In my opinion, I think that “Bloom ” contains such an intricate relationship in the family as well as the love relationship. Therefore, the books ask the readers has to be highly concentrated on the book and follows the protagonist and flat characters.
In the ” Bloom”, the author use several different types of literary devices such as flashback, climax, conflicts, dialogue, dramatic irony and etc. These elements not only help the book become more interesting but also help the readers enjoy the book. ” Bloom” contains many flashbacks. They provide the information or explain why things happen this way and how the characters understand each other very well. For instance, when Lauren and Evan in the school; they already have known each other. However, the readers might not know why it happens that way. Hence, right after that plot, the author describes the relationship between the two by busing flashback. Actually, they were used to be brother and sister in law due to the fact of their parents dating each other. So Evan and his mom moved to Lauren father’s house. Both Lauren and Evan had had a great time being brother and sister together until the day that his mom could not bare any more and moved out.
The book will not be interesting and attractive if it does not have conflict and climax. These two things almost appear in every novel or drama. ” Bloom” is not an exception, it follows the basic structure of a novel. There are two fundamental conflicts in the novel; one is between Lauren and her father, the other one is between Lauren and Dave. Even though the conflicts are totally unrelated, the consequence is the same. Right at the beginning, Lauren and her father are not closed to each other like normal father and daughter relationship. Lauren usually has to have lunch by herself in such a lonely ambiance’s house. Furthermore, they seldom talk face to face because of the fact that her father is too busy with his occupation. Hence, day by day, she feels left out and lonesome. The conflict between Lauren and her father is not as serious as this conflict which is between Lauren and her two boyfriends. Originally, she falls in love with Dave, but the more she gets closer to Dave and his family, the more she fells guilty and miserable. She thinks that she is wearing a mask to be a perfect girlfriend that Dave has expected. That is the opportunity for Evan when Lauren first sees him at the school. She falls for him immediately. The climax is the plot that Dave has caught Lauren and Evan at the school’s parking lot. But everything is untied at the end of the story when Lauren says: ” Sorry Dave but I want to break up with you because I do not even know my own feelings.” At here Lauren is totally free and does not have to pretend that she is perfect girlfriend any longer.
As I read on, Naomi still not recover her memory loss. She has to deal with a lot of things that happening in her life. The characters in the story is complex and well developed. Naomi becomes a different person. Readers get to know Naomi as she get to find out about herself. The theme of this novel let us young adults take the time to rethink about our relationship and the idea of “what if” , what will our choices be? Naomi life is turning to a new direction. She get a chance to retake at her school and family matters. So far, Naomi doesn’t like the old Naomi, she was stubborn , friends with shallow girls, not speaking to her mother since her parents divorce. The amnesia, in fact, is a good event for her to take time and go back to recreate herself. Maybe this time, she will become a better person, solve her family problem by talking to her mother again. The author word choice are really easy to understand because it is the same as the way we talk everyday, unlike my first book The Secret Garden. The head trauma is an opportunity for Naomi to regain her identity, to be a better and happier person as she realized she was rather a shallow girl before she lost her memory. Naomi will keep finding what she likes and dislikes and will make wise decisions in the future.
Protagonist: Adam Pelko is the main character in this book. The story is told from his point of view and shows his experience throughout the book. This Adam Pelko character is quite unusual because he volunteered to join the marines however who in the right mind would join the war during World War II? Yet, in this book it could be seen that he had his own reasons of joining the war. Unlike other characters in war books, Adam Pelko takes pride in joining the marines and he is eager to tell his friend that he is going to serve his country. In other books, typical war book characters will be terrifyed of joining the war and espeically during World Wars it is highly unlikely to find a person eager to participate in the war. Therefore, it was interesting to find a different type of character in a typical war book.
Theme: The main idea in this book is the reality of war. At first the main character in this book, Adam Pelko, is very eager to join the war and wants to “show off” to his friends that he joined the marines. He has a different sense of mind when he goes off to participate in the war. He is proud, bright, and very happy yet, soon he realizes that the war is not what he thinks it is. As soon as, he sees his comrades die in front of him his thoughts towards war changes. He does not regret joining the marines but he realizes that the war is pretty much the opposite of what he had thought previously.
There’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.”
This is the main message in the Dairy Queen. D.J’s lives in a family where no one would talk about why D.J.’s best friend, Amber, suddenly isn’t so friendly. Or why her little brother, Curtis, is so quiet all the time. Or why her college-football-star brothers don’t call home anymore. Certainly D.J. can’t tell anyone about her dream of playing football, or the secret crush she has on the enemy’s popular Quarter Back, Brian. There’s a lot not being said out loud, not sharing to each other.
D.J. compares what she and the people around her, are actually cows. Everyone seems capable and calmly spend their whole day doing what they responsible for. She assumes no one actually doing stuff that can bring them their enjoyment in life, just like cow, willingly accepting whatever duty people throwing to you. D.J. doesn’t enjoy spending her all day on the farm at all. She does the job because it is her duty. However, as her desire for football grows, she finds that she also need have responsibility for her dream also. She can actually chase after her dream.
D.J. has to learn to talk during the summer training with Brian. She feels it would make her happy to share her thought and her feeling. She finds trust, warmness, and the comfort to express herself. Sometimes it takes more than just time to learn lesson. Courage and the willingness are always those necessaries to bring along the learning process.
My second book is Memoirs of a teenage amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin. Unlike the first book, this book is easy to read. The setting of the book is in the United States, in the modern time. The plot of the novel is about a girl named Naomi, who had lost the coin toss and had to go back to get the yearbook camera, just then she hit her head on the steps and woke up in an ambulance with amnesia. She can only remember the memories up to grade six. Naomi can hardly remember her boyfriend, Ace and her best friend Will. She doesn’t remember that her parents already divorce. It’s a whole new life for Naomi. We don’t know what will happen to Naomi, if she would ever get her memories back. This second book is really different from the first book The Secret Garden. While The Secret Garden bring back the innocence of childhood, fascination of magic, Memoirs of a teenage amnesiac is something I can relate because the story is about teenage life, something I can associate with.
My second book is ‘The High Window’ by Raymond Chandler. The beginning of the book starts with a character Philip Marlow, who is looking for a job from a newspaper article, which is a nice clean private detective for a woman called Mrs. Elisabeth Bright Murdock. Philip Marlow went to her house and finds out that there is more than one Mrs. Elisabeth Bright Murdock. Philip Marlow is a private detective who is always looking for a job. Once he has a job, he would do whatever it takes to get answers to solve his cases. I like this books a lot because Raymond Chandler describes everything so full of details. The book was written in the 1900s and therefore the English in the story can be different from modern books.
Dairy Queen, written by Catherin Gilbert Murdock, is described: “This is Romeo and Juliet in Wisconsin, with cows, but it’s more comic than tragic.” (– by Publishers Weekly)
I feel like watching a common teenager movie when reading this book. The book starts with a nice exposition of farming scene, where cows were named after soccer players. D.J , the protagonist, is a sixteen years old girl, works for her family’s farm by herself. She spends her whole day working on the farm, and this is also the reason she blames for her F in English class. Being raised up by a soccer coach, D.J has a huge love in football just as her two older brothers do. However she has learned to forget her own dream by silently coping with her farming work. Nobody expects her to play football as she also never believes she could make herself in the school team.
Brian Nelson is a well-known Quarter Back player in enemy team of D.J’s school team. He was sent to D.J’s house in summer to help D.J doing the farming work, also with the purpose that D.J could help training him in soccer. Two of the characters have hard time to get along with each other (since Brian is a popular boy, while D.J is described as a very average girl): Brian doesn’t used to do the farming works before, and D.J hates his attitude. However, as the story goes on, the two characters’ relationship gets better. They have fun times when doing the training and farming works. Eventually, they find out that they like each other more than friendship. By training for Brian, D.J discovers her desire for playing soccer grows bigger every day. This eventually becomes the motivation for her to try out for the school team, and she makes it.
The climax of the novel sets in when Brian sees D.J in the team, playing the position as his enemy. Brian doubts D.J taking advance over training him (for knowing his strengh and weakness.) He suspects all the fun time they both have with each other in D.J’s farming area. D.Jcan’t find a way to explain the whole situation of her desire for football to Brian. Finally D.J decides to confront Brian, tries clear out the misunderstanding. The plot doesn’t go any further to tell whether they end up as a young couple, whether D.J can be a good soccer player or not. D.J, in her first person perspective, also wondering what happens next. However, the book gives the reader a sense of happy ending through it optimistic tone, so that I believes if Dairy Queen is sort of a modern version of Romeo and Juliet, this is a happy version.
In this second book that I am reading, we are still with the same love theme. This time, this book will be more refer to a normal high school student life. Here, we will follow Miles “Pudge” Halter, a boy who plays safe in high school and is in an adventure, looking for his love life that has been hook to the very attractive and irresistible Alaska Young.
John Green made many points clear in this book: when you are sent to boarding school, many unexpecting things will happen to you and they will keep on coming even if you are going crazy. This book is divided into two parts. The “before” part and the “after” part. In the before part, Pudge made new friends such as “the colonel” and Takumi. But this story is not about him. It’s about the girl he likes, Alaska Young. Through his eyes, she is the most gorgeous and attractive girl in the school and that he ever met. She was perfect; she had all qualities that can make any guys for onto their knees. But unfortunately, she already has a boyfriend. Yet some small breaking hearts took place, but nothing stopped Miles not to like her. As the book progresses, the chemistry between Miles and Alaska progresses also. Alaska felt quite attach to Pudge though she refuses to be unfaithful to her current boyfriend, she tries many things for him to be happy with somebody else. But as predictably as it is, surely it didn’t work.
As for this first entry, I will focus in the “Before” part. I’ve enjoyed reading this novel because I felt very attach to this story. Reading throughout this book, as I reader, I felt like I was part of the book somehow. This novel is a mixture of comedy, thrill, adventure, mystery, romance of melancholy. There are some dramatic irony in the beginning the book between Miles’ friends and him. What connects the first and second part of the book is the flashbacks that Alaska will have which will also lead to a conflict and a climax quite unexpected…
And like I’ve mention, this book is about Alaska. What next will happen to Alaska will become the book’s biggest mistery… Stay tuned
As the story of ” A Handmaids Tail” came to an end I found myself wanting more. This extremely interesting world filled with lies, mystery, and horrible social boundaries just ended, without a real conclusion. As a reader I was expecting much more, since the rest of this novel has been so enthralling and beautifully written. Overall I enjoyed the somewhat disturbing world created by Margaret Atwood. It was a novel filled with social issues, suspense, and some truth about man, despite the unsatisfactory conclusion.
Throughout the novel the idea of religious ideas used for political purposes was apparent. As the Republic of Gilead uses scripture not only as guidelines, but for actual laws. Class ranks, soldiers names, even the names of the street shops, “Loaves and Fishes”, “All Flesh”, “Milk and Honey” are biblical allusions. This is one of the most interesting ideas in the novel, as religion and politics mix and churn into the disgusting ooze that is Gilead. After reading it, this novel makes you glad that you live in an age and time, where this totalitarian theocracy cannot exist.
This is my second book “ Bloom” by Elizabeth Scott. The book is suitable for almost every girl, which I have admitted that I am in love with it right at the first chapter.
The whole fascinating story is about a protagonist name Lauren and her relationship with her daddy and her secret world where only one person who is Evan Kirkland can understand. Lauren originally is an infamous high school student; however, after she has dated Dave- the hottest boy in the school, everything with her is changed totally. Other girls in the school are always envious with Lauren. With such a wonderful boyfriend like Dave, readers like me have thought that she will feel happy about things she has. Nevertheless, I was completely wrong. Lauren has a big problem with her beloved dad. They rarely have dinner together as well as a face to face conversation. Hence, Lauren turns to hate living an empty warmed house where she is living in. By fulfilling her emptiness, she hangs out with Katie even though sometimes she finds it exacerbates her a bit.
Days by days, the more Lauren gets closer to Dave’s family, the more she realizes that she is not a perfect girlfriend like he expected. She is tired of wearing a mask as the perfect girlfriend when going out with Dave, when talking to his friends and having dinner with his family members. She wants to be herself who is a little bit wild. Hence, when Evan appears, she immediately falls for him because at his side, she can find her own identity and feelings.
Talking about Evan, he has a specially position in Lauren’s mind because he used to be her brother in law when his mother and Lauren’s father had lived together years ago. The relationship between Lauren and Evan was very good and full of memorable memory. However, the brother and sister relationship did not last very long due to the break up between his mom and her father. Therefore, Evan and his mom has to move out and leaves the village. However, with the appearance of Evan takes the attention of Lauren right away.
After several times talking to Evan, Lauren conceives that only Even can understands her deeply. She starts to fall in Evan’s arms. And of course, every times she is with Evan, she has to lie to Katie and Dave. But despite the fact of lining, she definitely has a great conversation with Evan at the school library. The affair of Lauren cannot be hidden any longer when she cannot lie to herself and Dave. She wants to stays with Dave who can bring the popularity to her, and also connects with Evan who she can show her true feelings.
Conclusively, I think that the book is readable and provides the broad idea for young adults and teenager through Lauren. She is despicable but is worth to pay sympathy because finally, she wants to find her true love like everyone else.
