Can you imagine the feeling of repeatedly finding one person, someone you want to spend the rest of your hours doing nothing but enjoying time with, and only days after they’re there, they vanish? “Normal People” by Sally Rooney follows the lives of two Irish teenagers in the early 2010s. Connell Waldron, a high school boy from a middle-class family feels comfortable in his hometown. He’s the star of his school's soccer team, he gets along with almost anyone, and the way his grades look he has a bright future ahead of him. His life goes without a hitch until he starts interacting with the daughter of his mother’s employer, Marianne Sheridan. Marianne is far from ordinary, she goes to the same school as Connell and gets excellent grades, but she lacks the whole social aspect of her life. An omniscient third-person narrator tells the book. The conflict of the whole story mainly revolves around those two characters. They both share a deep unmoving love for each other, no matter who they’re with or where they are. But the timing in their relationship never seems to match up, causing heartbreak and pain for both of them constantly. When it comes to storytelling, I genuinely think this might be one of the best books I’ve ever read. Sally Rooney effortlessly weaves together a tight-knit story using beautiful word choice and swift changes in perspective that gives you an all-around look at the thoughts and feelings of the characters. The constant switch between characters helps to show how they rely on each other, without the voice of the other character, the story isn’t truly whole. The author also uses a plethora of flashbacks in the book, which gives all the background information you need to understand the current conflict between people. Another important literary technique that I found extremely interesting was the author's way of writing dialogue between characters. It’s written without quotation marks, which makes it feel like you’re truly hearing the conversation because the words of others and the thoughts of the main characters aren’t separated in the slightest. When it comes to what I’ve learned about myself, I am truly at a loss for words. I could say I look at relationships in a more critical way after reading all the ways Rooney picked them apart in her book, but It’s simply not true. I read how two people, both suffering in their own ways, came together to discover a sense of home and unity. I read how two people constantly separated and came back together because they knew deep down they weren't the same without the other. I’ve read and learned that things won’t always work out. People change and distance and time stress the soul. But life is not made of sadness, hardships, and anger. Life is shaped and created by those who you let close enough to love you and change you in the most beautiful way possible. I’ve learned that it’s not terrible things or the most amazing things that can change your life. Sometimes, It’s just normal people. -Mack
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How many people in Decorah can say they don’t have a home? Esperanza, the narrator of “The House on Mango Street,” has a place to live, but she doesn’t have a home she feels she belongs in. “The House on Mango Street” is a book composed of vignettes detailing various scenes from the life of a young girl living amongst the minority. Esperanza is a Mexican-American girl who has to live a life that is dictated by her social class and her race. There are many books written about people different from me, but I chose this book for the way it describes Esperanza’s experiences—the vignettes feel personal, like reading straight from someone’s diary. There was no overarching plot throughout the book that jumped out to me through the story, but the style of writing was prominent throughout the book. “The House on Mango Street” reads like a diary, like memories that were important for one reason or another. Esperanza often wrote about small details, like candles on top of a fridge, a song, a couch, that it felt so vivid and personal to read. Another thing that I noticed was closely entwined with the emotions and feelings Esperanza had was the actual house itself. The house on mango street was not what her immigrant parents wanted—it was neglected, poor, looked down on—and I noticed the house seemed to be representative of Esperanza herself. When Esperanza gets her future read, the only thing found was “home made of heart”. This stuck out to me as representing the house, and the fact that the only thing homelike about it is what Esperanza can find in her heart with her family. Together these vignettes don’t have a specific plot, but rather an evocative emotion ingrained into each chapter. From first glance, Esperanza and I do not appear similar—we are from different ethnic backgrounds, different classes, even different time periods—but we feel the same. Esperanza tells her stories like she is tired, like she has a bone-deep weariness at the end of each day. Thinking back on the book, I feel as though I am remembering this story as though it is my own, and it helps show that no matter what country your family is from, how much money you have, how you are treated—there aren’t any new emotions. Teenage girls are teenage girls no matter who the world thinks they are, and all feelings are universal even if individual circumstances are unique. -Klara Kelly There are some books that once you read them leave an impression on you for the rest of your life. Then there are some books that become part of your childhood once you read them. The book Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell is both of these things. Eleanor is a bigger girl with big red hair and even stranger fashion. Eleanor moves to a new school and has to ride the bus every day to school; this is when she meets Park. Park is the only Asian kid in the school and has always felt different. Throughout the story, Eleanor and Park fall for each other and learn about themselves. Eleanor and Park go through so many challenges of growing up and going through high school together, however, the biggest challenge is Eleanor's stepfather. Read the book Eleanor and Park to find out if the two can overcome the challenges of life and love or if they break apart over time. I went into the book knowing it was meant for people about my age or a little younger so I didn’t expect much. I thought it was just going to be a silly book about two kids growing up and had close to no expectations. I was quickly proven wrong about my original thoughts. The book is meant for a younger audience but it is anything but a silly little book. The book made me think a lot about how different people are treated in high school and if I was in their situation if I could even overcome it. Reading this book while I was also in high school was the perfect time to read it because there were so many times when I put myself in their shoes and I truly don’t think I could have done what they did. I have always tried to fit in and I don’t like being the odd one out so for Park to give up on his old friends to hang out with Eleanor even though she is the weird kid and I wish this weren’t true but I don’t think I could do that in high school. I went into the book thinking I was too old to read a book like this but now I realize I was the perfect age to read this book and for my opinions to change for the better. As I said earlier this book really changed my opinions on myself and others around me. Looking back I don’t have close to anything in common with Eleanor or Park. The main challenge around Eleanor is her messed up family but I couldn’t relate to that if I tried. My parents are still happily married my two brothers love me and I don’t have nearly any of her family problems. I also have close to nothing in common with Park. I am not a minority by any means I am a straight white woman and have never really felt out of place as Park did before he met Eleanor. Though I have almost nothing in common with these two characters they still changed me in ways I never thought would happen. The book changed the way I looked at others and the way I perceive others around me. I have started to think about my classmates for what they do and not what they look like or for their family. There are so many people that you just make a judgment on without thinking. Some of these judgements are rude and some are just harmless thoughts that you have. For example, some of my peers wear off-brand clothing and I have judged them for it. It wasn’t anything harsh but in my head, I started to think about them differently. Until I read this book I never realized that I took a person's clothing into consideration about their personality way more than I should. I have started to look at people for who they are and not for what they wear. This book has truly changed me for the better based on my perception of others and the way I simply see people. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read about Eleanor and Park when I was in high school allowing the full impact of the story to affect me. -Clara H. Teenagers face a great deal of growing pains when it comes to family, relationships, and their future life ahead. Love, Hate, and Other Filters, written by Samira Ahmed, tells the story of a young American-Indian-Muslim woman, named Maya who goes through the trials of growing up in the Midwest with traditional parents and new American values. Maya with traditional parents and new American values. Maya grows up in a very strict household often not being able to uphold her parents expectations, when all she wants to do is be a normal American teenage girl. She really just wants to hangout with friends, film everything she can, and date the boy of her dreams. All while experiencing many instances of islamophobia all demonstrated by one boy at school. While reading this book the thing that surprised me the most was definitely just how strict her parents were. Maya had really wanted to go to NYU for film school and she ended up having to choose between her dream or her parents, ultimately she pursued her dream and her parents disowned her. This was somewhat hard for me to understand because something that Maya should have determined was so easily willing to be thrown away by her parents. Although the tense plot with Maya’s parents, my favorite part about the book was the way in which it was told. It was given this sort of modern feel. I loved how the author incorporated various text messages, emojis, new reports, and stories to add to the overall style of the book. After this book I definitely learned more about the reality of minorities living in the United States. I had known before of their struggle but this helped me understand it from someone around my age's point of view. Samira Ahmed does a wonderful job of portraying the story of a young girl trying to find herself amid all the chaos of growing up in a small American town. I like how she brought light to things that teenagers had never thought of or understood until after reading. “Even if we lived in India, I would still be who I am and want what I want. Geography wouldn't have changed that.” by Amelia D. Being gay isn’t a choice, people can not help who they like and they should not have to hide who they are. Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens is a story following the life of Nima Kumara-Clark. Nima is a young teenager with an average life, she lives with just her dad after her mom left with unusual circumstances. Nima has two main friends Charles and Ginny who Nima has a crush on. After Nima’s failed attempt to tell Ginny her feelings she goes through a downward spiral until the carnival comes around. Nima goes to a show called punk poetry where she is captivated by the performer. Nima’s sleepy life suddenly changes when she finds herself at a drag show at the carnival which ends up leading her into what seems to be a whole new world.“But I told myself if I could just get past my house and hammock without being sucked in by the guaranteed comfort, something else might be waiting for me on the other side, something that might color me outside the lines and flow into other parts of my life.” As the story progresses we see Nima struggle to keep her normal life and her new exciting life together along with finding out the real reason her mom left. I was really surprised at the characters of the book each one was so different from anything I had ever read and it made them feel real. I have never read a book that was about characters struggling with their identity and being exposed to the LGBTQ community. I thought that the LGBTQ community was accurately interpreted without over- exaggerating the whole community. It surprised me how much I related to Nima as a character, her anxiety really made sense to me because of the drastic changes her life takes. Gordon Grant’s character development surprised me because, in the beginning, I thought he was the typical bad guy with no character ark. As the story progresses we see him change his views and even learn that he is struggling with his self-identity. It was really refreshing to read a book that accurately presented the LGBTQ in a positive, not over the top way. This reading without walls was supposed to be about finding stories with characters who you don’t relate to, however, while I relate to some aspects of Nima there are other aspects of her life I don’t. Nima had never known how big the LGBTQ community was, I on the other hand knew how big the community was and how for the most part they are very welcoming and friendly. Throughout the book, I saw Nimas’ way of thinking change. In the beginning, she was fine about her sleepy life but after the drag show, she began to want to explore more of the world she thought was small. I also really enjoyed reading about the character Gordon Grant, I felt like he represented people who don’t feel comfortable in their own skin but they aren’t able to explore who they are without judgment from their peers. Overall this story was a great book to read and it really captivates the reader. I would recommend this story to anyone who is struggling with their identity or anyone who wants to read a good book. by Olivia S. I never realized how fast you could become in love with a stranger, until I read Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. Eleanor and Park is a book that alternates between Eleanor’s perspectives and Park’s perspective. Eleanor is a 16-year-old girl with curly red hair, and Park is a half- Korean, 16-year-old boy. They meet each other on a school bus on Eleanor's first day at the school and gradually connect through comic books and mixtapes of '80s music, sparking a love story. Park grows to love Eleanor and Eleanor learns to understand Park. What surprised me the most is how close Eleanor and Park grew throughout the story. In the first chapter of the book Eleanor got on the bus for school, and had nowhere to sit. Park hesitated but eventually let her sit with him. The next few chapters Park and Eleanor became very close. I was challenged because of how much Eleanor and Park became to like each other, it didn’t make sense. Eleanor had horrible conditions at her house with her abusive stepdad and tiny home. She was also bullied everyday. Where as Park fit in with all the popular kids at their school and his home was filled with love. However, I noticed that the author was trying to get people to understand that there is more to people than what is just on the surface. Eleanor may have dressed weird and had not many nice things, but she was so much more than just a chubby, quirky girl. The same goes for Park. His father was a very masculine guy and took pride in it. So park put on a fake appearance of being tough and rugged, when really he was very insecure about his size and heritage. This book changed me in many ways. It taught me about understanding that people are much more complex than what you may think. I learned that just because people dress differently or act different doesn’t mean they are weird or different at all. In this story Park fell in love with a girl who he thought was weird, which shows how alike everyone is. I learned so much from this book. I learned that the saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” has such a deep meaning and is so true. I’m a person who used to judge people before I really even knew who they were. After reading this book however, I have changed my ways. I truly understand how unique people can be and how much they have to offer when you really get to know them. This book has changed me forever and changed me for the better. I will never again judge a person because of their looks or how they dress, but by what kind of person they are, deep down. I'm a completely different person because of this book and I can’t believe the effects it had on me. This book is going to help me for the now, and for the future. I feel that because of the relationship Eleanor and Park had I am able to connect with people on a much deeper level. by Lane R. Have you ever felt out of place in your own skin? Dumplin’ is all about a girl named Willowdean Dickson. She works at a fast food restaurant called Harpy’s. Working there, she meets Bo. Bo is a jock from private school. But, Bo soon transfers to Will’s school. When she starts falling for Bo, she is shocked to see him like her back. “Beautiful, he says. Fat, I think. But why can’t it be both at the same time?” Will makes the abrupt decision to enter her town's local beauty pageant, the “Teen Miss Blue Bonnet” pageant. Her mom, the director and former winner of the “Miss Teen Blue Bonnet” pageant, is shocked to find out that Will enters the pageant. The story takes you through Will’s point of view of her journey through the pageant and self confidence. The author urges readers to think beyond stereotypes and focus on what you think of yourself instead of what others think. Will has a best friend, El. I was surprised when they let the pageant come between their friendship. Will and El both entered the pageant for different reasons, raising a disagreement. They had been friends since they were 5 and they let their opinions come between them. The writing of the book had a lot of Southern “slang” which is expected knowing the book is based in Texas. It was fun but also challenging to figure out what all of their explanations meant. It was also fun to read it in my head with a southern accent. I learned many lessons from this book. I learned that my opinion about myself is more important than others. I learned that if I want something to change, then I have to do it myself. I have also learned to never assume you know what someone else is going through. This book has made me have more empathy for others. I have learned that just because someone is different, that doesn’t and shouldn’t define them. It also taught me to be more confident in and about myself. In the words of Willowdean Dickson, “Every body is a bikini body.” by Rachel M. Imagine having never left your house for as long as you can remember. This is the reality for Madeline in Nicola Yoon’s book Everything, Everything. Madeline has a very rare disease where essentially she is allergic to the world. Because anything could cause her to have an allergic reaction, she never goes outside. Madeline is okay with this situation because it is all that she has ever known. But when a new boy, Olly, moves in next door, Maddy begins to realize what she has been missing out on. And as she gets to know Olly better, she begins to long for a more “normal” life. Eventually, she decides that she can’t keep wasting her life, so she and Olly take a trip to Hawaii, her first time out of the house in nearly 17 years. She thoroughly enjoys the trip and getting to spend time with Olly. Even though she wasn’t sure if she was going to physically live for the whole trip, she decided that it was worth dying to get to actually live a little bit instead of staying in her house for the rest of her life. This book really got me thinking about all of the things that I take for granted. Even really simple things that I do every day, Madeline couldn’t do. For example, I go outside multiple times every day, even if it’s just walking from my house to the car, or from the car to school. But Madeline never got to experience things like this. The other thing that this book really reminded me of, is that even though I try really hard to treat people who are different than me the same, it can be really hard to always do this. For instance, while I try not to think about people differently based on the color of their skin, racism has been in my blood since before I was born, simply because of the society that I live in. This really became clear to me when I first picked up this book. I wasn’t sure if it would work for this assignment because I thought that it was about a white girl who was about the same age as me. But once I started reading and found out that she was a part black, part Asian girl, I really started to question myself. I knew nothing about the ethnicity of Madeline, I had simply assumed that she was white. This really made me start thinking about what other things I assume about people without any facts to back them up. One thing that Madeline talks about a lot is living your life, even if for her, it meant dying. This was something that really went to my heart, and I have been trying to think more about it recently. Sometimes when I’m trying to make a difficult decision, it’s helpful for me to remember that I need to be living my life, even if it seems like there might be “more important” things to do. They probably won’t matter in the future, and I’ll be happy that I have lived a little! Also, once Maddy had made the decision to live her life fully, that in itself helped her feel better. Sometimes just deciding to do something can help you feel better, which is something that I have felt in my heart before, and will do so more often after reading this book. “Ever since Olly came into my life there’ve been two Maddy’s: the one who lives through books and doesn’t want to die, and the one who lives and suspects that death will be a small price to pay for it... the second Maddy knows that this pale half life is not really living” (Yoon 167). Sylvia S. Love, Hate & Other Filters, by Samira Ahmed, is about a young Muslim-Indian girl named Maya growing up in Illinois under strict expectations from her parents who, do want the best for her, are very against her pursuing her true dreams of going to film school and eventually basing her career on it. They want her to follow a more “sensible” occupation like being a doctor or a lawyer, but she has a true passion for film and decides to apply to NYU for film school with her partner-in-crime Hina, her mom’s younger sister, and gets in. All while trying to juggle her parent's nonsupport of her filming, and trying to find a way to tell them about her acceptance, she finds herself in an arduous love triangle. On one hand, there is there is Kareem, the sensible Muslim-Indian boy, in college at Princeton, majoring in engineering, that does actually hold Maya’s interest and is actually kind of fun for her to hang out with and talk to, that her parents would love for her to be with. But, on the other hand, there is Phil, Maya’s longtime crush since grade school, who dreams of going to college in Vermont and becoming an EMT, who is also undeniably white and different than her familial customs and who her parents most definitely would never want her being with. Through all of this love, hate, and hardship, Maya is faced with yet another obstacle. Islamophobia. After a terrorist attack is announced in Illinois, a classmate of hers named Brian becomes fixated on the fact that Maya and her family are Muslim. Hate crimes against Maya and her family ensue due to his prejudice and Maya must find a way to deal with it all. Will Maya be able to make it out of Illinois and finally pursue her dream? Read Love, Hate and Other Filters to find out! I chose this book because I recently did another English project on Islamophobia and the effects it’s having in our society, so I was already interested in part of that topic. This book features Maya, who struggles throughout the book with issues involving her pursuit of film school without her parent's knowledge, her Indian parents expectations, and her faith (Muslim) and how people view it/unfairly link it to terrorism. I personally do not struggle with any of these things. I am not a Muslim, my parents are not Indian, and I am not pursuing film school behind my parents back. This book met these guidelines based on these differences between Maya and me, but also because I think that because her experiences were so different from my day to day ones, I made me think more about her struggles and how I would deal with and handle them, so in a way it made me “break through the wall” so to say in order to fully understand and place myself in Maya’s shoes throughout the book. Quote: “It’s selfish and horrible, but in this terrible moment, all I want is to be a plain old American teenager. Who can simply mourn without fear. Who doesn’t share last names with a suicide bomber. Who goes to dances and can talk to her parents about anything and can walk around without always being anxious. And who isn’t a presumed terrorist first and an American second” - Samira Ahmed, Love, Hate & Other Filters Written by Julie Murphy, the book Dumplin’ is centered around Willowdean, a plus-sized Texas teen. Willowdean works at a local fast-food joint where she meets Bo, a cute, preppy athlete who she later learns will be transferring to her school that fall. She begins to develop a crush on Bo, and he begins to show interest in her. Instead of finding self-assurance, Willowdean begins to lose her confidence and wonders why he would like a girl like her. She is dubbed “Dumplin’” by her mom, who happens to be a former beauty queen and the director of the Miss Clover City beauty pageant, which takes over their town every year. She decides to enter her mom’s precious pageant in part to gain back her confidence, and in part protest, which eventually develops into a full bore revolution when other class outcasts beginning following in her footsteps. I found it interesting how even though Dumplin’ takes place in a high school setting in rural America, Willowdean still has an extensively different life than me. One of the most considerable differences between Willowdean and I is her struggle with maintaining a healthy weight and how that has affected her everyday life. I think everyone has at some point felt self conscious about their appearance or body, but with Willowdean, her weight seems to be a constant factor hanging in the back of her mind. Because she is much larger than most other girls her age, things as simple as going swimming or shopping are a huge struggle for her. Because she has had so much experience with teasing and bullying over her size, she has a very hard time trusting people, even if they have good intentions. Throughout the novel, Willowdean has to learn to ignore the haters and keep her self-worth high. She thinks to herself in the book, “Beautiful, he says. Fat, I think. But can’t I be both at the same time?” She can’t deny that she is overweight, but she can realize that size and appearance aren’t everything. This book made me process how destructive negative comments can really be. We never really know what’s going on in someone’s life, and it’s not okay to share our own opinions if they are going to tear someone else down. Just because someone looks or acts differently than you, it doesn’t mean that they are any less in need of support. Also, it really made me think about the importance of self-worth and how you can’t love someone until you learn to love yourself. Willowdean struggles being in a relationship, until she realizes that just because she’s bigger than most other girls, she’s still beautiful. I realized that you should never worry what others think of you, because your own opinions matter so much more than anyone else’s. Kendra B. |
AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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