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Monster by Walter Dean Myers is a story of a hopeless teenager. As readers, we don't know much about Steve Harmon. We know that he is on trial for murder, he is presently in jail, he is black and sixteen years old. His story doesn't seem outstanding, he just seems to be a troubled youth. But while reading his movie version[screenplay] version of his reality, you see small scenes from his small life and his desperate thoughts: "I'm innocent." Soon I started to realize that this isn't just a story of guilty/innocent, it is a story of proving an under aged and unlucky boy's humanity.


So, as I do in a lot of my posts, I will find definitions of the word 'humanity' and similar words. Dictionary.Reference.com says humanity is "the quality of being humane; kindness; benevolence." merriam-webster.com says being humane is "marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals". And if being 'humane' is simply showing compassion and generally being kind, everyone can be 'humane'. Everyone has their own small moments of kindness and small niceties. It seems very easy to prove someone is humane but then again, proving someone is innocent is something completely different...


The reader begins to see the world through Steve Harmon's eyes, and the world becomes an ugly place. It seems like everyone judges him because of the color of his skin. "Half of those jurors, no matter what they said when we questioned them when we picked the jury, believed you were guilty the moment they laid eyes on you. You're young, you're Black, and you're on trial. What else do they need to know?" says O'Brien, Steve's defense attorney. In response, Steve says something very ,very interesting. He says "I thought you're supposed to be innocent until you're proven guilty?" And he brings up a very good point. Everyone is looking at him, and just because he is on trial, he is judged. Just because he is young, he is judged. Just because he is Black, he is judged. As a youth, he must already be slightly insecure and this must be really shaking him up(it would shake me up).
The prosecutor called Steve a "monster", causing him to feel uncomfortable. He is questioning himself. And I think that the power of suggestion is acting up. When people call him things, I think he believes them. I think he is slowly giving up hope on his innocence. But I'm not done with the book yet. So, I'm left thinking... Do you think that he will become a monster if he is called a monster? Do you think that the jurors will be humane, and judge him solely on the evidence?

Extremely Sad and Incredibly Beautiful

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer was a small book about life and death, love and war, and gain and loss. It was very beautiful but granted, very sad. When reflecting upon what I was going to write about, I realize how increasingly beautiful something becomes when it is heartbreaking. But does sadness in literature always make a good story? It's not the large topics in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that really hit home, rather, it's the small moments of life before the mournful moments of death.

Oskar's, the narrator's, father died in 911. Oskar's grandfather's family died in the bombing of his home town. Both Oskar and the grandfather character, Thomas, are in between life and death. Once Thomas said "life is scarier than death". I always found this concept very interesting. Every since I first heard Mystery Jets' song Dreaming of Another World (Side note: I have written about the Mystery Jets before. I'm very sorry if it is getting stale and if you think I am a broken record for only talking about this one song, from this one band. Please forgive.) There is a lyric that reads "to live or to die, the riddle without a clue". After hearing this, I kept thinking about how death compares to life? Honestly, to me living outweighed death every time. But nearly all of the characters in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close found living a dreaded chore. This is because all the characters believe that life is scarier than death. They have lost many family members to political violence. Even Oskar, no, especially Oskar feels that wavering between life or death is a legitimate choice. “Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped”, says he. He feels just as figuratively trapped as Thomas, the grandfather, and just as physically trapped as Thomas, his father.

In the flashback part of the story, Thomas, the grandfather, remembers the first time he "made love". (Side thoughts: He uses that term, "making love", that always bothered me. What is the difference between having sex, and making love? Nothing, it is two different words with the same definition. Like joy and happiness, cry and sob.) He remembers how much he loved her, and how she asked for them to "make love". And he remembers her wincing. When he asks her if anything is wrong, she says no. He asks her why she winced, and she said because it hurt. The next week or so, she died in the bombing. She was pregnant. To me, this is the definition of love: desire and pain.

To expand, can you live your life without fear of losing everything? Thomas and Oskar cannot, they are scarred by the horrible events that unfold and take everything from them. They are paralized by this fear and it prevents them from fully living their lives. Thomas used to have a family, a loving girl, an upcoming child, and a lovely home. But all of these things were ripped out of his hands, leaving him unable to love and resettle.

I honestly don't know what to believe about life and death, love and war, and gain and loss. After reading this book, it seems that one has to overcome fear in order to move forward. I feel I have only become more puzzled about my beliefs after reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I have even been questioning my writing style. To make a story beautiful, does it need to be so unnecessarily sad?

Congratulate me....

*SPOILERS ALERT: Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt-reveals ending for the film*

Congratulate me, I have finally finished Youth In Revolt by C.D.Payne! Finishing such a large book inspired me to treat myself to my favorite Hitchcock, Shadow Of A Doubt(1943-
Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten and Macdonald Carey). While I was watching the special features, Alfred Hitchcock was responding to a question about why Teresa Wright's character turned against her uncle, who had committed a series of horrible crimes, yet she him loved dearly. He quoted Oscar Wilde; "...each man kills the thing he loves..."

This hit me, and changed my point of view on Youth In Revolt almost completely. Instead of hating Nick Twisp for doing the stupid things he does for love, I understand that we all end up harming the thing we love most; either as dramatically as Nick Twisp to his family or as lightly as over talking to your friends about your new favorite band and then they ended up hating them. This seems very human, it has happened to me so often, maybe this is the objective of the novel. Perhaps the author C.D.Payne made Nick Twisp do the awful things he does to his family, to show the reader how we as humans affect our surroundings. To show how we SHOULD respect the things we love. Or even maybe Payne made N.Twisp do awful things and to ruin his own life, to show how we should appreciate our lives. The story of Nick Twisp will always puzzle me, and I fear I will never be able to fully appreciate the novel.

Have you ever killed something you love(metaphorically)?

AFTER THOUGHTS-yet another interpretation of Oscar Wilde's brilliance:
"...each man kills the thing he loves..."
Perhaps, the man who loves this thing the most has-almost-permission to end it, or kill it so to speak...Only because he knows so much and loves it so...Your thoughts?

Yet another Youth In Revolt post...(inspired by molly's post about characters: http://epiceyebrows.blogspot.com/2010/12/looking-into-mirror.html)

Have you ever seen someone in a crowd, and wanted to get to know them? Well that happens to me all the time, but now that I am reading Youth In Revolt I start thinking of everyone I don't know fully as a dirty, horrible liar. This assumption is totally unfair to those who are actually sweet and honestly nice. This makes me wonder if its better to know someone fully, with their flaws and all, or to barely know someone.

I think it totally depends on the person you get to know. Knowing someone you admire or enjoy spending time with very well, is great. Then you can talk deeply, and have inside jokes etc. Knowing someone very well and caring for them go hand and hand. But knowing someone you despise or hate very well, can be the worst thing possible. You will probably end up hating them, and quite possibly hating yourself.

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten very far in Youth In Revolt. Something always repulsed me about Nick Twisp, maybe its because the story gets TOO deep into his head. Since I dislike Nick Twisp, I don't want to know EVERYTHING that goes through his head.

This is what makes or breaks a story; the characters. If you really like a character, then reading will be a pleasure. But if you dislike a character, you will probably dislike reading just as much.

I often want to meet actors or musicians that seem super awesome. But you never know if you would get along with them. Sometimes ones expectations about a person, are not at all what that person is like.

Have you ever had this experience? Explain

"Every Revolution Needs A Leader"

I am currently enjoying the extremely dirty thoughts and words of Nick Twisp, the narrator of Youth In Revolt by C.D.Payne. Nick Twisp is a 14 year old boy, living in California, trying to loose his virginity and impress his girl. To impress, he must act as devilishly rebellious as possible. He burns cars and scares his parents, he lies uncontrollably and scares his friend's parents, he runs away and occasionally does drugs. While reading this story, I started questioning what is rebellion and is rebelling the only way to truly live?

According to Google, rebellion is "refusal to accept some authority or code or convention". According to the Canadian band, Arcade Fire's song Rebellion(Lies) being rebellious is doing things that aren't good, then lying and keeping it from others. According to BBC, rebellion is " often symbolic. They want to look grown up and impress their friends." To further explain, BBC explains taking risks: " teenagers have well-developed emotions and feelings but have still not acquired the ability to think things through."

If you never act out, and never do anything against the rules for all of your life, are you wasting your life?

I believe that wasting your life, has nothing to do with your level of rebelliousness, but your level of happiness.

Are you happy doing what you are doing?

My personal female icons

As you all know I recently cut my hair very short. Devon asked what inspired me to do such a thing, and I thought it would be a great topic for a blog post. My main reason for cutting my hair off, was in search of adventure. I am reading Paper Towns by John Green. It has to be the most life changing/view changing book I have read so far this year. It is an adventure/mystery story about the most wonderful, adventurous girl named Margo. She has become my favorite female icon because of her great adventurous side. She inspired me to be as adventurous as possible and to create a top five countdown kind of thing of female icons that I look up to.

Isabelle's Top Five Female Icons Countdown!
5)Coco Chanel-Because she stood up for girls when all we had to wear was poof dresses and corsets. She's brave.
4)Myrna Loy-Because she was always graceful and all for equal human rights. She's perfect.
3)Becky from the 1993 movie Whats Eating Gilbert Grape?-Because she was my adventuring queen and she's so accepting and real. She is effortless.
2)The girl in the song 'Dreaming of Another World' by Mystery Jet's-Because this girl seems to be a rule follower... then she is told to 'scrape the sky, and do something that would make her mother cry' She's adventurous. lyrics here
1)Margo Roth Spiegelman-Because she's human.

So to sum up my feelings about really awesome girls that I aspire to be like, read the book Paper Towns by John Green. Through all my adventure-longing encounters in books, music and popular culture, I realize what makes a great person is summed up in a quote from Paper Towns:
"And all at once I knew how Margo Roth Spiegelman felt when she wasn't being Margo Roth Spiegelman: she felt empty.She felt the unscalable wall surrounding her. I thought of her asleep on the carpet with only that jagged sliver of sky above her. Maybe Margo felt comfortable there because Margo the person lived like that all the time: in an abandoned room with blocked-out windows, the only light pouring in through holes in the roof. Yes. The fundamental mistake I had always made--and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make--was this:Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl."
--John Green(Paper Towns)
(She has to be real.)

To sum up my feelings about this new adventure seeking part of me, listen to the Mystery Jets, because they will tell you life without adventure is kind of boring.
"They don't teach these things at school
They just lay down the rules which are there for you to break"
--Mystery Jets(Flakes)
(Links to the songs: Flakes
Dreaming of Another World)

Okay so i
need
need
need
need your feedback!
please comment with the following things:
1.top 5 countdown with your female icons(if your a guy, you can do male icon if you want)
2.what inspires you to do what you do/be who you are/believe what you do?

thanks

the world kind of sucks...

I am a huge fan of graphic novels, so reading Persepolis and Persepolis 2 was a great joy. This story is a memoir of the author Marjane Satrapi. The story takes place in Iran during the '80s, while the revolution took place. It was a religious movement, where the religious fundamentalist's took over the government and enforced rules upon the population. These rules were religiously based, and I think, are unfair. These rules affected the lives of everyone, everywhere. Woman had started to wear head scarfs, woman and men were forever separated, you couldnt be seen on a date with a man unless you were married, you couldn't wear any formfitting clothing, you couldnt drink or wear makeup, and so much more. In Iran, people could be severly punished for breaking these rules. You could be put in jail, tortured or killed for such a small thing as wearing make-up.

The book is basically documenting one woman's view of all of these changes, and how her family deals with it. With all the sad discrimination and sexism, Marjane Satrapi is the reason I kept reading. She is such a sweet and innocent character, just trying to be free and get her rights back.

So if you were in Majane's shoes, how would you feel about not being able to walk around wearing makeup without fear of death?

You think your life is unfair...

Over the last two weeks, a few members of our book club and I have been reading Sold by Patricia McCormick. I feel like it is one of the strongest books I have read, next to The Giver, which is my favorite book. Sold sends such a strong message. This message, I feel, is the power of knowledge and choice. In this book, a number of girls have been sold into prostitution, including our stories narrator- Lakshmi. Lakshmi is only 13. She is a young child from the mountains, who has never in her life seen anything digital or anyone American, basically she had never left her small home in the mountains. When she is sold, she is the sweetest, most innocent girl, your eyes have ever seen. She trusts EVERY SINGLE adult in her life, including her step father who gambles away the little money they have. She trusts the rotten women who brought her to the city, and the horrid man that brings her to the 'happiness house' which is just the opposite of happy. It is one of many prostitution houses, filled with dirty air and dirty people. Her fate is now in the hands of a greedy 'mango faced' woman named Mumtaz. Mumtaz will only let Lakshmi leave when she has paid off her debt of 20,000 rupees plus interest.The girls there did not choose to be there, yet they were treated like dirt. One night with a girl costs the same amount as a bottle of coca-cola. She was sold for 10,000 rupees, which is about the same as 333 bottles of coca-cola.

This brings up the other issue of trust. Lakshmi trusts everyone, and this characteristic trust she has ends up getting completely ruined by her year in the 'happiness house'. She once trusted Mumtaz, but that left quickly when she realized that Mumtaz was only out for money and used her for a job no one should go through. She found a man once that hugged her after they had sex, and she trusted he would come back and not leave her a lone with nasty old men. He didn't come back. She trusted the police officer, but he didn't save any of the girls. Once in the book she even says "I don't understand this city. It is full of so many bad people. Even the people that are supposed to be good." This line moved me, because it makes me realize that you can't trust EVERYONE, like Lakshmi did.


The true intentions of some sick people in this world are just disgusting and I feel like it is most unfair that Lakshmi had to experience this so harshly. What Lakshmi faces during this time, is social injustice. She cannot chose her future and she cannot leave what future that has been decided for her. This story really makes me feel so glad and so so thankful that I have the things I have and that I am so fortunate to live in such a wonderful and great city!

Perspective

I have to admit, I haven't been reading as much as I should. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is not really grabbing my attention. It had a somewhat dull beginning and middle but such an enrapturing transition in between them. Now I am on page 71, and two lines in the book have really stood out to me.

The first line being, "On the face of it, Bullhead City doesn't seem like the kind of place that would appeal to the adherent of Thoreau and Tolstoy an ideologue who expressed nothing but contempt for the bourgeois trappings of Mainstream America. McCandless, nevertheless, took a strong liking to Bullhead." This line uses strong vocabulary and gets its point across bluntly. I am pretty sure anyone who has been to the suburbs has seen the desert of fast food restaurants and carbon copy stores, like Abercrombie and Fitch. We cannot say what the appeal of Bullhead City is to McCandless because we don't know a whole lot about him. Maybe McCandless grew up in a similar setting. Perhaps it reminded him of home. It felt familiar and he wanted to spend some time there. But sometimes, I am drawn to the suburb culture because I never grew up in such a setting. So perhaps he was drawn there because it was different. He might have been drawn to either its feelings of familiarities or to its foreignness. I think the appeal of the character Alex McCandless is that he is a little unknown and mysterious. We don't know a whole lot about him. But we know he's a bright person and generally free of all emotional attachments.

The 2nd line I found interesting shows the character differences between McCandless and a friend he meets on the way named Franz. Franz was an old man who was the last line in his family and was dreadfully lonely. When McCandless and Franz's paths cross, Franz is changed by the whole experience. He creates a new friend who he cares for and wants McCandless to settle down. Franz becomes very attached to McCandless and says "Somebody needed to convince him to get an education and a job and make something of his life." This line triggered a lot of thought for me as a reader. It reminded me that perspective was a huge issue in this book. What Franz thinks "making something of his life" is different than what McCandless thinks. McCandless began his adventure on purpose, he believes this adventure is "making something of his life." The whole book is his perspective and how he follows his beliefs out, even if it means dying for it.

So I guess I could say that I love the different perspective this book gives me, but sometimes I find it a little dull.

lets escape :)

*Spoiler alert for The Giver*

During the last few years of my life, I've become fascinated by the idea of escaping. To escape the boring repetition and schedules of daily life was always an idea I kept in mind while starting this years ELA class. I've always wanted to write a story about a person who escapes their boring lives, just like in Coraline, The Giver, or Alice and Wonderland.

Christopher Johnson McCandless, the main character in the book Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, was longing for an escape just like me. He went "into the wild" and roughed it for a very long time living of a sac of rice.

I admire this book's strong sense of character. The book is written with a narrator telling Chris' story, but somehow it allows the reader to peak into Chris' mind even more.

While you read this book, you would notice that it is written like a document. It is filled with facts about Chris. There are journal entries about an abandoned car((which turns out to be his)). The narrator presents the facts and all the facts seem to show how one person's actions can affect the people around him. If one person breaks free, than people around that person are affected. This reminds me a lot of The Giver, which was my last entry. When Jonas left his community, all of the villagers got the memories and were affected a lot! When Chris left home, all his family was scared and all the fellow hitchhikers were inspired by him.

Since we can't emerge ourselves in Chris' head, I often wonder if he misses home. Whenever, other characters see him, they always describe him as free, great and blissful. But is he really though? Is he that happy far away from home? Doesn't he miss the small moments and memories of home. Little moments filled with joy are what I think life is worth living for. Great adventures are wonderful, but coming home to small things are really what makes it for me.

To conclude, I love my small life and I don't think I would be able to or like to escape just yet...

"To Deny Our Own Impulses is to Deny the Very Thing That Makes us Human."

*Spoilers: the ending of The Giver and a little of V for Vendetta*

The world of The Giver is so complicated and confusing. Lois Lowry is trying to send us, as readers, so many messages and thoughts! But while I was reading the book, a few things stood out to me. One of them is that even though the characters in the community are technically human, they don't display qualities of human nature. The way they were brought up just prevents them from changing and really growing up. In the book, Jonas gets "Stirrings" which are basically just hormones and normal feelings for an adolescent boy. But in his community, when children get the Stirrings they also receive a pill to stop them. These Stirrings are just normal for a boy his age, why would anyone, let alone an entire village, try and stop them? Well you see, I think that the community wanted to stop ALL strong feelings, wants and desires. I think they are doing this out of fear. They fear that hurt and self destruction will occur with the existence of feelings. This is forcing them to destroy all feelings, good and bad. Such feelings as love and happiness. With ALL feeling, ALL color, and ALL choice gone no one in the community has had a problem. And this system has been working out for them for quite sometime. Why would the community want to stop the Stirrings? This seems unnatural or non-human. It reminds me of the film The Matrix. There was a scene where Mouse says to Neo, "to deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human." This is just what that small community is trying to do. But there is one person in the community who receives all the memories, good and bad. This one person would have to take on the whole communities ignorance to feelings. So that's where Jonas our main character comes in. He and he alone must face all of these feelings, along with his own feelings of growing up. But there is the character that the book is named after, the Giver. The Giver really helps him cope with his new found feelings.

Another thing that stood out to me was how the whole community seemed to have a format. What I mean is, that whenever a member of the community does something wrong, they have a standard apology and acceptance of apology. This was a small thing, a micro idea, that bothered me, and made me really realize that something was weird. I think that they do this because they don't have any creativity, or feelings, to express themselves. So using these standard communicating phrases, doesn't bother them. And neither does using stiff vocabulary. The vocabulary that most characters use is official and formal sounding. For example, instead of using the word "family" they say "family unit", "home" is "dwelling" and so on. Lois Lowry's decision to use this official language really allowed me and all her other readers to be fascinated by this small community of no feeling, no color and no choice.

A book that I really like and that I have read is V for Vendetta. In both of these books, there are mysterious characters, with strong histories and passions. In The Giver, it is the Giver himself. The Giver can see color, which casts him aside from the rest of the community. Also, he has so many books, where as family units like Jonas' only have a few books of rules and textbooks. So, of course when Jonas meets the Giver, he is enraptured by the culture he holds. In V for Vendetta, the character V is a masked stranger who anyone would love because of his strong character and his strong beliefs and passions. So in this book, the main character, Evey, loves V for who he is, not who he appears to be- which is a masked killer. I love both V and the Giver, which is something that I wouldn't be able to do if I lived in Jonas' world.

Do you feel that feelings are dangerous?