All we have left part 2

After finishing the second half of all we have left I can say my opinion of the book has changed. I now appreciate the novel much more than I did in the first half. Although it still has moments I am not completely sold on, such as the confrontation of Nick and his cronies after he is released from Juvie. As much as I like to hate Nick and his friends, I wish that they too would have possibly seen the error in their ways instead of continuation of miscreant actions. However I do like unwinding the mystery throughout the novel, it gives it another dimension that helps to pull you along and that would probably keep most youth readers engaged through the ideological messages of this book. Things fall nicely into place, like the reveal of Mr.Hipsters real identity and discovering Alia through her comic book art. I also appreciate that the ending of the book is left a bit open. Jessie parents still have unresolved issues and are not back together in a fairy tail type ending. Jessie and Adam also have their own problems with their relationship and dealing with Adam's religion. I feel as if it gave a realistic representation of Muslim youth in the America. They have problems and frustration with society, but work their best to work through them, even if they are rather complicated.  I also appreciate the inclusion of the 9/11 memorial site in the book and the significance it played in both Jessie's and Alia's lives. I personally would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a fun and short read. Would you recommend your group read books? What did you like or dislike about them? 

All we have left

                For our group read my group has been assigned All We Have Left, a fictional novel based around the character of Jesse, a high school girl who gets caught up in the wrong crowd, and the history of how her older brother Travis passed away in the September eleventh attacks. However, the novel is told through the perspective of two people; one being Jesse and the other Alia, a Muslim American who was at ground zero for the attacks. The Novel is similar to how Eleanor and Park was written, with a back and forth between the two characters, except in this book there is also a span in time between the two narratives. Jesse is having trouble with her home life as her father has become a reclusive drunk over the death of her older brother Travis, while her mother attempts to hold onto whatever is left of their family. She is infatuated by Nick, a young trouble maker early on in the book. Nick and Jesse soon become a couple after an exciting first date of “tagging” together. The two make a perfect crime duo as Jesse is an experienced climber due to her father owning a climbing range. While we learn about Jesse and her new life style we also get a glimpse into Alia’s life years ago in New York City. She is also an average teenage girl at the time who is dealing with struggles of moving to New York and her Muslim heritage. Her parents recently restricted her acceptance to an art school program at NYU due to her being caught red handed with a joint in the school bathroom. Although she was just putting it out, she was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. She has since been arguing with her parents over letting her join the program, but has yet to convince them otherwise. This leads to her going to the Twin Towers to visit her father in an attempt to convince him to let her join the program. Once again she is caught in the wrong place at the wrong time as she is trapped in one of the towers during the first plane crash. While in the tower she is caught in an elevator with Travis, Jessie dead brother. Personally I like our novel so far, although it is a big cringe worthy at parts. Have any of your books shared a writing style or theme to other books we have read so far? Do you like your books and how they relate to Islamic culture?

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe First reading.

So the first thing I noticed about this book is the structure. It is broken into six different parts, I am curious as to why the Author decided to structure it in this way and am curious to see your responses as to what you think. I find the character of Ari to be very interesting, as he considers himself an only child, although he is not. Another thing I found interesting is the how the relationship between Ari and Dante began. They both bonded over their classical sounding names after Dante teaches Ari to swim at the local pool. I also found it funny that Ari doesn't like to wear shoes since there was such a focus on not wearing shoes in our last book, American Born Chinese. They also both seem mature for their age, as they bond over poetry and stop some other children after they shoot a sparrow. They even go as far as to bury the bird. Ari also seems to have a strained relationship with his father, who is a Vietnam veteran. He is cold and distant as he does not like to talk about his war experience. Over all I am interested to see where this book leads and to follow the story further. 

ABC Second reading

I have just finished the Second half of American Born Chinese and was pleasantly surprised with the ending. In the second half of the book we get to see the combination of all three stories in the book, The Monkey King, Danny's story and Jin's. I was not expecting the three to combine in such a dramatic way. I would have never guessed Wei-Chen to have been the Monkey Kings son, and for Danny to actually be Jin. I just assumed that the three stories were related but not in the same universe. I really liked the reveal of the connection between the three. However, it felt very rushed to me and I would have liked a bit more foreshadowing to the ending. Overall I still liked the reading and the message of the book of staying true to yourself and that there is no point in hiding your identity. I also felt that although we get a sense of closure with Jin's story and his friendship with Wei-Chen there are still a lot of unresolved issues. For example the mission of Wei-Chen and the relationship between Jin and Amelia. Are we just supposed to be okay with Greg's treatment of Jin and the Jin - Suzy relationship. Also, I assumed that Danny's story was all in Jin's imagination and combining the three at the end leads to some confusion. Not to say that this wasn't the right decision to combine the three, but the execution could have been better. What are your thoughts on the ending? Did you like the combination of the stories at the end?

American Born Chinese First read

The book American Born Chinese is a graphic novel containing three different, yet related stories. The three stories all relate to a sense of identity and what it means to embrace heritage while trying to blend into a new environment. The first story that the book open with is one of a Monkey king who is denied entrance to a party because he does not have shoes, yet monkey do not wear shoes. After being rejected he barricades himself inside “the inner bowels of his royal chamber”.  He spends this time mediating to emerge with a new name, the great sage of equal heaven, and some new shoes. The Monkey king then proceeds to convince all other gods of his power by fighting them all until they say his name. The gods then go to the Tze-yo-Tzuh to demand that he do something about the monkey king. The Monkey king questions Tze-yo-Tzuh’s power by going to the edge of the universe to find five pillars. In an act of deviance he carves his name into one of the pillars and also urinates on it. However, he returns only to find that the pillars were in fact Tze-yo-Tzuh’s hand. Tze-yo-Tzuh tells the Monkey king that he intended him to be a monkey so he should be who he really is. The Monkey king refuses to accept this and challenges Tze-yo-Tzuh to a fight to which Tze-yo-Tzuh replies by burring him under a mountain of rocks so he cannot practice Kung-Fu. This story is then followed by what I consider to be the main story, the story of Jin. Jin is of Chinese decent and has recently moved from San Francisco to a rural community with a very small Asian population. Jin is ashamed of his culture and spends most of his time trying to avoid who he is, by perming his hair and attempting to avoid all other Asian students. Jin and the other Asian kids are often subjected to racial slurs by their peers. The third story is of Danny, a white American who is visited by his Chinese cousin. This story is presented as a sit com with a laugh track running along the bottom of panels that warrant one. Danny’s Chinese cousin is an embodiment of every Chinese stereotype rolled into one. Danny struggles to live everyday life with his cousin and confides in his friend Steve that he has transferred schools three times since high school because of his cousin. Steve then tells him that he should embrace his cousin and to shake off any rude comments from others. I see this last section as almost a Subvertisment within the Novel, exaggerating the extreme stereotypes Asian Americans may face to bring them to light for a wider audience to understand.

What are your thoughts on American Born Chinese so far? How do you thing the Graphic Novel Medium aids in storytelling? How well do you think the three stories work with each other? Is it too much for one book? Also the term "fresh off the boat" was used a few times in this novel, and funny enough it is actually a the name of an ABC sitcom  http://abc.go.com/shows/fresh-off-the-boat 

Applying the Youth lens to Eleanor & Park.

The character of Eleanor is a very accurate description of a troubled teenager, just trying to get by in her home and school environment. She is very realistic about where she stands in her life; about her looks and her home life. This builds a bridge to the youth reader having a lead character with such a firm understanding of where she stands in life, yet not knowing how to escape her surroundings. This realism and very mature understanding of her life suggests that youth readers will be more willing to to relate to and understand her when she does somewhat irrational things. Life ruining away from parks house the first time she visits and her general disdain towards Park at the very beginning of their relationship. Through out the novel we are also bombarded by pop culture references, which, at first may seem a but dated, but non-the less helps to draw the reader in with familiar names and books. This softens the youth reader to the acceptance of the larger themes discussed in the the novel, such as sense of self and social economic problems. Issues that may not draw the youth in upon first glance. There is also a significant amount of growth in the novel, and a general strive to become more adult like form both Eleanor & Park. This can be related to by most youth and can be seen as an attempt to draw them closer to the text. It does so in a way that eases the reader into empathizing with the two by gradually exposing the two to adult concepts, such as driving around town, before making the full plunge of an overnight road trip. How do you think the youth lens applies to Eleanor and park? To Feed? 

Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your ass has been a great read so far, especially relating to our previous class discussions on bullying and Eleanor & Park. This book also seems to touch on self identity issues also, as most young adult novels do. In this case it seems to be more about what it means to come from a certain culture, as Piddy is ridiculed for not being "Latin enough", since her skin is a lighter complexion and she gets good grades. This lead me to some interesting thought about bullying. Over 67% of students believe that schools respond poorly to bullying, with a high percentage of students believing that adult help is infrequent and ineffective. Over the coarse of a year, over a fourth of students reported bullying based on race. I think its very important for young students to be able to identify the signs of bullying before it gets too serious. Funny enough, Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your ass has been ban in several school districts for its harsh language and violent themes. I strongly disagree with this and personally believe that no book should ever be ban. By censoring certain topics you take away vital information needed to make choices based on critical thinking. So what are your opinions? How are you liking the topic of bulling and its coverage in Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your ass has? Do you think there are legitimate grounds to censor this book?
 

2nd Eleanor and Park reading

I have enjoyed the second installment of reading from Eleanor & Park very much than the first installment. In the second half I saw a lot more of an interesting focus on Eleanor's home life than the first, learning more about the struggles of lower income homes in the time period of the nineteen eighties. We also learn more about how the community views Eleanor and her family by gaining more insight on Richie's influence on the town, and his presence at the local bar, The Rail. It seems that while the town knows about the possible situation that Eleanor and her family are in they will not intervene. Both parks Father and Grandmother make it clear that Richie is not well liked or thought highly of in the community and they have witnessed questionable behavior from him; whether it is smashing mail boxes around the neighborhood or smashing drinks at the bar. This made the scene involving the Police coming to Eleanor's home particularly frustrating. It is assumed that the town is small enough that Richie would have some sort of reputation with the local police department, so when they treated the situation with such little sincerity or professionalism it made me question how often things such as this may happen in real life. I really enjoyed how Rainbow Rowell shows differences in income and family life by comparing Park and Eleanor's home life. Simple things like a proper home cooked meal are taken into consideration by Eleanor when she is visiting Park's home. This is no surprise when considering the food choices of lower income families and why they make those choices. So what do you think are some of the most noteworthy differences between Park and Eleanor's home lives? Also do you think the Police in the story would have responded differently if it was another family, or in a wealthier area?

Eleanor and Park

I just finished the first reading installment of Eleanor and Park. Overall I enjoyed the reading very much, but still have some grievances with the writing. Mostly my complaints lay within the mirroring of Eleanor’s and Park’s relationship to Romeo and Juliet . Yes, I do understand that is the point of the story to an extent, (young love and all that jazz). It is even a fear of Park’s when he first admits his love for Eleanor over the phone that he sounds too much like Romeo and Juliet.  Eleanor also refers to him as Romeo at one point. However, I feel that even though it is addressed and it makes a lot of sense with the context of the story, it still feels weak and stale. This book is also a high school level book about high school. So I really don’t know what I expected from it. This is not to say I dislike the book at all really, I even had a bit of trouble stopping where I am because I wanted to finish the rest of the story.  Another quick complaint would be that there are too many flat characters such as Steve, Richie, Mr. Stessman and Tina. I’m sure there will be more development with these characters later on, but as of now they seem boring with little to add to the story in terms of growth. I do really enjoy the musical and comic taste of the two, (Joy Division & Watchmen specifically) and how they embrace and bond over how nerdy they are. What I really enjoyed so far is the very real approach and reminders of Eleanor’s poverty and troublesome home life. Small things such as being afraid to let any information slip in front of her classmates that may reveal her home life, being amazed by her father’s full cupboards and being scared to ask for a toothbrush from her school counselor. Child poverty is a very real problem in the United States, with 21% of children Living in what would be considered poverty. 

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