Fahrenheit 451 Book Trailer

Hey, here is a link to the book trailer I made for class. Enjoy!


https://youtu.be/2qkYs4QoBN4

Tasting The Sky

In my lit circle, we are reading:

I didn't expect to enjoy this book. I didn't think that I would be able to connect with the characters or their situation simply because I was raised as a Christian, in America. I didn't account for the fascination that would draw me into the story or how much I would love all the characters.

I have also never really had any knowledge of the Israeli Palestinian conflict and now, I find myself googling things like the 6 day war.

I find comfort in how easily this family adapts to their new environments. Obviously this was probably not the case, but just how Ibtisam (our main character) perceived it because of her young age. Having such a young and fairly reliable main character is interesting. One would think that, with her being so young at the start of this book, she would be unaware of almost everything of importance - and maybe she was, but as an adult,Ibtisam is trying to fill in the gaps and make sense of her memories. That being said, I feel that the narration is definitely an adult trying to relive her childhood memories through her words. For instance, I got lost in London when I was six. All I remember is that we were listening to a tour guide and then he stopped talking and let us wander a little and I saw some stuffed peacocks so I went to look at them, but then the group moved on without me. Remembering things like how big the police officer's glasses were and how I liked his funny hat seem like the most clear memories in my mind when they might not have really been very important. They young mind grasps onto the smallest details regardless of their significance. Ibtisam's storytelling is very similar to how I remember my own memories - in fractured parts with very detailed moments that can hold any amount of actual significance to the narrative which I REALLY like. it feels very natural and honest.

Aristotle + Dante = 5ever (I Feel Like a Teenage Girl)

Oh thank god. I thought they were never going to get  together and the ending was just going to be an angsty, sad, disappointing ending of sadness. But goodness gracious, I am glad that Ari’s dad finally decided to say his piece cause without that, Ari never would have accepted his feelings.

I really liked this book. I was (obviously) very invested in the characters and their interactions. I think I liked the romance of this book more than that of any of the others we have read so far this semester. Really, I liked how the suspense of Ari’s realization was built. I was sure that he was not 100% straight pretty early on in this book and was just waiting for him to realize it for himself. Yeah, the car accident and the fight were very exciting and dramatic as well, but really i was just waiting for Ari to come to his STINKING SENSES!

I am very openly bi-sexual and while that definitely changes how I would handle some things, I think that if I were in Ari’s place, it would not have taken me nearly as long as it took him to realize his feelings, let alone accept them. Yeah, he doesn’t have the most healthy idea of what a man should be, but when it comes to emotions, most people - I think - can quickly recognize them within themselves and can accept what they are feeling as true simply because we cannot change how we instinctively feel. We can try to mask it and ignore it and shove it in a box, with a lock, in the deepest darkest corner of our mind, but we can’t get rid of them. They will always be the light pollution in our mind.

Toxic Masculinity is Ruining this Relationship Before it can Start

Aristotle and Dante’s relationship reads like the most confusing bromance ever. Obviously this is from Ari’s perspective and holds his biases over the entire thing, but I think that all that needs to happen now is for Ari to get his head out of the sand.

I sympathize with him, I actually do, because of the things he has been taught. Men are strong and silent (like his dad) or they join gangs and are tough (like his brother, maybe) but there is no inbetween. That is, I think until Dante starts breaking down those stereotypes. In his own personality, and breaking the masks of the people he defined manliness by. He gave Ari’s dad a book about Mexican artists and Ari was shocked. His dad had studies art? That doesn’t really fit his ideas of what a man does. Now, obviously Ari doesn’t know that this is what Dante is doing (and maybe Dante doesn’t know either) but it is certainly affecting Ari. Ari sees himself as a mexican who likes to fight and likes girls and is strong and stoic like his dad but isn’t a gangster because he isn’t stupid. That is how Ari sees himself and I think he tries to push that mold onto Dante but it could never work. It can’t work simply because Dante never learned that mold, never knew those were the standards he should ascertain (in Ari’s view). If Ari were able to read this book, I think it would hit him like a ton of bricks. OH MY GOD OF COURSE YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH HIM YOU BIG DUMB BLOB OF HUMAN-NESS! You literally jumped in front of a car for him. I love my best friends, but I don’t know if I would do that so instinctually.

Ari, get it together man. I love you, but get it together.

ABC Final Thoughts....

I understand that with the story of the Monkey King, ABC doesn’t exactly have a 100% realistic universe, but WTF? I feel like they tried to connect the three stories but just couldn’t find a way that worked, and worked well. They gave up, and we got stuck reading this.

1. HOW did everyone think it was normal that a monkey in a costume parading as a human was normal? Was it just a really good costume that no one could tell the difference between that and an actual human? Does nobody actually know what a person of asian descent looks like?
2. WHY is the Monkey King not count as a god? There was a flipping bird god (also, Darth Maul seems to be there too), why not a monkey? That just makes no sense. Also, there seemed to be a good mixture of shapes and sizes and species mixed in the gods but just MONKEYS are left out? Rude.
3. Did “Danny” think he was adopted? Did his parents also transform into white people? Did no one find it suspicious? Did everyone just think that Jin and his family disappeared? Or did they believe that they got turned into white people simply because Jin liked a girl and was insecure?

I just can’t handle the rationale they tried to force on us, just because it pulls the stories together! I’m sorry, Gene Luen Yang, you can tell three  very interesting stories separately, but you are not the Marvel Cinematic Universe...

American Born Chinese and Thoughts on Graphic Novels

I had never read a graphic novel before this book. So far, I don’t think that this genre is really for me. I have always gotten kind of frustrated with really quick reads and short novels. I am always wanting there to be more. I am a really fast reader too, so that probably is a factor. It’s kind of a novelty for me when it takes a while for me to get through a good story. Another note is that I am not really loving the stories either so that might be factoring itself into my thoughts on the genre. I just feel like I’m not really reading - even though I understand that graphic novels are a valid literary choice, I just feel like I’m cheating the system. Also, with the addition of illustrations, I don’t use my imagination as much as I normally do. It doesn’t take any effort to visualize what is happening when it is literally right in front of your eyes. When I read The Hobbit, for example, I have to picture Bilbo’s hole, not being damp and murky but also not sandy. The image must come from my mind which makes it feel much more personal.

This all seems very backwards compared to my rant about descriptions in Feed but in my mind, they are very different scenarios. In one, there is no substance for me to work off of to create the world the characters are in, and the other has far, far more visual detail which doesn’t allow me to make the universe my own. I’m not trying to nitpick, but I feel that you need a healthy dose of each of these styles to successfully create an engaging story.

Brown Girl Dreaming Might be Growing on Me (But not by Much)

The format of this book isn’t growing on me, exactly, but I’m starting to try to understand the reasons why you would want to write a book like this one in the format of a verse novel. Jackie lives her life in chunks of time. She lived in the North, then the South, then back to the North and these constant changes and fluctuations can be related through verse. I still  think it could have been just as effective as prose, with just different styles or inflections to simulate these changes. I also think that the verse format gives jackie a very different voice. I went on Jacqueline Woodson’s website and she said that BGD shows her learning to love creating stories, even though she had trouble reading when she was younger and I think that can also be reflected in the verse by the very simplistic feel of using so few words at a time. They tell a story but are almost adverse to the idea of being loquacious.

I still don’t like verse in general, but I think I have to change my perceptions from the last post: If you are going to write poetry, tell a story. Don’t just make an anthology, make a story that can be made sense fo by people other than yourself. Tell a comprehensive story that is easily connected and put in order. I find it pretentious when people write a poem on an apple then a poem on a wagon wheel and say they are connected and flow so well together and show true thought. Nope. That is what I call forcing a square peg into a round hole. Don’t draw connections just because you feel that you are supposed to, do it because they are there and I think that Ms. Woodson has done this the correct way… for verse.

Link to Jacqueline's Website:

http://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/category/books-ive-written/middle-grade-titles/

Brown Girl Dreaming is..... Different

I have never been a fan of poetry. I can tolerate The Road Less Travelled and Shakespearean Sonnets and I have recently gotten to translate some latin poetry from Catullus and Martial, but other than that, I do not enjoy it. I don’t like looking for symbolism and I don’t like the meter or weird line breaks and i can’t really find a plot well in a poem. I truly wish i did like poetry. I think it is a fascinating concept to make musical art out of words, but my brain just does not like to think that hard about words, I think.

So, going into this, I knew it was going to be a struggle for me. I was not wrong. Why would you want to write a life story through short bites of words that neither give the full picture or explicitly give the reader important details of the plot? If you are going to write a novel, write a novel. If you are going to write a series of poems, write poems. Just, please, don’t try to morph the two and call it a novel. Just like in Feed, I become very very distracted when reading Brown Girl Dreaming simply because of the format. I can’t just read it cover to cover, but I must read a page, then think about what they are trying to say, then repeat for the next hundred pages and my brain gets tired. Verse novels are a very concentrated niche, I understand, but it is not one I really plan on giving another go. I prefer to immerse myself in my reading instead of analyzing every single word, or line, or sentence.

It's an Old and Tired Argument, But it Surely is Efficient: School Vs. Prison

I’m glad that Piddy got the help she deserved. I also completely understand the mentality that she had - the authorities (the administration) won’t actually be able to help, that it’s just a joke to them - red tape to jump over. It’s a very similar concept to that of prison. I know that the metaphor of public school vs. prison is long and drawn-out, but humor me. What evidence would Piddy have to trust her teachers or counselors? The only role she has ever seen them fill is that of the opposition. All day long, the teachers and administration hold positions of power of the kids, telling them where they are and aren’t allowed to be, what homework they have, disciplining them for being late, making too much noise, having an attitude, wearing the wrong clothes, etc. These children are, to a point, being punished for trying to be individual beings in a system that really just wants them to be mindless robots of complacency and obedience. In what scenario are the adults of DJ on her side? Whenever teachers have told me that they are on “our side” and that they are our “friends” just makes me laugh…

Piddy, who has strong women in her life - always believing in her and letting her make her own decisions and right her own wrongs, wouldn’t let the thought of being a tattle-tale cross her mind. Even the resolution the administration comes up with is in no way backing Piddy. It is just shipping her off to a different. No discipline for Yaqui, just Piddy.

I really liked how this book took on this division of power and how twisted it really is. I appreciated how realistic Piddy’s actions were in that I could understand what decisions she made, why they had to make them, and how she handled each new situation. It made me appreciate the point of view we were given and the choice of Piddy as the main character. Having someone like, Joey - for example, take Piddy’s place would have had an entirely different story, not just because he is a guy, but also how he has been influenced by his parents as to how to take a hit - sadly I mean that just as literally as I do metaphorically. He would have made vastly different choices from Piddy specifically on his confidence in these situations.

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass is Far Too Long of a Title, but I Can Get Over It

I know that all our books so far have dealt heavily with poverty, and I appreciate that. Giving a realistic sense of being without is important. Yes, Anne Hathaway in Les Mis did an amazing job, but that is a very dramatic sense of the concept. Reading these things, especially Eleanor & Park and now, this are really interesting to me. No, I’m not trying to look at poverty like you would a lion at the zoo, but it is interesting to me simply because I have never experienced anything like what is described. I have never really connected to the stereotypical “poor” character in a lot of books because they are only defined by their income. Eleanor, Violet, and Piddy - oh weird, they are all girls… - are shown as so much more than that. Most authors that I have read are very heavy-handed in their portrayal of poverty - it’s like Fox News’s description…

I really appreciate how this book flips what we have come to expect on its head - specifically with Mitzi. Eleanor and Violet are the odd-ones-out in their respective books. But in YDWTKYA, Mitzi is the odd-one-out. She got away, she - in the narrative - is defined by her wealth and how that affects Piddy.

Of the books we have read, this is the only one with a solely interior look at poverty. The other two were of an exterior view, only what Eleanor and Violet wanted Park and Titus - respectively - to see.

The Two Things I Hate Most in the World: Weak Main Characters and Blaming Technology for Your Own Failures

I hate Titus. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. I hate everything he stands for too. He is a dumb, stereotypical frat boy, who turns a blind eye on anything and everything that could be important to him, and to the world. Titus doesn’t have an original bone in his body. He never makes a move that isn’t suggested by someone else. I don’t understand why Anderson would want to make HIM the main character. I would have loved to  see this whole travesty from Violet’s point of view.

I’m sure Anderson wanted to force the idea that we (Americans, specifically) are brainless and unaware of what is happening around us, but I have never been one to think that way. In fact, while I know a lot of people that really only look into the issues of American life instead of globally, but I have NEVER met someone that didn’t care about anything other than themselves. I live and grew up in the “technological age” and while the older generations wail that we don’t know how to have meaningful conversation and we have no idea of how to do things the old-fashioned way, I don’t believe that could possibly be true. If, for instance, we were all thrust into the 1920s I’m certain that - in a technological and social sense - we would all get along fine, ignoring possible slang barriers.

So what if I, as an adult, would prefer to buy my clothes or find christmas presents online instead of going into a store? Who cares if I would like to spend an evening Netflix-ing with my boyfriend and cheap take-out instead of going to the movies and dinner? Times are changing, yes but in no way are they changing for the worse. Parents like to argue that their kids just want to sit inside and play video games all day, but they have no right to blame technology for their inability to say no to their children. Yes, children want to do what is fun, not what is best for them, they are like dogs in some ways: If my dog wanted to eat a chocolate chip cookie, I wouldn’t give it to her just because she wants it. Chocolate could kill her, so I’ll give her dog food and be the responsible party. You can’t blame everything on technology, and I’m afraid that that was exactly what M.T. Anderson was trying to do.

Oh man, do I have strong feelings about Feed...

I have had a really difficult time trying to define the universe this story is placed in. No matter where they are and what they are doing, I can’t picture the setting. I KNOW Anderson knows how to describe the surroundings, but the concepts he is trying to create are not fully fleshed out and with things like this, I feel like we need a much more intricate and comprehensive description of these surroundings specifically because we don’t actually have anything to reference them off of. The characters can’t just say “It looked like the Empire State Building” because they probably don’t even know what that IS. There is no way for them to connect what they see and experience to what we know. And BECAUSE of that, we need way more contextual description. Or, maybe, even some flipping illustrations would be great!

Plenty of YA novels use illustrations at the beginnings of chapters or even partially through a scene whenever the author feels it is right. YA books don’t have to be strictly texts and those images, whatever Anderson saw would have made reading this book so much less confusing for me. I do believe that every reader deserves to have an individual experience, but at least having a common experience would be nice… people don’t need to know every exact detail, obviously, because that would just be tedious, but every reader should AT LEAST be able to connect on the majority of the story - even if it is a simple as hair color.

Which one is it?

First Thoughts of YDWTKYA

So far, I feel very… disassociated with this book. I understand that the things that are happening to Piddy are terrifying - because of the bullying, heart breaking - because of the loss of her necklace, confusing - because of the story of her father, and lonely - with the moving schools and Mitzi moving away. And I can sympathize with Piddy, but I can not empathize with her or connect to her story. The narrative feels very cut and dry. If it were from Darlene's perspective I'm sure it would be much more colorful - due to her penchant for drama - but Piddy tends to just float through things. She says, as the narrator, that she is upset but we never actually shows that emotion. Until, that is, her “fight” with her mom which really doesn't sound all that bad. Three sentences of shouting vaguely hateful things and Piddy storms of and makes out with a guy we have seen her interact with twice? Seems very realistic…

Also, this book is supposed to be about bullying as the title suggests, but in reality Piddy is a very attractive and smart girl who has somehow offended Yaqui but I can't connect to her situation, because there doesn't seem to be much to react to. Chocolate milk was thrown at her and her necklace was stolen. Yes, the necklace bit was awful, but Piddy didn't show how awful it was.

I don't know, maybe I can't relate to these things because when I was in school, I was bullied a lot and it was never as simple as having milk thrown near me or an easily proved crime. None of what she has gone through so far meets my definition of bullying.

I Like to Think I'm Funny (Subvertisement)

This week in class, we have been working on Advertisements and Subvertisements. We were tasked to take an existing ad and transform it into a subvertisement (which is the process of subverting the original message to create a new message). I decide to start with an ad for the popular show, Game of Thrones. This ad is very simple in its focus, the man (Ned Stark) sitting in a chair made of swords (the Iron Throne) and the title of the show followed by a tagline: “You win or you die,” which – in my opinion – is a very apt description of the franchise. At the bottom is copyright information and where you can watch the show (HBO). 

The focus is obviously to catch the audience’s attention – specifically, the target audience is people who are already familiar with the books – by George R.R. Martin – as there really aren’t many specifics of the connotations of a man sitting in this throne. Some would argue that the audience is meant for people who have never heard of the books or show. The idea behind this response is that people who are already fans of the series will be intrigued enough to watch it without additional convincing. The dusky background and dark colors also give hints to the stylistic choices the show makes – they are dark and mysterious. It would be odd to see an ad for Game of Thrones that looked similar to an Apple ad, because there is no continuity in the style.

 

I chose to create a more politically-leaning subvertisement. The audience of this meme is made up of people who watch – or read – Game of Thrones. In the series, more often than not, someone who is not fit to rule sits on the throne (usually very corrupt or going insane) and the rest of the cast is doing underhanded things to dethrone the king – so the kings don’t really last very long… (Of course, there are other things than just uprising after uprising going on in the show, but the dethroning is what the subvertisement is trying to get at.) The change in tagline to: “You win or you’re fired” is a nod to Trump’s TV show, The Apprentice.

Thoughts on Feed

This is my first, and only, post on the book Feed, because I didn’t get the chance to blog at all last week – so, I’ll try to sum up my expectations, feelings, and reflections in one post.

I was initially very excited to read this book. The premise of losing the advanced technology that defines your daily life was exciting. I was ready to connect with the main character (Titus) and watch the parallels of “the feed” and my daily need for technology. I also have always really like sci-fi books and YAL. In short, I was pumped.

My hopes were dashed immediately. I’m not being dramatic, I promise. By immediately I mean the very first sentence. “We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.” From that moment, I understood what M.T. Anderson was trying to do. He decided that to write a book about teenagers, he had to write like a teenager. There is no real skill or imagery in the narrative, just Titus’s perspective. Things that go unexplained really needed to be explained. But in M.T. Anderson’s mind (obviously, I’m speculating) those things are so natural to Titus that it would be unnatural to explain things. The thing that bothered me the most was the “slang” words (which reminded me of Zenon: Girl of the 21^st Century – an old Disney Channel Movie).

I do appreciate the concept Anderson tries to use here, but it just didn’t work. Every time a slang word came up, “meg,” “null,” or “unit,” to name a few, I had to stop, think about the word, and remember its context, meaning, and common use, before I could move on in the story. I usually read books to become immersed and I could not do that AT ALL with this style of writing. Also, when things weren’t explained properly (because it’s from Titus’s point of view after all) I couldn’t picture the scenes as Anderson probably wanted them. I didn’t even understand that homes are inside of some sort of protective bubble on Earth until Titus was describing Violet’s neighborhood.

I’m sure you can infer what my reflections of this book are. I didn’t like it. I understand the literary ideas put into this book, but either they were not used well or they are, frankly, crappy concepts. The actual content of the story – at least what I could understand and retain after getting through the confusing construction – was thought provoking, if a little on-the-nose, so I’m sure Anderson can actually  write, but I honestly never want to read this book ever again.

Final Thoughts on the Reality of Eleanor & Park

I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. But wow, poor Eleanor. I felt like Richie – while we knew he was volatile – wouldn’t actually want to kill her. I gave him to much the benefit of the doubt. I feel that this is far too common a reaction to seeing abuse.

When Eleanor gets to her aunt and uncles house, she overhears her uncle almost brushing off what she went through by saying “What if she isn’t telling the truth?” I can understand fear being replaced with skepticism, when the facts are explained, but in no way, NONE, was her uncle justified in trying to sweep Eleanor’s siblings under the rug by questioning the truthfulness of her story. What sixteen-year-old kid would drive all through the night to show up unannounced and proclaim she was being hunted by her stepfather just for it all to be a joke?

Of everything that happened in our last reading, Eleanor and Park’s date, their day alone, the catastrophe that is Richie, the drive to Minnesota, or Park finally driving a stick, the thing that disgusted me the most was that single line from her uncle. We knew Richie was going to happen – he was a time-bomb. We knew Park would be ready to save his love – he had already kicked Steve in the face for her. And we knew that Eleanor would try to distance herself from Park after saying good-bye – her clear refusal to say the word “love” to Park was evidence enough of that. I just never expected that the relief of being away from Richie could be ruined so quickly – from one line. I respect Rowell for that. That was artful.

I’m sad the book is over – as I am with almost every book – and I am happy the Eleanor and Park turned out ok (as far as we can tell) and I am glad that everything wasn’t just fixed with a magic wand, they still had to struggle, they had to fight for safety and that made it real.

The Currency of High School

In Eleanor & Park, you see two very different ideas about money, obviously. But not only in the sense of dollar bills, but also in the currency of popularity. We only just see Park coming to realize this at the end of our readings for the week, when he realizes he has been inadvertently leading Tina on just to keep her attention and keep himself in the “inner circle” of popularity.

This, once again, is in stark contrast to Eleanor who has no popularity “points” to spend compared to Park’s. This truly parallels with their financial situations: Park doesn’t even notice his status in the school until Eleanor, who is hyperaware of these things, points it out to him. Park, financially, didn’t really notice his (or his family’s) stability until he began to understand Eleanor better and got a look into her life.

I don’t think that Rowell used Eleanor’s jealousy of Tina – although I really don’t think “jealousy” is the right word – just to drive a wedge between the two lovebirds, but more to emphasize the differences between their ways of life. Eleanor is used to scrounging for every last cent, hyper-vigilant to make ends meet, where Park just allows things to happen around him. Eleanor is active where Park is passive. Just the same thing happens with popularity. Alina Tugend talks more about this in an article for the New York Times.

This interaction, alone, shows to me the thought behind the mentality that some people in poverty have. It’s a mindset of “They don’t even notice that they can afford groceries or gas.” And it make these people bitter – and not unfairly. In Park’s case, he truly doesn’t notice that Tina likes him until it is shoved in his face.