Reading Response/log- 8-26-13

This book, Perfect, was not what I expected even when I thought I had a pretty good explanation from a friend. Before I started reading this book, I got a reasonable summary from my friend and it really caught my interest. Isabelle, an 8^th grader, has just suffered the loss of her father and is struggling with her strive to become “perfect”. As her mom finds out about her bulimic actions, she sends her to a therapy group to run into an unexpected classmate. As Isabelle gets to know one of the girls from her grade from this group, they develop a relationship and have get-togethers where they share the times for their binge eating and making it come back up. It is interesting how Natasha Friend describes her situations so deeply and expresses them where I feel like I am right there with her or living through her emotions with the details the author gives.

Perfect by Natasha Friend

8/19: 30 mins- 18 pgs.

8/20: 30 mins- 20 pgs.

8/23: 20 mins- 16 pgs.
8/25: 40 mins- 30 pgs.

Story Time

Last year was one of the hardest times of my life and it came down to me making a decision to uphold my for my high school years. I’ve played volleyball since third grade intramural league and last year wasn’t the best experience. It almost lead me to a choice I knew I would regret. After talking with my coach, I decided to spend the summer practicing with the team and made the decision to stick with it my four years of high school like I’ve wished since I was in third grade. I was feeling great this whole summer, but recently I’ve been combining full days of school and I feel my fatigue catching up with me. In a way, volleyball has been a motivation for my need of sleep. I realize that I have wanted to get to sleep and not stay up to watch that one more episode on Netflix, knowing I have a full day the next. Volleyball has recently been a great impact on my life.

Reading Log- 8/19

8/12: mini-zine- 50 mins
8/15: book chat prep- 35 mins
8/18: read 23 pages of Perfect by Natasha Friend- 35 mins

Fresh Start for Freshman Year

In the 3^rd grade my cousin and I planned out our whole lives with what job, family, car, etc. that we wanted, starting with my number one goal of getting to high school. I have been looking forward to high school for so long and I am finally here. The main reason I’ve wanted to be in high school was that we are open to more free time and more individual opportunities to do without having someone telling us that we have to. From only being in school for one week, I already love it.

School for me has never been an awful experience, but the only bad moments I’ve had have been from procrastinating or poor time management. By getting off to a good start has made me feel confident about my grades for this year. I have a brother that’s a senior, which helps with me getting to know people. Also, I have talked to a few of the upper classmen about high school in general and know that I can turn to anyone if I need it. I’m looking forward to an exciting new year and more to come!

Reading Response to The Notebook

Reading The Notebook made me realize a pattern in all of the other Nicholas Sparks books.  The similarities are more within the plot line with characters and settings more than the little details. As I've noticed, Nicholas Sparks' books always happen to be set in North Carolina, some place by water, and particularly about a summer romance. The main two characters being a boy and girl, one of them happens to be coming from a family with money, high-class, and choosy parents, like the character Allie in The Notebook. Another character happens to be coming from a single-parent home with not as much money and not as prestigious, describing Noah, another main character of the book. 

In between their summer romance, there comes a climax in the story from when the two are so happily in love, to being disturbed by what I found it to usually be from the home where the set of parents are, which refers to Allie's parents in The Notebook. Another interesting pattern I noticed was that the single-parent figure ends up passing away. It is also when the two lovers have broken up in some sort of way, like how when Allie comes back to her hometown with her fiancé to find out that Noah’s dad passed away.  When I think about it, it is just a repetitive theme of the author Nicholas Spark, which I love noticing and comparing the connections.