Fat Girl

Fat Girl is Judith Moore's true story of her struggle with being fat. 

Her story is another one of messed up families. Her mother and her father get married young while they are both in college and the marriage doesn't end up working out so they separate. Judith gets stuck with her mother and all contact between her and her father and his family is severed. 

Judith's mother hates that she is fat and constantly has Judith dieting. When she doesn't loose any weight her mom accuses her of cheating and beats her. I don't understand how any mom could be like that. It's so ridiculous. I just think Judith was a reminder of her father to her mother and an obstacle too. I don't think that her mother wanted a child anyways. She was looking to be a singer and when she got pregnant all her hope vanished.  And she blames everything on her daughter because of it. It saddens me that she would act like this. I wish that she had let Judith live with her father.

In the end, Judith comes to terms with herself. She finally meets she father and though she says that she can never truly love him, I think she at least likes him. I liked this book. It was written in kind of stream of conciseness... but it was very short...but not exactly too the point, or as dense and detailed as Lucky was, but I still liked it.

Lucky, finished.

Alright, so today I finished Lucky by Alice Sebold. And I really did enjoy reading it. It was nonfiction written like fiction, which I like I've decided.

The story itself followed an unusual stucture. It started off with Sebold being raped, which is a very climatic moment in the story I think. Then Sebold escaped from Syracuse and went back home for summer break. At home, away from everyone she had to deal with everyone getting used to the idea and the different treatment she received from those who new her whether they were old boyfriends or the sweet old ladies at church. Sebold decides to go back to Syracuse for school despite the circumstances. In October that year, while going to lunch, she walks past her rapist on the street. She rushes into the restaurant to avoid him. When she comes out she makes sure that he is not around anymore, but while walking back they walk past her and he says, "Hey girl, don't I know you from somewhere?" (which I found utterly despicable.) She rushed back to school, told her professor she couldn't come to class that day, called her parents, and called the police. (This is what I found to be the beginning of the next rising action.) Then police come and they try to figure out who it is and such....eventually, they find him and during by summer they are in court. I LOVED the trial. It reminded me so much of Matlock, which is the show I watch when I'm sick. It also reminded me of the Supreme Court case that I sat in on for a moment during freshman year, that too was a rape case. I hated the defendant's lawyer, I couldn't even believe that the defendant would plead not guilty if DNA evidence made it obvious that he was guilty. Finally, after a very trying time preparing for court, waiting for the judges decision, etc. the verdict was decided and Sebold won. (I consider this the next "climax.'')

Sebold seems to get on with her life as if the trial was the thing that helped her to get over what had happened. She still deals with everything, and is still reminded of it through out the rest of her years at Syracuse and I thought that the book was settling into a nice denouement(one of my favorite words). Sebold's in a lecture during her last year at Syracuse and when she get really bad stomach pains and calls her friend to come pick her up, her friend takes her home where she finds several police cars. Her roommate and friend Lila has been raped. (this I found to be another climatic moment.)

Lila isn't like Sebold. She doesn't want to find the guy who did this to her, she just wants it to be over. Sebold doesn't understand. Lila doesn't want to talk about it, she just wants to forget about it. For the first time Sebold has a close friend that shares her experience and thinks that she can help her friend. But her friend doesn't need the kind of help that she wants to give her. This really hurts Sebold. She ends up struggling and loosing her best friend.

Sebold skips graduation to get out of Syracuse once and for all. She goes to the University of Houston to get an M.A. in poetry, but drops out. She falls into bad habits, drinking, smoking, drugs: her favorite heroin. She goes through a rough time for a couple of year and finally just snaps out of it. She gets her life back on track, gets healthy and goes to a therapist. Sebold is finally as close where she wants to be as she can be. And it's a good ending...

I honestly didn't see it coming when her friend was raped. I didn't expect it. It's something I would expect more in a novel, but alas she was. Overall this really was a great book. I plan to recommend it to anyone who needs help finding good nonfiction.

Lucky

So on Monday, I left my Harry Potter at home, so while I dropped by the library that morning I asked Ms. Newman if she had any good nonfiction for me to read. She stopped whatever she was in the middle of doing and headed towards the biography/memoir section. She browsed the shelfs and handed me about six books that she thought would interest me. I chose three out of the six to check out.

The first one from my library stack is Lucky by Alice Sebold. I orginally chose it because I wanted to eventually read The Lovely Bones by Sebold. But I thought I'd read this anyways since it was available. And since I obviously need more nonfiction than fiction. After having it for about two days I've almost made it to 100 pages.

Lucky is about Sebold's rape and how she and those around were effected by it and dealt with it. I feel as if the tone of this book is very like that of In Cold Blood, though not a brutal and only told from the perspective of one person, Sebold. The book however, like In Cold Blood has that mysterious aura that I've loved since the days of Cam Jansen, Mary-Kate and Ashley and Nancy Drew mystery series.

Lucky also has a dysfunctional family angle like that of The Glass Castle and Running with Scissors. Her mother has fits, or "flaps" as Sebold and her sister Mary call them. Her mother has also dealt with alcoholism and a Valium addiction. Her father is an intellectual type, belonging to the faculty of the University of Pensylvannia, an expert in 18th century Spanish literature like Miguel Cervantes Don Quixote de la Mancha.

I am looking forward to see how this book is as a whole. I'm definitely intrigued by it, but I don't have a definite opinion of it yet.

Rita Skeeter

Another person I despise in the series is Rita Skeeter. She's a bug, and I really don't like bugs, so in turn I really don't like her. She's everything a reporter is not supposed to be, biased opinionated. She always editorialized in her feature/new stories and doesn't attribute quotes well either. She also makes life even harder for Harry than it already is, along with the Triwizard Tournament.

I'm reading slowly right now. Goblet of Fire is a long book and with swim practice, float building and deciding what to where for each spirit day, it's been difficult to keep up. Not to mention that we've been trying to get Carpe Diem off to press ALL this week. What if there was some Rita Skeeter woman following me? I can't wait for a chance to get to sit down and read for a good bit. I've actually been reading as much as I can. I even read to avoid other assignments for other classes which is kind of a bad thing... but it's all I have energy and the attention span for. After about half a chapter I seem to doze off.

Rita Skeeter always gets a rise out of me though. No matter who she's bothering: Harry, Hagrid, Hermione, the Weasleys. Poor journalism (sensationalism) at it's best. I can't wait to get to the part where Hermione catches her and keeps her in a jar AND blackmails her. How great will that be? Perhaps I will let her redeem herself in Order of the Phoenix. We'll see.

I forgot!

I completely forgot to mention something that has kind of bothered me since Prisoner of Azkaban.Luckily when Harry and Ron were completing the divination homework in the Common Room, I was

reminded of it.

Alright, so in Prisoner of Azkaban, after Harry's finished his divination exam, Trelawney goes into a trance. And says:"It will happen tonight. The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..."

Which ends up being true. Because Voldemort's faithful servant, Peter Pettigrew finds escapes from every one and makes it back to Voldemort.

So, what does this have to do with Goblet of Fire? Well, the thing is, Harry thought this prediction to be a real prediction, even though he though of Trelawney as a fraud because he voice changed and she completely zoned out. However, for as long as I've read Harry Potter I've found most of Trelawney's predictions to be true. Like Lavendar's rabbit dying, and something about Lavendar and a man with red hair. Also she's always saying that Harry's in danger. Which, undoubtedly he is. Also, Trewlawney loves to predict Harry's death. And he eventually does "die."

I've decided that I'm going to make a note of the predictions as I go along through the rest of the series for further blogs, because I really do feel bad for Trelawney some times.

the tao of pooh

The Tao of Pooh written by Benjamin Hoff in 1982. The purpose he's trying to accomplish by writing The Tao of Pooh was to explain taoism to Westerners through a Western view point... and through the characters in the Hundred-Acre Wood.

I love Winnie-the-Pooh. He's so funny and over all great. I love the rest of the characters too, though my favorite I think is Tigger because I used sleep with my stuffed Tigger EVERY night. One thing I really liked about Winnie-the-Pooh when I last read it in 8th grade was the dialogue between Pooh and the other characters or Pooh and himself. Hoff incorporates this dialogue between him and pooh.

According to Hoffman the difference between Buddhism and Taoism is their views of the world. Buddhists see life as "a wheel of pain for all creatures," a never ending cycle. In order to find peace in Buddhism on must reach Nirvanna and "transcend 'the world of dust.' Taoists believe that life is life and that you roll with the punches, you do what comes nature. Rather than transcending "the world of dust'' you "join the dust of the world." You do the dao/tao. Or the way.

So far the book is interesting. I've been wanting to read it since last year when Ms. Embry introduced it to us in AP World. I'm glad that I've finally got around to reading it.