a long way gone

By: Ishmael Beah

   Ishmael and his friends are getting very scared. I can see they don't like what they are doing, stealing food and water from people. But how else are they supposed to survive? If you were in this situation what would you do...

Personally I think I would do the same thing. If taking food from someone was the only way for me to survive I think I would have to. I would not give up till I find the rest of my family. And that is exactly what they are trying to do. Just find their way back home and find their families. I think that maybe if I knew my family was gone I wouldn't be performing these acts but if I knew there was a chance of seeing them again I would do it no doubt. 

I don't think they should feel ashed for what they are doing. Everyone needs to survive and everyone has their own way of surviving. They keep having to run from village to village to keep away and stay hidden from the rebels so they have no where to settle down. No where to find their own food and shelter so they must take others. I think the boys will find their family soon but I don't think what awaits for them in the future after that is any good.. 



a long way gone

By: Ishmael Beah

    A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. This book I think would be considered a personal narrative. It is so far a story about his life as a boy soldier. So far he has talked about when the war first started. Him and his brothers, Junior and Talloi. They were traveling to a different town to perform in a talent show. And on their journey is when everything started. They were approached by a friend who said the radicals have reached their home town, everyone was lost and everything was destroyed.    




   I think this could be a scary time for everyone at this age. No one really knows what is going to happen or if anything is going to happen. I think also being at the age these boys are at it could be a scary time for them. I think this defiantly shows the characters developing. Or we will see more in the future of how they develop. We will see how they go from just three boys who wanted to show people their music in a talent show too three boys who are becoming soldiers for the radicals.                  




   I know that once I start getting more into the book we can see this development for the characters and we can find out what happens to them once the radicals reach them..                

Looking For Alaska

By: John Green

      

Spoiler Alert!!! Death is tragic. That is all I can say about the ending of this book. John Green never fails to make his readers sob at the ending of all his books. For some reason he just has this thing about wanting to make people cry when they read his books. 

Alaska Young. The most beautiful girl at Culver Creek anyone has laid eyes on. Or at least that Miles has laid eyes on. Alaska was always a mystery to everyone. She had her group of friends but at the same time she did her own thing. She never really talked that much, or at all, about her home life and her family. She was really just a big mystery. 

       "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!"(128 before.120) These where Alaska Young's last words to Miles. Alaska died one night in a car crash. Some people think it was intentional. Many people had a hard time excepting that Alaska would actually kill her selves. And many other people think it was all just an accident. The question that bothered Miles the most, where was she going so late at night? Why did she have to be driving? Was she drinking? These questions lingered on for a while but I feel like it was all part of Alaska's image. She always came off as a mystery so why not stay a mystery even in death.
       One of the biggest themes in this book was the theme of this labyrinth that we all live in. Chip and Miles were very open about their view on it but Alaska not so much. And I found it kind of funny that her last words to Miles was her wondering if she will ever get out of the labyrinth. That is why I think her death was a suicide. I think she was just very lost in the world. She didn't have much family and she drank a lot. She was sad. So maybe her way out of the "labyrinth of suffering" was to no longer suffer anymore. Maybe she thought the only way out was death. Miles claims that she "self-destructed." "Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself-those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable, because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be." (136 after.17) Maybe she could have lived and fought through the pain, maybe she could have found another way out of the labyrinth. If she was as strong as Miles claims us humans are then maybe she could have stayed with us. Or maybe that really was her only way out of this labyrinth of life. But it is really just all a bunch of 'maybes'. No one will ever know her real reasoning and we may never find a way out of the labyrinth. There may be no way out at all.

    I hope everyone who read my blog took a liking to the book and I hope everyone gets a chance to read this amazing book!