hard to keep it a secret. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF??? If my boyfriend hit me that would be the end of that. What I like about Willowdean is she’s pretty no nonsense, with just the right amount of nonsense. A lot of the things she does and how she handles situations is how I would have done it, sometimes even better. Willowdean is the type of person I’d be friends with. She’s confident and a self-conscious all at the same time and it’s a beautiful realistic character. What I like in this book is that Willowdean isn’t really struggling to get attention from boys, but she doesn’t get her worth from that. And for a girl that is insecure about her weight, I think it would be easy to do. As much as I love Willowdean… everyone around her is making me so mad. Bo (her boy toy) is being an idiot and not fighting hard enough for Willowdean. It’s making her feel like he never really cared at all. Her best friend El is being such a jerk. She’s got this new little bestie. And honestly her and this other girl have more in common, but all of El’s worst traits she has in common with her. Not to mention, El’s new bestie fat shames the heck out of Willowdean for no reason other than to be cruel. AND EL JUST ALLOWS IT. I can feel the gap in the friendship so clearly thanks to the way Willowdean describes it.

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I finished reading dreamland last week, and to be quite honest, I was kind of disappointed with the ending. I don't feel like there was a climax to the book at all, it sort of just ended. Also, the book is called dreamland and MAYBE I MISSED SOMETHING BIG BUT I DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT DREAMLAND HAS TO DO WITH ANYTHING IMPORTANT. I thought it was going to be some cool other universe in Caitlin's brain where she could have conversations with her sister Cassie. Cassie could guide her through things with Rogerson through the dreamland because she couldn't do it in person because she had ran away, BUT NO. Cassie has a very small role in the book, which really is a shame she could have had so much potential. Â I started a new Book though, called Dumpling. I'm not very far into the book but I can already tell I'm going to like it. I get tired of reading characters that remind me of myself. The main character in this book is by her own definition overweight. I really have no clue what an overweight person feels like or has to battle. I have been skinny my whole life thanks to my mother's genes, imagine it would be very hard for a teenage girl though. Everyone everywhere is also telling you to slim down, almost like your worth depends on it. Sometimes she acts as if her fat doesn't bother her, she owns it because fat is nothing to be ashamed of. And then sometimes she acts incredibly ashamed and self-conscious about it. It's almost like she's trying to convince herself that her being fat doesn't bother her. By the end of the book I'm like 95% sure that her confident front that she can only hold for so long will become real.

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I feel like in life, when you’re alone in your room upset asking yourself “how did I get here?” a few defining moments come to mind, For Caitlin it’s quitting the cheerleading squad. Joining The cheerleading squad was never something she specifically wanted to do. But it was social, her best friend Rina was in it, and it surrounded her with people that were on the straight and narrow path. I understand, if you don’t like something and it’s just not your thing, very rarely will you stick with it for that long. However, I think the timing of her quitting the team was all wrong. For the first time since she joined the team…she needed the team. It was the last non- Rogerson related thing she had going for her. It gave her some independence. Now…Rogerson has all the time in the world to abuse Caitlin. She’s being further sucked into isolation which she expresses so desperately that she wants to get out of and doesn’t know how. Rogerson is smart. I read somewhere that abusive men like to isolate their partners so that they become, or feel like they have become solely dependent on them for everything. I think the real reason Caitlin won’t leave Rogerson is because he swooped in quickly into Cass’s place after she left. Caitlin’s scared of that hole in her life that she would be forced to feel if Rogerson wasn’t there. What she doesn’t understand is, Rogerson isn’t filling the hole…He’s making it bigger.

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I have ended up liking dreamland way more than I had anticipated. I’ve been reading for the past 2 hours on and off and I look down and I’m on page 112. That’s never happened to me before. I’ve never chosen to just read. I really feel for my character Caitlin on one thing, her nagging fear of always living in her sister’s shadow. It’s something she keeps to herself, it’s one of her deepest darkest fears. Whether she chooses to admit it to herself or not, her fear of being “just the sister” drives her to do most of what she does. When he was first introduced I thought this boy Rogerson was going to be something new and different and good for Caitlin. But all he’s really doing is isolating her from her friends and carting her around everywhere so he’s not alone. I won’t deny that theirs clearly a physical chemistry there, but as far as the nitty gritty emotional bond it takes to sustain a healthy relationship… I haven’t seen any of that yet. There’s so much we don’t know about this Rogerson guy, so much, and yet she spends all her time with him. To me that’s a red flag. If a boy Ostracizes you and is secretive from the start, then something not right with him. However, that being said that’s just my experience. I really do feel bad for her though, her mom doesn’t even try to hide how much Caitlin doesn’t measure up to Cass in her eyes.

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I’ve just finished Go Ask Alice… I have so many feelings. It seemed like everything was going so well, she was finally going to get it together. She was on the right path… I turn the page and I read that after she finished writing in her diary, she died from a drug overdose three weeks later. What a tragedy. After everything that poor girl went through, her family went through, her life ended like that. It wasn’t her time and even though I didn’t know the girl, I know that that stuff really happens all too often and it haunts me. I’ve started this new book called Dreamland by Sarah Dessen. Unintentionally I keep picking books about 16-year-old girls that don’t fit into their family. It makes sense though, I have a really challenging home life and I’m surprised my grades haven’t dropped because I barely have time to do my homework, I’m too busy fighting my mom.  This girls’ older sister has run away from her family and it was seemingly out of nowhere. The older sister Cass, was on her way to Yale in a couple months she was well liked in her school and had it all figured out it seemed. Then one day she just runs away. I think about that sometimes, about how you never actually know what’s going on with a person. I’m only a couple pages into this book but I can tell the younger sister Caitlin is VERY jealous of her older sister, she feels like she’s second fiddle in everything. Her older sister is so accomplished so anything noteworthy Caitlin does seems insignificant.

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It’s interesting to watch someone’s gradual decay into madness. Alice isn’t a little school girl smoking pot anymore, she’s a full on drug addict in the streets doing sexual favors for drug dealers to get a fix. None of this had to happen. This girl grew up in a stable home, she grew up in good school, and she was well educated. I sympathies with this character but I can’t help but be so angry at her. On one hand, I can see how hard it would be for an emotionally underdeveloped individual would have a hard time making the mature decision to do the right thing and quite. She turns to drugs because they make her happy, she has a good time when she’s on them, but she’s so terribly miserable. Her life is literally horrible and she did it all to herself. She has zero self-restraint and all of her choices are purely made off her own whims, she never takes into account how they will effect anyone else. Her poor parents, they’re constantly taking her back home after every time she messes up. They’re the only people in her life that really love her and she treats them like trash. Alice doesn’t understand that the rules they’re setting in place for her aren’t to take away her freedom, it’s to keep her from making an unchangeable mistake or maybe even getting herself killed, she is living on the streets after all. She’s spiraling and she’s spiraling faster than ever. I hope the next time I write a blog Alice is still alive.

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This girl Alice’s life is quickly spinning out of control. I’m reading her thoughts and I’m wondering… is this how the normal teenage girl thinks? A lot of the things she thinks and does I can’t relate to at all. She’s SO impressionable, everything makes her EXTREAMLY happy or EXTREAMLY sad, there is no in-between. She in herself it’s a pretty emotionally unstable person so her getting a hold of drugs was just a recipe for disaster, she was guaranteed to start relying on them. Maybe it’s easy for me to be an outsider looking in and judge her for her mistakes. I just read back on what I read about her and I looked in on myself and realized, I have extreme emotional swings like that too, I just don’t act on them as much as she does. I mean…this girl has an idea and she does whatever she can to make that idea happen, I wonder how amazing her life could have been if she would of used that character trait for good. She’s making all these huge life changing decisions without thinking them through or thinking about the long term outcome. All of her decisions are very emotionally charged. I think Alice always grew up thinking she wasn’t pretty or good enough, and that effects how she handles herself with men. She was dating this college drug dealer named Richie and was ready to drop everything and give this boy her everything. In her diary, it was almost like Alice worshiped Richie… that freaked me out.

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The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is a gem. I really never read books that have a male protagonist narrating the story, I tend to stick with girls for some reason. This book interests me immensely because this boy couldn't be any further from me. He lives the polar opposite life. This little Indian boy, with a ton of health issues, money problems, and emotional obstacles to overcome and yet he does it all with a smile on his face. I came into this book a little bit ignorant. When I found out the books main character was very disabled I thought the story might be boring, nothing would be action packed or really fast pace, I was very wrong. This little Indian kid may not be the best at the physical movements, his brain works at a mile a minute. The book sort of jumps around and will add little tid bits of information about the characters train of thought, just so you can relate more and understand this kid better. In this little boy's town everyone is a drunk, everyone is hopeless and has given up. I wonder why that is? How can a tight nit town with people in relatively the same circumstances be so miserable? Everyone talks about how no one leaves the reservation but if everyone is so miserable, why don't they. It's not like they're chained up and will be punished if they leave. They choose to stay and live their miserable lives. I'm just shocked that this boy Junior is the only kid that has thought about bettering himself.

BLOG POST 8
I feel like very few teen books capture what it's really like to feel out of place. The constant tug of the world, pulling you every which way. Jr. aka Arnold is stuck between what his tribe wants, what he wants, what his parents want, and what he deserves. Isn't that everyone? Give or take a tribe or two. The whole book you're constantly trying to decide along with Jr. which life is better, where does Jr. belong. Just like life, the book makes you experience the heart break and the joy of both sides, one never outshining the other, ever confusing, a never ending coin toss. Nobody knows heartbreak like Jr. is dealing with life threatening problems and mustering up a smile and a good attitude whenever he can. Jr. doesn't have a lot to be thankful for by the world's standards, but I think the author gifted him with one of the most likable charismatic personalities I have ever read. One thing that is so refreshing about Jr. is his sympathy. Even though nobody on the rez has really deserves his compassion after the horrible bullying they have put him through, he still continues to root and be thankful for his tribe. I think it's because at the end of the day, they're all stuck in a bad situation together. No white kid will ever really know what it's like to be Arnold no matter how close of friends they might become with him. I think that's the base of all human interaction, the need to feel understood.

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I decided to be proactive this year, and go out and buy my book the first day of school. I didn't do any prior research before hand, I kind of just walked in and picked something from the best selling teens list, it's working out well though. I  was inspired by 13 reasons why a little bit. I knew I wanted an easy read that was something I could really get involved in. I also knew I really wanted a mystery. So, when I saw my incredible book "One of Us is Lying," just sitting there waiting for me at Barns N Nobal, I just had to take it. The book has been fairly predictable so far but I really think it's about to heat up. This kid simon was murdered and I really have no idea who did it. Although, as I'm writing this...I'm starting to think maybe a teacher poisoned Simon, hmmmm. I really like the book so far, it has a bunch of different characters points of views in it. I really like how I'm getting to know the thoughts and feelings of more than one person.
BLOG 6 POST

I'm on the very last pages of my book, and I'm honestly let down. There wasn't a huge big twist. The book in its entirety is pretty good for a teen novel, but nothing really out of the usual formula. Turns out no one killed Simon, he killed himself for attention and revenge. I didn't even think any of the four kids did it anyway. Also there was literally no way anybody else besides someone in that room did it. I was trying to come up with a bunch of conspiracies on to how it would have been possible, they were all way too far fetched. One thing I didn't technically see coming was how involved Jake was in framing the four. He was always a little off, he had anger issues, and he was controlling, so of course he would take the chance to write the blogs after Simon died. Even though he's broken up with Addy now he has even more control over here than ever. In a weird way I guess I did want one of the four to do it. I was really rooting for all of them. So if the author would have gradually taken one of the main characters point of view out, I feel like most people wouldn't have noticed and they could have made that person the killer. If Brownyn would have done it I think it would have made the most since. She's the smartest one out of them all, her sister was severely bullied by something Simon wrote about her, and she had a major secret that would affect her future to hide. It would have been an interesting turn to have the protagonist be the antagonist all along.

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I AM IN SHOCK. Okay, I’m going to admit, I thought the book was getting a little bit too “teeny bopper” for me. I was getting kind of bored because the book was a little too predictable I wasn’t really interested in any off the characters. BUT THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN, Copper the all American boy with the baseball scholarships flying out the who-ha, goes to his BOYFRIENDS house and kisses him. COOPER IS GAY I REPEAT COOPER IS GAY. All this time I didn’t understand why he broke up with his beautiful supporting girlfriend, didn’t really care if people found out if he had taken steroids, and was a relatively background character, IT’S BECAUSE THE BOY HAS BIGGER FISH TO FRY THAN PEOPLE FINDING OUT HE USES STERIODS. It really threw me for a loop, and then all at once the dots connected in my head. In the beginning of the book cooper talked about how beautiful Browywn was and how he just noticed for the first time. Looking back at that part of the book, I realize, he wasn’t talking about her in a typical “boy” perverted way, he was simply just admiring her. I love how the author threw the reader off by sprinkling in little things along the way, very clever. I’m really motivated to keep reading. I’m actually close to finishing the book and not a whole lot has really gone down, so I’m assuming that the action is really going to ramp up.
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BLOG 5 POST
My heart is in pain for Cooper. He got outed for being gay because the police found his blog post that Simon was going to write that would expose him. I have a very special place in my heart for gay people and their privacy. My best friend of 9 years is gay and it was so incredibly hard for her to come out to her parents. There was a whole year where her parents wouldn’t even look at her, she was ostracized from her whole family. The police promised they would keep the blog confidential, but like everything else it got leaked to the press. My main question is, how is literally everything getting leaked? Is there a mole in the police department? Is someone on the police force or maybe a daughter/son of an officer the real person who killed Simon? I honestly do not believe any of the kids that were in the room when Simon died killed him, I really don’t. I understand that all of the kids had something they wanted to stop from getting out, but so did literally everyone else in the school. The police are honestly not fit to handle any type of case if they don’t even consider that the killer might not be one of the kids.

“Browyn was the strongest willed, determined, little rascal I had ever met.” Pg 191 Adjectives

“My mom sent me Addy and I to the store for eggs, milk, and bread.” Pg 82 Series

“Even though it’s getting late, it’s hotter than the Mojave Desert.” Pg 220 Intro info

“I try to keep my expression neutral, even though I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Pg 448 compound sentence

“Nate, who is the obvious scape goat for police, doesn’t have a fighting chance without a lawyer.” Pg 103 extra info

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The interesting thing about my book, "One of Us is Lying" is that it's told from four different high school students point of view. There is no central character. I find pieces of me in each of the characters, but I most relate to the "nerdy" girl Bronwyn. She is an a plus student with tremendous pressure to get into an ivy league college. She's very focused and she's super smart and relatable. She's a little judgmental of others, but it's justified most of the time. The interesting thing about Bronwyn is that she has all these rules but is falling for this boy named Nate... who doesn't follow any rules. Now let's talk about Nate. He's a bad boy in every sense of the word. However the way he acts isn't out of him being a bad person, he's a victim of his circumstances. He has to sell drugs to pay the bills his alcoholic father can't. You can't help but root for him. Cooper is the athlete with the chance to be a pro baseball player. He's kind of stupid, but he's definitely a team player. He's not a follower at all. He takes pitty on addy even when his whole

BLOG POST 9
I started this new book called, “Where She Went.” I had no clue when I picked it up that it was the squeal to “If I Stay.” I never read the first book. Before this year, I relied heavily on experiencing books through their movie versions, which every book junkie will tell you isn’t accurate at all to the actual book. When I first picked up Where She Went, I didn’t even know who was talking. I slowly pieced together after about 20 pages that the narrator was a boy. Adam, the band hunk that dated Mia from the first book. I just want to emphasize how weird me finding this book was. I found out that Adam is now a super famous musician, and Mia MORE IMPORTANTLY chose to freaking live and is now a super famous cellist, all while not even knowing what the book was about. The thing that interest me about the sequel is that it took a very realistic approach. Two people heading in two different directions really hit home with me. The fact that you can love someone at the wrong time really gets to me. Sometimes getting where you need to go you have to do alone. This book is helping me watch two people find their way back to each other. It’s really awkward, even as a reader, reading about these to love birds fumble over their words is a little cringe. But it’s real. When you love someone, I mean really love someone, I don’t think it ever goes away.
BLOG POST 10
I started a new book this week called “The pregnancy project.” When I saw the title It had me immediately hooked, not going to lie. The story so far has been action packed and I find myself so excited to go read it. I’ve learned something about myself as a reader, I cannot stick to slow books. I just do not have the patients. I’m not exactly sure what the narrators name is yet but I know she’s the youngest of 8 kids. I’m learning her mother’s whole background story and how she ended up pregnant at 14 and is now a 40 year old woman with 8 kids and grandchildren. This book really explores the subject of teen pregnancy in a very logical way. It’s hard, it’s all consuming, and it requires sacrifice that no teen is ready to make yet. One thing I find really shocking about this true tale is the life choices of the kids. Their mom was a teen mom and all the girls got pregnant as teens, most out of wedlock, and the boys got their girlfriends pregnant as teens as well. You would think they would learn from their moms mistakes because they saw how hard her life was and still is as a 40 year old woman from her choice as a 14 year old and yet… the same outcome. It’s a cycle. I connect really strongly with the narrator. She wants to succeed and she wants to live up to her mother’s expectations because she knows she deserves it. She has a special kind of courage. She’s going to break the cycle.

BLOG POST 11
Gaby Rodriguez is a real girl. Someone out there had the courage to face the embarrassment and the social torment of being pregnant. This book has been so unbelievably insightful. I have a very different perspective on a lot of different aspects involving teen pregnancy, like “the cycle.” A lot of times I look at people’s families and they echo their parent’s negative behavior… and I never understood that. If something that bothers you, wouldn’t you try to not to that behavior and be better? It’s not that simple. Take teen pregnancy for example. If a teen mom has a daughter, that daughter is at least 2 times as likely to get pregnant as a teen herself. Woman are told once they get pregnant that they ruined their lives, that they have no future; with such a lack of support it’s no wonder why mothers find it hard to stay motivated and on track for their future. They become hopeless and some woman even start hating their babies before it even is born because of all the negative stereotypes that have been surrounding them. Lots of teen moms drop out of school and take a minimum wage job to try to support the baby since they already have in their minds the stereotype that they can’t go to school. We are responsible for this vicious cycle that happens to far too many woman. Birth is a beautiful thing, of course the mother might not always be fit to take care of the baby but she won’t even have a shot if all she hears is she can’t do it.
BLOG POST 11 WINTERGIRLS
There is something very interesting about the way the book follows Lia’s thought process. Since Lia, I assume is bulimic, you get to see how it affects her day to day routine. What I like about this book is that even though you come in mid story, it’s not hard to jump right into. I’m sort of confused by Lia’s best friend’s storyline. She kills herself before the book can even begin, but you would think it would be Lai that’s depressed not Cassie. Cassie had a whole bunch of popular friends and attention that Lia’s never had. I guess she thought that’s what she needed to fill that whole that self-hatred created inside her. Leaving behind one of the only things that ever really mattered is why Cassie chased wind until she couldn’t anymore. Lia lives with this guilt about Cassie’s death. I’m kind of torn up about it. On the one hand I could see anger and pettiness taking over my emotions. But on the other hand, this girl called Lia 33 times out of nowhere one day saying she needed help. Lia ignored her cries, but how was she supposed to know that this was really it, that this was for real. They hadn’t been good friends for a while at that point and Cassie seemed to have gotten where she wanted. The book is organized in a very scattered way because Lia’s very scatter brained. She’s focused on the new of her good friend dying, on how it might have been her fault, picking her sister up from school, eating the proper amount, fighting her eating disorder, etc. You can immediately feel for this character.

BLOG 12 THE HIDING PLACE

I started a book over the break that I read off and on for most of it called The Girl on The Train. I really tried to get into it and I really just couldn't. I asked my mom if she had any spare books lying around and I found this book called The Hiding Place� by Corrie Ten Boom. The cover of the book is what really hooked me. On the books top left there's a subtle swastika and so I knew right away this book was a period piece. I was expecting the book to be told from the point of view of a girl about my age kind of like the diary of Anne Frank, but I was surprised to find out the narrator was a middle aged woman whose not particularly pretty, not really the favorite child, and not really great at anything. It's nice to read stories about regular people doing extraordinary things. I've only just recently started the book so 'm getting into her background more than the actual plot. So far I know that she is a child of four and her farther and late mother are and were very loving individuals. In fact, on the father's birthday the whole entire town buys him flowers. I got to learn all about her fathers acts of generosity and efforts to better the children at risk in the community. Knowing about the families nurturing nature it only foreshadows the amazing acts of kindness yet to come.
BLOG 13 GO ASK ALICE

I started yet another new book. I found it while Mrs. Terry was making us read 3 minutes’ worth of a bunch of books. The book that caught my eye within the first 2 pages was a book called “Go Ask Alice,” by Anonymous. The book isn’t set up traditionally because it’s not really a book. The book is Alice’s Diary. Word for word Alice’s thoughts concerns worries and daily struggle. I’m extremely interested in the book because it’s not about a relatable character being an outsider, it’s about a real girl, these events actually happened to her. When characters are real, everything a character experiences starts to affect you more. I’ve been noticing a trend in my reading habits this year. I tend to pick books that have real life leading lady characters more often than not. I think I know why that trend has started though, I’m looking for a part of myself inside these characters. Maybe I’m looking for answers subconsciously. I picked up this book because I read within the first couple pages that this girl is 15 just like me. She begins to use drugs to self-medicate, I’m not going to get into it but I can relate to that as well. Luckily for me I didn’t spiral like how I’m predicting she is going to, I mean, she wouldn’t have a book made about her if something didn’t go terribly wrong. I really enjoy the diary format of the whole thing because the book doesn’t drag at all. It’s a summary of everything important going on in her life, a completely honest look on It too. I’m sure she had no intention of anyone ever reading her private thoughts. I wonder if her parents gave away the rights to her journal.

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friend group could easily ostracize him too. It's hard to go against your friends and he did it no questions asks. Addy is my least favorite, which I expected because Bronwyn doesn't like her either and I'm most like Bronwyn. She is one of those girls that created her self worth and image in her boyfriend. All her friends are her friends because of her boyfriend. Her world kind of falls apart when her and her boyfriend breakup, and I can't help but feel bad for her. She made a mistake and was sorry, and didn't know how to handle it so she ignored it. I don't know what I would have done in her situation so I suppose I can't judge. All these characters are so human. You really start to feel emotionally invested in all of them.

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I know I said that I really didn’t connect with Addy and that I thought she was an airhead but, I’ve changed my mind. She’s a little more complex than I originally thought. Ever since her and her boyfriend broke up she’s really been making some big moves. In a way I’m kind of proud of her. She was so into this one boy that she put her whole identity in him. And when they broke up she cut her hair. She made a choice for herself to make a big change and move on. That’s very brave and honestly I didn’t think she would be capable of it. This girl is very into her looks so a blunt pixie cut is definitely a middle finger to her controlling ex-boyfriend who always was obsessed with her long silky locks. She still does some stuff I don’t like though. She’s really judgmental of Bronwyn and her friends which makes me kind of mad because Bronwyn was trying to be sweet to her and invite her to sit with her at lunch. She still has this everyone is out to get me mindset and it’s annoying. I went to church the other day and the preacher was talking about how can we judge anyone? In the bible it asks us how we can remove the speck from our neighbor’s eye when there is a log in our own. I think someone really needs to tell Addy about this scripture, she needs it.