The importance of the History

My book has a to of history about the house in the first 50 pages. It went back to all of the owners of the house and explains why the house is the way it is and it really helps you visualize. It talks about how two of the owners were brothers and split the house down the middle with a thick line to stay divided. I now know that the mansion has a thick line down the middle. It also talks about a rather odd owner who liked building bombs and committing arson. This explains why there is a good sized chemistry lab for Flavia to work in. There are many more of these short descriptions and when they all come together you can really visualize Flavia's house, Buckshaw.

If I was Flavia...

If I was Flavia I wouldn't take all of the mean stuff that Ophelia told me. I would fight back and no take it. I'm not sure how Flavia copes because I couldn't. I also wouldn't trust either of my sisters. They are liars. They lied about there mom and they lied about Flavia's. They told her that her mom didn't like her, that her dad didn't care about her, and that she was adopted and she just took it. I would have lashed out and gotten angry . Flavia has tremendous self control and is super tough.

Sweetness-ophelia

I don't like Ophelia. She is a witch. She thinks she is so much better than Flavia and is just plain mean to her because of it. She told Flavia that she was adopted and that the only reason that she looks like their mom is because her mom wanted a kid that looked like her. That is so evil and vile. Every time Flavia is in her chemistry lab Ophelia doesn't just leave her alone to work. She goes up there and heckles her. She goes out of her way to torture her! My opinions will probably change since I'm still early in the book and I don't fully understand her background but for now I don't like her.

Sweetness- character Flavia

 Flavia is a pair of really weird looking glasses. She is always observing and watching but she is definatly query as well. If someone where's weird glasses they will probably be picked on or looked down appon and that's how flavia is in her family. She is looked down apom and picked on by her older sisters. They even told her that she was adopted. Though she takes all of this she is much smarter and more observant then her sisters.

The Sweetness at he Bottom of the Pie- Beginning Analysis

The first thing that I want to say is that the book is great so far. I am about 20 pages in and I really like the writing style. It had an interesting beginning that really drew me in. It started with the words all in capital letters, "IT WAS AS BLACK IN THE CLOSET AS OLD BLOOD" (Bradley1). This I thought opened up question's like why is she in a closet? Overall it drew me in. I really noticed the use of elevated diction. Bradley uses words like "dirigible" and "righteous indignation". It very effectively conveys the way the character, Flavia, is extremely intelligent for an eleven year old girl. The technique he uses to draw the reader in is foreshadowing. He starts with Flavia escaping captivity in her attic to Flavia walking down to an ordinary dinner at her house.

At this point Bradley begins to introduce backstory and characters. He introduces Flavia's father, her sister Ophelia, her sister Daphne, and her deceased mother Harriet. At this time Ophelia and Daphne reveal to Flavia that she had been adoped and that is why she is so different from Daphne and Ophelia. Flavia doesn't have a good relationship with her sisters can you tell? Then he introduces the backstory of Flavia's family, the de Luce's, and the story of her mansion, Bucksaw. This is where I left off.

New Book... Finnaly

So in my earlier posts I kept saying I was going to start a comedy book and I am proud to say I didn't go through with it. I decided to take baby steps instead. My new book is called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. This is still historical fiction but it is a mystery. So ha! I am branching out a little. Really the only reason I chose this book was because my mom said I would like it. The only reason ?I listened is because she has steered me in the right direction for books before so I'll give it a try.

From what I can tell by reading the synopsis is it is about some genius 11-year-old girl named Flavia de Luce. Now that's a name! Anyway she is an aspiring chemist who likes poisoning things. A tween who can poison things can probably be pretty destructive. It is set in the British countryside in the 1950's and the story is sparked when her mansion called Buckshaw. Its not the prettiest mansion and is decaying. So there mansion is sent a dead bird with a postage stamp on the beak through the mail. I don't know about you but that would be creepy. Then Flavia finds a dying man in the yard telling her to save her father from jail. It sounds pretty good. I'll do an updated post when I am like 30 pages in or so.

I Am Done With a Bad Book

I am finally done with my book that I have blogged about for like 5 months (it's pretty pathetic). For one of my last post of the book I want to do a review. I picked up the book originally because I read another book by the same author that was fantastic. It is call Between Shades of Grey and it is awesome. Read it. Anyway that is why I started it and I have been let down a bit. It wasn't as good as Between Shades of Grey. I don't think it was depressing enough. I don't know why but I really like depressing books which is a problem because I am going to try to read a funny one next to broaden my genre's. Okay, back to my current book.

It is about a girl named Jo Moraine and her not normal teenage life in a 1950's New Orleans. Most 19 year olds are off to college and planning her life but Jo was working at a bookstore and cleaning a cathouse where her prostitute mother resided. Her life was then changed when a visitor from Tennessee came to the book shop. He wasn't even that special. He came in, talked for like a minute, bought a boring book, and then left. Then he died. Sorry, spoiler alert. Its not that important anyway. Jo was sad when she found out he died. She had really deep thoughts. So that was the end of that for a while.

For the next 20 or so pages she really didn't do anything. She fought with her mom about some guy named Cincinnati that her mom wanted to run away with who was supposedly awful. Though you can't make you own decision on Cincinnati because he is in the book for probably 5 pages. You here hype about him like, "It had been two years since the incident. He hadn't been back to the quarter since and no one missed him" (Sepetys11). You here all this hype and he is in the book for probably 3 whole sentences. I have probably said more about him then the book has in this one post. So she did that and cleaned a brothel. It was a pretty boring start.

Then another girl came to the bookstore and they became instant "besties" as they would say and her new friend invited her to a party. She, unlike Jo went to a good college in the North East. Jo met her friend’s uncle there who was a typical snob. Take note of that, it is important later. So now Jo wanted to go to college now. She is so needy. So now she had that dream and she had the grades but no one important enough to write a recommendation letter. Oh yeah, she also found that dead guy's watch (who came in the book shop, yeah that guy) under her mom's bed and her mom ran off with a junk guy because she has such a good profession. So the Jo caught her new besties uncle at the brothel and then decided to blackmail him for a recommendation letter. She isn't the nicest of girls.

Long story short she wrote the recommendation letter on his stationary, the guy who owned the book store she worked at went crazy, the uncle of her bestie hit on her, and that’s about it. It was a pretty boring book with not very many, no let me rephrase, no plot twists, and not many surprises. I sort of enjoyed when I read it but it got boring by the end. My recommendation is skip it and that's about it. I give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Similar themes

One of the themes that our class looked at for Farenheit 451 was that you need to engage with difficult situations to achieve happiness and Montage had to do this and Jo in my book, Out of the Easy has to go through akward situations to achieve happiness. Jo has to consider leaving her home, hide a stolen, dead man'a watch and blackmail an influential, high class citizen all to fulfill her dream of getting out of her crappy life in the quarter and go to learn at a good college. All of Montag's issues amount to his goal to learn and gain knowledge so I'm many ways the books are very similar

Characterization

For my blog I want to revisit characterization in Out of the Easy. At first I had Jo as a book but she has changed a lot through the book so I think now she is more like a tree. She is growing and getting smarter as she tries to get away from the French Quarter but her roots there are holding her. With people like willie and Patrick she is having trouble just leaving. She depends on them and they depend on her so the others around her are other plants and animals the depend on her as the tree. It starts to sound bad when I explain it but all I'm saying is that she depends on the people around her as they depend on her. This might keep her there in the quarter instead of going off to a big eastern school like she wants too.

Tri 2 faves and Tri 3 plans

I am about 3 quarters of the way through my current book, Out of the Easy so I will definitely finish it soon. Right now Jo is in a good place with her recommendation letter for a good college in hand that she blackmailed a businessman to write and is sending it off soon. She desperately wants to get out of the french quarter she lives in and her past. She wants a good education to start a fresh new life. While she is looking at a good full education she is having problems with the mentally unstable man who had taken her in many years ago. He recently cut himself, without knowing, with scissors she left out so she feels very guilty. I have really enjoyed this book and want to finish it soon.

This Tri I want to branch out in my genres. I have really stuck to depressing historical fiction for about two years now and want to try something new. I will probably read Steven Colbert's, I am America (And so can You!) I want to read something that interests me and I really like political humor so I'm going to give it a try.

Reflection

Blog Reflection

          In general I have really enjoyed blogging about my reading over the course of this trimester. It helped me keep track of all of the different events and conflicts in the book I have been reading. I am disappointed that I didn't even get through one full book this trimester but I have read more carefully and feel like I have a higher understanding of the book.  One of my bigger strengths through blogging was my ability to summarize the key events in my blog from my book. I also liked to see what other people were posting. It gave me ideas for future books I might like. It also helped to look at their blogs to get ideas for new posts

          My ability to closely analyze texts has improved very much over the course of the trimester. At the beginning had had brief summaries about what was happening but now I go into more detail of the events surrounding what's happening. My first post of this book was a summary and I really made just a few generalizations and just basically said what happened with no background info. it sounded like this," She has an interesting and tough life and gets no help from her mother". I am pretty sure that a lot of girls have tough relationships with their parents so this doesn't really tell the reader anything about the book. One of my later summary posts was much more detailed and I focused in on one or two big scenes instead of making a bunch of very general statements. It sounded like, "She started writing the letter with Patrick's dad Charlie who was very mentally unstable. They couldn't tell anybody about his condition because they didn't want him to get hauled off to an asylum." This is much more detailed and gives the reader more knowledge about the particular situation that the main character is in.

          Overall I have enjoyed blogging and wish I had started it sooner because it really does help me keep track of events in the book. I do think the quality of my posts increased throughout the trimester going from little, general statements, to more detailed sentences that tells the reader much more about the book.            

Character Connections

For my final blog of the trimester I thought I would go back and connect Jo to a different item since I have progressed in the book. Jo is like a car that you have had for a really long time. At first stuff is working and everything is good. but then something breaks and you have to get it fixed. Then a year later some new problem arises that you have to fix. Then there is a problem that arises that you kind of put off fixing like a recall on the car. All of these little problems are like Jo's conflicts in the book. She finds many problems in her life that she either gets resolved or puts them of like her letter from Mr. Lockwell. She put off the issue of Forrest Hearne's watch.   

Out of the Easy- Busy Night

I just finished a part in my book where a lot happened. I don't think it was the climax but a lot of Jo's problems either grew or shrunk in this section. It started with her talking to Mr. Lockwell who she was trying to get a recommendation letter out of. When she went in the only thing he wanted was to see her in high heels which she didn't where because she knew he didn't write the letter. He pretty much just flirted with her which she found disgusting because he is probably 25 years older and then  he offered her a job. She declined and took some of his stationary to write the letter herself. She started writing the letter with Patrick's dad Charlie who was very mentally unstable. They couldn't tell anybody about his condition because they didn't want him to get hauled off to an asylum. She put him in front of the typewriter hoping for a response from him. He only typed the letter "B" but that was a huge improvement. She decided to give him his medicine and see how it played out. She walked out for a moment and went she returned he was covered in blood and scissors were in his hands. He had a huge gash on his forehead and gashes on his arms. She panicked and held rags up to his head to stop the bleeding.
Patrick came in a moment latter and was freaking out. Willies sent a military doctor with Cokie. The doctor was drunk but he was able to sew up Charlie's wounds. Patrick was very mad at Jo for not giving Charlie his medicine and Jo felt terrible. Jo then went with Cokie to Willie's where she found Mr. Lockwell  who was have car problems. Jo promised to get a mechanic if he signed the letter he wrote. He agreed and she brought Jesse and he fixed it. So Jo is one step closer to going to a good college but is having more troubles with Charlie.
 

Out of the Easy- Conflicts

There are many conflicts in Out of the East both internal and external. At this time in the French quarter Jo is getting hit by a storm of problems. First of all she is trying to go to a good college but doesn't have the money, she is working two jobs everyday, her mother ran off with an abusive idiot, and on top of all of this she has a dead mans watch. She is having an internal conflict because she has mixed feelings about the watch and doesn't want to get rid of it. She feels like he was the only decent man to come to the area. She is also worried that Willie found out because for her 18th birthday Willie got Jo the companion watch to the dead man's. Jo is also in the process in blackmailing a man in the upper class to write her a recommendation for college after Jo caught him leaving Willies brothel. Though he is going to do it she is not quite sure that he isn't going to turn on her and wiggle his way out of their deal. Jo has a lot to worry about right now and is very stressed that she will be discovered with the watch or her mom will come back. Now for comments talk about whether or not you've ever been in this much trouble.

Blizzard Bag

1.) I am still reading Out of the Easy and I'm a little over halfway finished. At this point Jo is trying to leave the quarter and go to a women's college in Massachusetts called Smith. She has the grades but not the money and Willie doesn't want her to leave so she said that she will only pay for a local college. Jo also found Forrest Hearne's (a dead man) watch. She doesn't want to get rid of it even though it could get her in a lot of trouble with the law. She is also shocked when Willie gives Jo the companion watch for her birthday. Jo thought it was a way of telling her that Willie knew but she made no mention of it.

2.) So far I am enjoying Romeo and Juliet but mainly because of all of the dramatic irony. Since we all know the end of the story it is kind of weird to hear all of the hints that Shakespeare provide about the outcome of the story. I also find it funny on how quick Romeo and Juliet are to trust and love. It's like the second they see each other they have already decided to die if the can't be with on and other.
 This is the opposite of the character Jo in my book. She doesn't trust very easily even with the people she has known for years. Romeo and Juliet have known each other for only a few hours and have all ready decided to spend their lives together.