Category: Senior Literary

“Like a Winding Sheet” is a short story written by Ann Petry. It is centered around an African-American man, Johnson, in racism. In this story, Ann Petry not only describes the racism towards African-American men but the placement of the African-American woman also. It begins with the man in bed with his wife. Their relationship is described through dialogue and metaphors. It seems as if they have a healthy, loving relationship. As the day goes by, the man is constantly verbally abused by white women. His boss is a white woman who talks to him like he is trash and the woman at the coffee shop refuses to serve him after a long day of work. His frustration builds throughout the story. The greatest metaphor used in this story is in its title, a winding sheet. The winding sheet describes his emotions and the buildup of anger over time—winding and winding until it was time to release it all. The phrase “and he couldn’t bring himself to hit a woman” (Petry) is repeated throughout when he enters a racist situation with the white women. It is a belief that has been imprinted on him, and he tries to remind himself of it and who he is a person. Every time he is disrespected, he clutches his fists tighter and tighter until they cannot anymore. “They were clenched tight, hard, into fists” (Petry).

There were some aspects of the story that stood out to me. Petry frames the story in a way and has great character development. The story has a swift but steady pace. The structure shows how Johnson’s attitude and emotions were in the beginning and how they were in the end, which is a huge difference. Petry uses many forms of symbolization and the setting contributes to the plot of the story. This story relies heavily on the characters’ actions. Some examples of symbolism used are lipstick and a winding sheet. Some themes that this piece possesses is love, failure, femininity, patience, imprisonment, and racism. There is plenty of foreshadowing in the story that hints at the terrible ending. In a way, the encounters create misogyny in the main characters. Not necessarily a major presence of it but to some extent, his frustration with women grows more and more. By the end of the day, he has become fed up with his surroundings and lashes out.

Ultimately, this story’s core theme is racism. Ann Petry examines the effect on African-American men and women, specifically spouses. It makes me wonder if she has observed this in marriages or if she has experienced it herself. Overall, this story was a good read. The ending is upsetting but extremely thought-provoking. Through numerous metaphors and actions, Petry successfully develops round and vulnerable characters. While reading this the second time, I discovered the underlying message of freedom and loss of identity. The conflict is so complicated that I do not know how to feel about Johnson’s ending character. I definitely recommend this story, click here to read it.

So, first off, I’m gonna say a spoiler warning. If you don’t care about spoilers, then go ahead and continue reading. But if you care a lot about spoilers and stuff about the book, click out of this, read the book, and then come back. I’ll wait.

Okay, so, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is this really awesome book. It’s basically a psychological, dystopian future, action book. If you love psychological books, action books, or dystopian books, you will love this. If you love all three genres, you will absolutely lose your mind over this novel. It’s about a fireman in the future, but their job is not to put out fires, it’s to start them. In this society that is established, books are hated and banned by basically the government. Apparently, it’s because books can make people feel bad about themselves and they can also cause controversial issues and start wars, so the government is trying to be careful and take no chances, so they decide to get rid of all books.

The main character, Montag, is one of the firefighters and he thinks it is a good and normal job to have. He does not think anything about it for a while. Then, all of a sudden this girl pops up and tells him that firefighters used to be good people and stopped fires rather than start them. Montag’s mind was blown by this, and he was trying to wrap his head around that idea that maybe the firefighters in his time aren’t really helping anything.

Later, a woman has some books and it is reported. So, Montag goes to the house and he does what he was supposed to do. He burned the house down with the books in them. But, the woman would not leave because she would rather have her books than live. Montag ‘s entire world was changed from this point on. He didn’t know why someone was so dedicated to books, and also mainly because he killed her. He decided to take a break from work, but he had been taking a little bit of books home with him, trying to know why people care about them so much.

Montag’s wife is kind of not caring at all to Montag. she cared more about escaping reality by doing interactive TV than caring about Montag and how he feels during that hard time. Later on, Montag makes a deal with this smart dude that likes books that they can make prints of these books. After some time, Montag goes to his house and his wife and her friends are there. He does what any normal person would do and whips out poetry and recites it to these women, even though it was illegal, he didn’t care. He was then reported by his wife. She left and the firemen came to his house. He was forced to burn his house down and all the books, but the captain was gonna arrest him too. So, Montag kills the captain and a mechanical hound. He then escapes from the helicopters and new hound looking for him. He then finds these refugees that love books too and they plan to make a new world that likes books and intellectual things after the war was over. To end the book, atomic bombs were dropped and Montag and the boys make their new civilization.

This book is such an awesome experience. Reading it is so much fun, because the whole time, there is a lot of humor and interesting things that happen that keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s such a unique story, I’ve never read anything even similar to it. I recommend this story so much. My only problem with this novel is that it can be a little tough to read and also the ending is really uneventful and not good. The worst thing is when a book is so good and then the end never rewards you with something huge, this book did exactly that. There was nothing incredibly shocking or anything that was a good and satisfying closure to this book. Other than that, I do recommend.

Boy, I’m just exploring all kinds of new reading material on this blog, huh?

The Story:

Lookism is a serial webtoon. It is an on-going drama, so I can’t give an overall description, but I can offer the main gist of the story. Daniel Park is an obese, unattractive, poverty-stricken victim of severe bullying (I mean, like on enslavement levels of treatment, I swear, it’s that bad) with the lowest of low self-esteem. The bullying has gotten so out of hand that his mother lets him transfer to a new school, where he’d live on his own, and take care of himself. One day, Daniel wakes up in a perfect specimen of a body, handsome, healthy, athletic, perfect in every way. His old body (which if I refer to it again, will be called Body A) is lying asleep next to his awake new body (Body A Prime). Through a little experimentation, he discovers that whenever Body A Prime is conscious, Body A will not be, and vice versa. So, Daniel lives life in both bodies, switching whenever necessary.

Honestly, is there really any point by now in saying that this will be structured differently from my first few blogs? I think not, so let’s move on; let the record show that my coming blogs won’t be a uniformly organized.

Characters (my god the characters, in that there are so freaking many, but let’s only hit the main-main):

Daniel:

Daniel is the main protagonist. He is a great character, very relatable and realistic. Because of his years of bullying trauma, he behaves as such. He yells his frustration at his mother, (something that he matures out of don’t worry, he isn’t a toxic character). Just because he gets a more desirable body doesn’t change his mind.  He still has the past. While he is learning to become a more confident person, even in Body A, he does have relapses. One instant, he, in Body A Prime, encounter his bully and instantly falls back into his own cowering way at the very sight of him.

Vasco:

Vasco is the leader of a notorious, The Burn Knuckles. He possesses ungodly strength, both of will, kindness, and physical means. That’s right, Vasco is a muscled teddy bear. He’s probably the second nicest character in the series. He happy-cries at the slightest thing. He’s sensitive and has good character development.

Jay:

Jay is the most mysterious main character. The way he is drawn prevents people from seeing his face, and he doesn’t speak audibly, but apparently Daniel manages to communicate with him easily. He is presumed to be handsome, and somewhat unaware of it. He is also very generous with his wealth. The most mysterious thing about him, aside from his face and manner of speech, is his relationship with Daniel. It is unknown whether he regards Daniel romantically, or if he is just a very good friend. He has been shown to be jealous and protective of Daniel, going out of his way to even hurt himself even if helps Daniel. I wonder if this is a plot point or just plain fan-service: I’d be upset if it were the latter.

Zack:

Zack is the best developed character of the series. He begins a main antagonist, but it isn’t long before his allegiance switches, and he becomes one of Daniel’s closest friends. Zack has two characteristics: tough boy, professional boxer, and mad lover boy. Mira is the object of his affections, and it is for her that he changes from a thug to a hard, but nice guy.

 

 

The Plots (sweet Jesus):

Okay, so something that could turn you off from his story are the plots. MY GOD ARE THEY BRUTALLY REALISTIC. From killer stalkers, to freaking serial rapists, to What-The-Actual-Jesus level bullying, to dog-worshipping cults, to kidnappers, to blackmailing gangsters, to abuse of social media trash-talk, to thievery, GOD THIS SERIES NEEDS TO HECKING CHILL.

But that’s also the beauty of it.

I rate Lookism a 7 out of 10 stars. I would give it more bu the disturbing art style makes me reluctant to re-read certain parts.

Eudora, a famous writer from Jackson Mississippi has had many biographies and books dedicated to her memory and focused on her life. Many of these biographies hold details of her writing life and her incredible love for books. There has even been a visitors center open in her dedication detailing her life and how she wrote her books. Her house is open to the public, and we easily get a glimpse of her life. However, many biographies do not go in to detail heavily about her personal life and beliefs. Carolyn J. Brown tried her hand at Eudora Welty and the end result was a wonderful depiction of Eudora.

The biography begins with details about Eudora’s home life in Jackson. She brings the topic up with the statement that Eudora had a teacher who when the first snow fell drew out her black cape and caught a snowflake “running up and down the isles showing the flake before it melted”. Eudora had such a small town life, much like most people do in Mississippi. She didn’t get her groceries from a store, instead she grew her own food and killed her own meat for the house. If they needed anything they didn’t have Eudora would have the task of going out to the small country store and buying it as well as one extra dollar for a peice of candy. This small life was so well conveyed and understood to readers.

Many people who have been to the visitors center do not know much about Eudora’s family members. Eudora held her family close, however, most people in her family died at a relatively young age. Her father was the first to pass away after complications. Her brothers both enlisted in the army and died shortly after for other problems not related to the army. Her mother was too weak for her to care for and was later put in a hospital. When she lost her mom she continued in her footsteps addopting her garden outside of the little house in Jackson. This became her way of expressing herself, and she considers herself as more of a creative person not just a writer. The garden still stands outside of the house in Jackson and there are always flowers budding throughout the years. The garden is beautiful, and holds a strong reflection of both Eudora and her mother. It was wonderful for the garden to be mentioned in the biography due to the underlying fact that the garden was important to Eudora’s life.

The book itself was outlined in a way that held the readers attention. It was split up into different chapters that showed different time periods in her life. From her life in Jackson, to her education, to the serious times during war when her brothers were fighting, to her career, to friendships, and to the Eudora house, the chapters all held something special. The book also was scattered with quotes from Eudora herself and some special pictures of her as well as artistic work that was never really paid attention to outside of the biography. In the end there is also an outline of her life in order of the time it happened. This is essentially interesting as well as helpful for people who wish to learn more about Eudora. It was all beautifully arranged and just the way Eudora would want it herself.

 

SUMMARY

Erin Tierney has been married to her husband, Kevin for years, and for every one of them, he’s been physically and emotionally abusing her. She finally manages to escape him through careful planning. She changes her name to Katie Foreman and flees to the small town of Southport, North Carolina. Her house is shabby, and her waitress job pays little, but she isn’t complaining. Visits to the general store introduce her to Alex, a widowed father of two children. A romance forms between the two of them—but Kevin is searching for Erin.

REVIEW

I have read several Sparks books before, and this one is probably my favorite. It is not particularly stunning in any regard, especially not the romance. It can hardly be called terrible, but it isn’t a classic fairytale or anything. It’s kind of what you expect when you have four/five different plots going on in one book and one of them is romance—not the worst, but you have to squeeze it in with everything else, and in the end, you’d be lucky if it didn’t end up rushed. It’s awkward introductions, then awkward conversations, slowly warming up, and then love. Pretty much what you would expect.

The ending of the novel is actually very suspenseful, as it bounces from one character to another. Knowing Sparks’ tendency for bittersweet endings, it can definitely be concerning. And the ending actually is bittersweet, but it wraps up everything nicely enough. The thing I enjoyed best in the book was the detail and images. They were all wonderfully detailed, and though it does go overboard at points—like this one scene where a character says “let’s sit on this bench,” followed by a full paragraph describing the bench and its origin—I could imagine everything perfectly.

Something that I also praise the book for is its handling of Kevin’s character. Though we are not at all meant to sympathize with him, we are terribly reminded that he’s human. That is, his moments of actual affection for Erin, followed by his need to hurt or kill her, makes him all the scarier. The fact that he’s actually pretty smart also makes him a genuine threat.

There’s a twist in the book that is very divisive for those who have read it. Some think it’s genius and came out of nowhere, others think it was obvious and ruined almost everything. It did not ruin the whole book for me, but I can say that it was certainly unnecessary. It’s a twist for the sake of having a twist; it doesn’t further the plot, and it only has one effect. It also raises a couple of plot holes, but nothing unforgivable. The fact that this subplot is wrapped up last also kind of feels like it was a loose end that had to be tied up.

If you’re looking for a standard boy-meets-girl love story, this one will suit you just fine. It has romance, it has beautiful images, and the emotional tension that you need. I guess the most I can say is that you’d find more than you were looking for, but it may be that you can brush these things away in favor of the good of the story.

Revelation by Falnnery O’Connor published in 1964, the same year O’Connor died, explores societal hierarchy of the time period and what it would take for someone to become self aware of their judgmental thought process that made them hypocritical in the way they live their life.  This exploration mainly pertains to the 1960’s hierarchy a lot of people thought was how everything just ‘worked’, but especially the ‘good christian women’ who thought they were the ones setting the example.  It brought up a questioning of self awareness to the way people are living, and I say that in present tense to highlight the fact that it is still highly relevant today.

The story begins with Mrs. Turpin and her experience in a Doctor’s office because Mr. Turpin was thought to have had an ulcer.  There is a lot of symbolism with her being in a doctor’s office, where people get helped and healed, or atleast the beginning process of it begins.  Then on top of the setting, is the people.  There are about six other characters made relevant to the story, each of a different ‘class’as Mrs. Turpin noticed.  One was white trash, then middle class, then upper middle class.  There was a girl about the age of 18 reading a book about self help of some sort, and she was described to be a very ugly pitiful girl.  Through this girl Mrs. Turpin finally comes to the conclusion that she is wrong in her line of thinking about who is ‘in charge’ of others.  This girl is the standing figure of the ugly truth.  The girl, Mary Grace, is shown to be quite knowledgable as she is reading and attending college. She also is forceful and her eyes are described to be “lit all of a sudden with a peculiar light, an unnatural light
like night road signs give”.  Which is also an indication that she is a driving force of directon that Mrs. Turpin needs to listen to.   Mary Grace attacks Mrs. Turpin by biting and telling her she is a hog.  Hogs, well specifically wart hogs, is symbolism of vigilence and awareness.  These virtues are exactly what Mrs. Turpin needs more of, and in the end she recieves it through them.

By the end of the story, Mrs. Turpin has had a revelation to her life and how she was wrong.  She has a vision from God, and in that vision she saw all of the people she previously thought of as below her all walking up to Heaven.  They were dancing and singing while she and others alike her were all walking behind them.  She realized in this vision that they are equal to her, and she has nothing ‘over’ them.  God thinks equally of them and her and everyone.  She proceedas to walk back toward her house while thinking of what she saw.

I enjoyed this story for the complexity of it, you could either read it and go ‘what the heck’ or you could look deeper and see all of the layers put into the characters and ther growth and progression of each of them.  Now, i wish we could see more od Mrs. Turpin after her revelation to see what it is exactly that she changes, but overall it is a well written story i would recommend.

 

 

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is a short story centered around the life of a well-known town woman, Emily Grierson. Set in Mississippi, the story spans over 75 years. The Griersons are well known in the town of Jefferson, and quite frankly, Emily Grierson is admired by the town. This story is written in first person but uses pronouns such as we. The narrator is the town, and I have never read a story that had this point of view, so it was cool to read and worked very well. The story is divided into five sections.

Some interesting qualities about this short story is its structure, point of view, characters, conflict, and its frame. Choosing to use “we” instead of “I” made it feel like it was written from the town as a whole’s perspective. It also felt like they were responsible to tell her story like it was their duty. The town’s attitude towards Emily and her entire family tree is obvious throughout the story.

“When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant—a combined gardener and cook—had seen in at least ten years” (Faulkner).

This is the opening text of the story and instantly introduces you to the idea of the town people and Emily. It sets the foundation of the setting, a small country town where people see or claim to see everything. It also introduces that Miss Grierson is almost the town’s mystery.

There is a battle of old v new and North v South heavily present in this story. There are two interesting characters in the story and one of them is Emily Grierson. I find her to be an extremely complex and mysterious character. The town sees her as “a fallen monument” “duty.” I feel they see her this way because she represents the old ways of the setting. However, at the same time, she partially represents modern time. It talks a lot about the modern people coming in and changing things. Emily is also interesting because of her relationship with her father, which is very troubling and oppressing. He apparently ruins every relationship she’s in and is very strict and close-minded. She still loved him deeply however and depended on him. It was essentially an unhealthy relationship.

The structure of this essay works well because it introduces new information in each section. The only part I didn’t understand was where Faulkner decided to begin number two; it was very weird because it was still discussing a scene from part one.

The story begins and ends with death, hence the frame structure I mentioned earlier. The progression and changing of characters in the story is very well done. Overall, this was a nice short story. If you like twists and surprising endings, then this story is for you. Click here to read it.

This story was one of the emotionally captivating books that I have read in awhile. What starts out as a sad sob-story of a girl who lost her boyfriend in a car crash ends in a terrible search for answers that might not turn out as expected. We learn further in the story that the two main characters had broken up before he had ever “died” in the car accident.

What was never revealed is the reason why Caleb never decided to tell his mom that they had broken up. All he says is that he was going to see her, which he does many times before. The only difference is when he goes this time, somehow, he gets into a wreck that leaves everyone surprised. However, this wreck didn’t make any since. There was no way that he had wrecked into this river, it had only been raining, and the guard rail was only slightly broken. Even if he did fall off into the river, his body was never found by the police. This instance was odd to me because normally with police they have to find the body before it is ever considered a death.

In the beginning, it is also weird that they don’t really have much of a relationship. Sure, they always tend to be around each other, but they fought often. There was always something off about Caleb, especially when they went on their little trip. He acted as if it was for them to spend time together, but when the mystery man is revealed, we see that he was meeting with his father the whole time. There was also a slight romance between Caleb’s best friend and the girlfriend. It is revealed about halfway through that Caleb actually knows about this romance, but doesn’t say anything but “I know”. If he actually loved her, it would have been more of a big deal.

His mom was extra weird during the book. She wanted his girlfriend, the main character, to come and take care of all of Caleb’s belongings. During this time she somehow always pops in at random moments to be sure that she is taking care of the job and not goofing around. At first the reader must assume that it is simply because she blames her for her sons death, however, we later assume that she must think that the girlfriend/ex-girlfriend must know something. She places a tracker on the girlfriend’s phone, keeps track of every place that she goes, and even spies on her phone calls. This foreshadows the events that leads up to finding Caleb. What mother would follow an ex so closely, if she didn’t know that her son wasn’t actually dead?

The author uses so many different mystery details to account for Caleb’s disappearance. Throughout her entire time of cleaning up the room, she finds different things that show that Caleb may not be dead. In the end she finds a mysterious compartment that shows that Caleb had actually been in the house recently, and was covering up his tracks.

This story had a genius way of foreshadowing events. The author added so many details that was somewhat up to the reader to understand. If I was to read it again, I’m sure I would find more detail that I didn’t before.

Katie MacAlister’s Ain’t Myth Behaving, published in 2007, is a humorous romantic harlequin (my god, what was I thinking?). It’s divided into Norse Truly and Stag Party. Stag Party is what I read. It tells the love story of Dane, an Irish god more famously known as Cernunnos, and Megan (or is it spelled Meghan (another sign I do not care), an American author on a research trip. Dane, according to ancient mystical law has to get married every year or else he loses his godliness, becomes his actual age, and dies. Until now, he has remarried a woman who recently eloped with a Greek salsa dancer, so yeah, there is that to think about. The deadline from the time Dane meets Megan is a week. So, the conflict is whether or not he can convince her to marry him by the end of the week.

Let me just cut to the chase.

Aside from certain godawful books derived from Twilight that will go unnamed, because that train wreck is for another time, this novella is probably on of the most badly written things I have ever read.

I mean, it is just terrible. I wish I had the will to look up exactly who published this monstrosity.

See, I understand all genres have their own style of writing and all of that. Mysteries are mysterious, romances are romantic, tragedies are tragic, horrors are horrific, you get the idea.

This is the first harlequin I ever read. And for the genre’s sake, I hope this was the only one of its kind.

…but the story did have its perks. Let us get into specifics.

Why Stag Party is a Terrible Book

1: Dane is a horrible person.

Dane (last name I can’t remember because I am trying the best I can to forget this thing) is the only thing that could serve a saving grace, but even he is not enough. He is a funny guy, but unbelievably sexist. He is convinced that every woman swoons at the sight of him, and that is a bit conceited and extremely aggravating.

2. Megan is the weakest willed human being in existence, and probably the most inconsistent too.

I am not sure exactly what Katie MacAlister was going for when she wrote this character. Megan begins the story fine. When Dane starts coming onto her, which is like three microseconds after he meets her, she reacts as normal person would. She rejects his affection. She is also flattered, which is not always realistic, but it is a harlequin, so I let it slide. But the second Dane kisses her for the first time (if I am remembering correctly it was against her will, but I am so past this book, I refuse to fact check), she melts into his arm. Dane wants to sleep with her constantly, and she always says no; until she says yes. It is maddening.

3. What the heck is a tension?

You would think this book with this premise would be suspenseful, what with the protagonist’s life on the line, but nooooooooo. It’s focused on the humor a little (A LOT) too much. Even when a character is stabbed in the chest, which it supposed to be a big moment, it is robbed of its tension, when nearly no one reacts to it.

God, I’m glad it’s over. The story is only good for a quick laugh and a tutorial on how not to write a book.

0.5 Stars out of 1,000,000

THANK GOD IT’S OVER.