When Multiple Stories Cross - Anya English Blog 10/28/19

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35134091-all-we-can-do-is-wait

     I recently began reading All We Can Do Is Wait by Richard Lawson. This is a young adult novel about several teens who all had friends or family on the Tobin bridge when it suddenly collapsed and sent the people on the bridge crashing into the river. The book is written from the perspective of four different people. The first are siblings Jason and Alexa, who are waiting to hear about their parents. They have a struggling relationship, and both are hiding things from each other. The next person is Skyler who is desperate for news on her sister Kate. Kate has always kept Skyler going, and taken care of her when she was going through the hardest moments, so she is terrified at the thought of not having her in her life. The last person is Scott who’s girlfriend Aimee was on the bridge when disaster struck. They were having many conflicts with each other, but Scott would do anything just to see her one more time. All these teens are all waiting at the hospital for news on their loved ones, all alone and scared.

     One of the most interesting aspects of the structure of All We Can Do Is Wait is that it is written from different perspectives with different narrators. We as readers get to see the experiences of many different individuals. We have more information as a whole than any of the characters on their own, because we get all the stories, and this makes for a very interesting read.

     One of the ways in which this structure of multiple narrators proves to be the most interesting is with Alexa and Jason’s chapters. Because they are siblings and their stories are so intertwined, it is particularly fascinating to hear their perspectives, especially on their own relationship with each other. Alexa has gone to a private girls’ school and maintained perfect scores for years, and Jason only views her as a perfect stuck up brat. When their parents suggest going to a beach house for the summer, he thinks, “Even before she did it, Jason knew that Alexa was going to take their parents side. […] Jason knew his sister would say and do the right thing, the good thing, the responsible thing,” (Lawson 10). This quote really shows Jason’s disdainful view of Alexa and her perfectness. Meanwhile, Alexa is unhappy with her life of blindly following her parents command. When she talks to a friend about not going to college, she says, “I mean, at least not right away. I want some time to, like, figure life out before I just go off and do the next thing that’s like, expected of me,” (46). While everyone else around her thinks she is a goody two shoes, she is contemplating taking a gap year, something her parents would dislike. She even has had frequent meetings about improving her slipping grades. As readers, we get to see this from both perspectives which makes it interesting. We can learn how our judgments may not actually be as true as we think they are.

     I would probably recommend this book to people. I think that the idea is good, and the structure is really interesting. By reading it we can see how people judge each other, the harm that this has, and maybe go into our lives with a little less judgement. However, I think the actual story is a bit boring and slow going, so it may not interest many people. If someone were to read it, I think it would be best for middle to early high school students.

Cinderella - reincarnated

     
     Cinder, a story about a poorly treated step sister that must travel to the 'Royal Ball'  using an unconventional vehicle and dance with the Prince. Sounds familiar? It should. Cinder is a story that strongly models the original fantasy Cinderella, with a few major twists. First of all, Cinder takes place in the future where cyborgs are viewed as inferior beings, and the technology that exists then far overwhelm our current technology. The book Cinder tells a story about how a young girl named Cinder who must overcome her shortcomings (her being a cyborg and a second-class citizen), and save the world from the ruthless Lunars, an evil alien-like species raised the moon, while also being blamed for infecting her stepsister with a fatal illness. There are many similarities that Cinder has with the original fairytale Cinderella, but that does not make Cinder any of a less unique and exciting story.
     The most major similarity that the two stories have, relate to the main character being an unwanted and badly treated step sister in their own house. In Cinder, the main character stepmother, Adri, was forced to adopt Cinder after Cinder's parents died in a car crash. However, Cinder was so badly injured that she had to go through surgery to replace her faulty organs with cyborg parts. In this process, she lost all the memories that she had before the age of 11. Due to her being half cyborg, Cinder is often mistreated and disrespected by not just her fellow citizens, but also from her own stepfamily. Similarly, the original Cinderella was often overlooked and treated as a house servant. Both of these characters had humble origins with pathetic lives that were destined to amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things.
     However, as most people know, Cinderella was not just a normal house servant. In fact, Cinderella had a magical fairy godmother who granted her the power to go to the royal ball. Similarly, Cinder met an intelligent individual named Dr. Erland, who helped Cinder in every step through the novel. However, Dr.Erland does not help Cinder to the extent that the fairy godmother helps Cinderella. For instance, Dr. Erland did not provide Cinder a way to get to the royal ball, in fact, Dr. Erland did not even know Cinder wanted to go to the ball. Instead of using a 'magical pumpkin chariot', Cinder had found and repaired an antique can with the smell of 'old garbage and mildew' with her exceptional mechanic skills. I believe that the author of Cinder attempts to make Cinder a more independent character than Cinderella, to conform with today's social standards of women being able to step up for themselves.
     Overall, Cinder and Cinderalla are related and unique at the same time. Even though Cinder is based on Cinderella, the book still has a tense and exciting theme that all fairytales and sci-fi lovers should definitely read. I would give this book an 8 out of 10 for having a unique plot that strongly resembles a predictable fairytale.

The Mysterious Disappearance on the London Eye

The book The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd is a book about the mystery of a missing cousin. The characters include a kid named Ted, who is autistic, his mom, and his sister, Kat. They are hosting his mom’s sister, Gloria, and their cousin, Salim, for a few days. During their stay, they go to the London Eye, a type of Ferris Wheel in the center of London. Salim goes up and doesn’t come down. Or as Ted said in the introductory chapter “Somewhere, somehow, in the thirty minutes of riding the Eye, in his sealed capsule, he had vanished off the face of the earth.” 

It all starts when Ted’s mom goes with Gloria to get some coffee while Ted, Kat, and Salim go to the London Eye. They are standing in an extremely long queue when a man offers them his ticket. He says he doesn't want it anymore and he’ll give it to them for free. Of course they accept this offer to save money and skip the queue. Because it is only one ticket, Salim goes up by himself. Ted and Kat follow his pod very closely with their eyes and calculate the time he will be down. When his pod reaches the ground they cannot find him. This book is the story of how Ted and Kat find Salim. In the first chapter, Ted describes the book this way: “This is how having a funny brain that runs on a different operating system from other people’s helped me to figure out what had happened.”
I enjoy books in the mystery genre and this book is in that genre but this book has something special about it. In this book Ted and Kat are going to try to find out what happened to Salim by following clues and theories they have about what happened to him. It is possible to follow the clues and attempt to solve the mystery if that is something the reader wants to do. This book is different from your typical murder mystery because the events in the story are more possible to happen in real life than a murder mystery. By this I mean the chances of somebody getting lost are far higher than somebody getting murdered.

This book is also unique because it is told in the first person by a kid whose brain works differently from others’. If you have seen or read the book/play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time then you can see the resemblance between that book and this one. They are both mysteries told in the first person and both involve a young autistic sleuth. Another interesting fact about the characters in the role of the detectives is that there are no grown-ups doing the sleuthing. It is only Ted and Kat. 

If you are someone who enjoys mysteries that are very real, this is the book for you. If you are someone who enjoys mysteries in the first person then this is the book for you. If you want an insight on what it is like to be autistic then I recommend you read this book. Once you have read and enjoyed this book, do not fret. There is a sequel!

What Would You Do if You Had One Wish? - Anya English Blog 10/11/2019

https://www.sourcebooks.com/sedoti-author-visity.html

What Would You Do if You Had One Wish?

          As You Wish by Chelsea Sedoti is a young adult novel set in Madison, a small town in the Mojave desert. The story follows 17 almost 18 year-old Eldon, who lives in Madison with his parents. Madison from the outside seems just seems like any other small town, but despite the outside appearance, it has a secret. In Madison, every person gets to have one wish on their 18^th birthday, which is guaranteed to come true. The citizens may wish for anything that they choose, within some constraints. For example, they cannot wish for more wishes, wish to bring back the dead, or wish for anything that would impact the outside world. Most of the residents have their wishes planned out for years before their wish day, but Eldon has no idea what he should do.

     Eldon is having so much trouble in part because in every wish he has ever observed, something terrible always goes wrong, and there are always consequences. He wants to make the perfect wish, but not one that will turn his life upside down. He sees his own mother wish for her husband to love her and only her for the rest of eternity but suffers the consequences when she loses her love for him, but he continues to worship her. He sees Barnabas Fairly plan to wish to never be drafted in the war but accidentally tells the Mayor that he wishes to be alone for his wish. He sees how Barnabas is eventually drafted in the war but lives his life in never ending loneliness. He sees how Fletcher Hale hits Ebba, Eldon’s sister, and causes her to live in a half-dead state, and then wishes to have a perfect transcript for Harvard. Eldon is mad that Fletcher didn’t wish his sister back when he already would have had a perfect transcript. Eldon doesn’t want to end up like everyone else in the town, so he decides to do a “wish history” to see what kinds of wishes were good, and what was bad. However, throughout the whole process, he finds that almost no one is happy with their wish. Eventually, Eldon decides on his perfect wish, and it changes everything.

     I think this book is very interesting and presents a really complicated idea. I went into the book thinking that it would be cheesy and stupid, but I actually really enjoyed it. I think many people believe that if they could have one wish it would be amazing and wonderful, yet this book provides a different perspective. All You Can do is Wait shows the dark side of wishing and how it hurt almost every person that does this. I think if I lived in Madison, I would have a very hard time coming up with a wish because I am not very good at decisions. Also, at age 18 many people don’t know what they want for their life, and once they pick a wish, there is no going back.

     I would recommend this book to anyone who likes contemporary YA novels, and an interesting look at how big decisions can affect people’s lives. This book probably appeals to teens the most, but some adults would also likely enjoy it despite the fact that the intended audience is a little younger.

*I could not include quotes because I had to return the book to the library before I wrote this*

Angels and Demons

                                                                   Angels and Demons 

     Robert Langdon, a Harvard Professor in Symbology, and was first introduced in the book Angels and Demons as the main narrator. Maximilian Kohler was a famed scientist and director of CERN (an organization dedicated to science). Vittoria Vetra, another brilliant scientist who was working on a revolutionary concept with his father, anti-matter. That is, until Vittoria's father was killed and branded with the Illuminati symbol and a devastating amount of anti-matter was stolen. Throughout the book Angels and Demons, many characters were introduced and their origin was thoroughly explained in unconventional ways. For example, Maximilian Kohler was first introduced within the first 100 pages of the book as a cold and unnerving person. For the next 400 pages, he was barely mentioned at all. However, within the last 100 pages, he was revealed to be a much more important character than previously thought, which surprised all readers alike. Before I continue, the readers of this essay should know that Angels and Demons tells a story about how Robert Langdon and his partner Vittoria attempt to decipher clues laid out by the now revived satanic cult called the Illuminati. Simultaneously, a hidden bomb is slowly ticking down in one of the holiest places on the planet, Vatican city.
     The characters in Angels and Demons stood out because of the author's refined use of 'show and don't tell' in combination with 'imagery'. For instance, within the first chapter of the book, it was obvious that Robert Langdon was an expert on symbology. Instead of directly stating that Robert was a professor of religious symbology, the author stated the fact in more of an indirect way. "A knowing groan escaped Langdon's lips. This has happened before. One of the perils of writing books about religious symbology was the calls from religious zealots who wanted him to confirm the latest sign from God." Another more discrete approach the author used to show that Langdon was truly knowledgable about the subject of symbology, is by showing Langdon's thought process when he sees obscure symbols throughout the book. For instance, when Langdon had seen a fax of the 'Illuminati' symbol branded on a dead body, the author wrote ' It can't be ..., In slow motion, afraid of what he was about to witness, Langdon rotated the fax 180 degrees. He looked at the word upside down. Instantly the breath went out of him... Barely able to believe his eyes, he rotated the fax again, reading the brand right-side up and then upside down.' One of the first reactions of a reader after reading this paragraph is the sudden inclination to also observe the symbol upside down, and unsurprisingly Langdon's knowledge of the symbol proved to be right.
     One interesting concept of Angels and Demons was that the author had introduced many characters throughout the book, but had never fully delved into the characters' background until the end of the story to give more room for sudden plot twists. To illustrate, one of the first characters that had been introduced at the beginning of the book was Maximilian Kohler.  The readers learned that Kohler was the leader of a scientific organization that discovered new 'miracles' every day, but Kohler himself was a 1-dimensional character. He had basic characteristic traits, a crippled man who was always serious and gave an overall tense mood. Beyond that, not much was known about him. However, within the last 100 pages, Kohler's whole origin story was described in a way to make him a much more favorable character. It also took the readers off guard as no one would have expected Kohler's importance in the story.
     Overall, the author uses many writing techniques to develop characters intriguingly. As a disclaimer, the literature devices explained in the paragraphs above are just a small fraction of the multitude of devices used throughout the book.  Angels and Demons is an amazing book due to the tense situation, the characters' realisticness, and ultimately, the author's uses of literary devices provided that extra 'cherry on top'.