Literature Extravaganza

  A Northern Light is a story set in 1906, about 16-year-old Mattie, who lives with her father and three younger sisters on their family farm. After her mother died and her brother left their home, Mattie’s dreams of graduating high school and attending college are dampened. Not only can she not afford to leave the town, her family relies on her for cooking, cleaning, and helping out around the farm. She later meets Royal Loomis, who she begins to fall for. After he proposes to her, Mattie has to make the difficult choice of going to college or marrying Royal.            The book is told in both the present and the past. The book starts out in the past, telling the story of Mattie’s life on the farm. Every few chapters, it returns to the present, where Mattie is working at a hotel. The present is centered around a murder that actually happened—that of Grace Brown, who was drowned by Chester Gillette, her boyfriend. In A North...

Recently, I read Will Smith's favorite story,  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The book is about a boy named Santiago who wants to find his purpose in life. He talks to a magical and wise king who guides him and advises him to try to reach his 'Personal Legend" in life, and to not care about other things and really just strive for this thing he wants in life. So, Santiago goes on multiple adventures and travels across Spain and Egypt to reach his goal of finding the treasure he sees in his dreams in the Great Pyramids of Egypt. This book is very unique in a lot of ways, so I'll try to cover the ones that I think are the most important. This book is extremely unique in the way it is structured, which I really like. The book is basically a whole bunch of smaller stories chained together, all tied around this idea of Santiago trying to find this treasure in the Pyramids and to find his purpose in life. In the beginning of the book he is a Shepherd, who is spurred by his...

            I recently read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. This book drew my attention as it is about one of the worst accidents of climbing Mount Everest. The author, Jon Krakauer was part of the group that decided to attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest and was encountered by a storm. He published Into Thin Air after he wrote an initial article about the disaster, but he wanted to share more about his experience. Into Thin Air was published one year after the accident in 1997.             One unique aspect of Into Thin Air is shown in all the questions the book poses that even Krakauer still thinks about. When Jon was climbing Everest, he was guided by Rob Hall. Hall set a turnaround time for the team at two o’clock. At two they were supposed to turn around even if they had not reached the summit. Rob did not enforce this rule and the last of the group only...

          Over the past few weeks, I have been reading The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy, a fantasy fiction published in 2013, and I really enjoy it. This book is about many fictional worlds colliding: the realms of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel. It is a story about what happens to the princes after their fairy tales end. The story is unique and captivating, largely because of the voice of the narrator. The book is written in the second person and has a lot of humor. Throughout the book, the narrator gives vivid descriptions, well-timed spoilers, and talks to the reader. This book offers an interesting plot told in an interesting way. Being set in a fantastical world, many of the book’s surroundings and situations are in need of descriptions. Many novels simply describe the color, shape, lighting, or maybe textures of a setting, but this narrator goes a step further when offering descriptions by ...

Elevation  by Steven King is a realistic fiction novel about a man named Scott who lives in a small town called Castle Rock. He leads a fairly normal life, as a web engineer, and he was recently divorced. But all of a sudden, his life doesn't become so normal. He starts losing weight at a constant rate, despite his body not getting any skinnier. But what's even weirder is the fact that if he holds or puts on things that weigh some amount, the weight doesn't change. He is the same weight with only a t-shirt and shorts as wearing a 30lbs coat. This is evidently a problem, but he feels better and happier than ever before. He realizes that this will probably lead to his death, but decides to not seek medical help as there probably won't be any treatment and live his best life. Along with this conflict, Scott has fairly new neighbors, a married lesbian couple. One is a very shy, nice, and well-mannered woman, and the other is cold and rude. They are trying to run a rest...

Of Mice and Men is a moving tale about two migrant workers, George and Lennie. The two characters are vastly different, with George small and smart, while Lennie is big, strong, and very unintelligent. The two ran away from Weed, where they had been working on a ranch before Lennie got in trouble after being accused of raping a girl, though he had only wanted to feel the fabric of her dress. They then start working on a new ranch in California and hope to save up enough money to realize their dream-- to buy a farm of their own. However, they encounter a few problems during their time on the ranch that ultimately shatter their vision. I found George and Lennie to be very interesting characters. George is constantly exasperated at Lennie’s stupidity and forgetfulness, yet cares about him a lot. Lennie admires and mimics George’s actions, even though George often yells at him and tells him how much better his life could be without him. “If I was alone, I could live so easy....

            I recently finished reading Paper Towns , a realistic fiction book by John Green. Paper Towns takes place in modern day Florida, where the main character Quentin and his neighbor Margo go out on a school night to pull pranks on their enemies. When Quentin goes to school the next day, nobody knows where Margo went. Throughout the rest of the book Quentin tries to find Margo by following clues she left behind.              One aspect of Paper Towns that I think makes the book special is the way Green expresses the characters. They all have specific traits and personalities that make them unique. For example when Margo says, “The rules of capitalization are so unfair to words in the middle of a sentence.” I think that simple quotes like this can give the reader an idea of Margo's personality.  Paper Towns always shows how the characters react to things and after a while you get ...