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.