Virgin Suicides

The book that I’ve been reading is Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. It starts of in the perspective of a group of boys who live across the street from the 5 Lisbon girls who are beautiful and mysterious which the boys have a facination for. The girls are cooped up in their house because they have extremely strict parents and their nt allowed to communicate with boys or anybody really because their parents are always watching them and it doesn’t help that their father works at the same school that they go to. The first part of the book focuses on Cecilia’s first suicide attempt where she cuts her wrists and lays in a tub of hot water until someone walks in and saves her, not that she wanted to be saved.

         The main topic in the book is depression so far. I can tell that this is the main topic because the title refers to suicide, and the book starts of by somebody attempting suicide and the leading cause of suicide is depression. I think that Cecilia is the most depressed girl out of the Libson daughters because she shows the most symptoms what I mean by this is shes the most anti social, and by the way she talks and is described in the book she has barely any expression and it seems as if she doesn’t really have any hope and she doesn’t feel anything. Which really makes me think that her depression could affect and influence the way her sisters are, because who would want to have to see their sibling feeling like she’s worthless and not wanting to be alive so badly that she’d decided to end her life, that would have to effect the other your sisters because it would be hard to see and not change a bit.

         Cecilia so far is the only character that we know the most about because we even know that she wears a vintage 20’s wedding dress all the time and that shes short and we even know who she liked. Which is a lot different than what we know about the other sisters because all we really know about the others is that their blonde and each one year apart, we don’t know what they feel and we aren’t able to determine weather or not their depressed or not because their personalities aren’t really expressed.

I think maybe Jeffery Eugenides might have did this on purpose so that the reader can create a personality that they see fit for each character to enhance the reading experience.

The relationship of a time traveler and his destined love

I've recently started the book The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I'm not that well into the book yet but from what I can tell you is the time travelers wife is about this guy named Henry who's a time traveler and he can't tell a lot of people about his power because no one would believe that it's true and if they did believe the time traveling world would be too congested with people. With his ability he's able to know his future and the people he'll meet. One time he met his wife Clare who is another character In the book. The first time they met was when she was 6 and Henry was much older than her. Whenever Henry time traveled he ended up with no clothes so the first time they met he was naked with a little girl right there. The thing is that Henry always sees Clare when he's a different age usually it's when Clare is much Younger. I think that the age difference will be an issue in this book and it could possibly affect thier relationship and they could end up not married and that could change the future.
I think that the age difference between Clare is going to be a problem because since not everyone is a time traveler nobody who isn't would believe that he's not just a crazy person who ends up in random places without any clothes on. For example henry says "I'm in the back of the police car in Zion,Illinois. I am wearing handcuffs and not much else."(pg. 58) And also" Also I refuse to talk to them,so they still don't know who I am, or where I live. The day They find out I'm toast because there are several outstanding warrants for my arrest:breaking and entering, shoplifting, resisting arrest,
trespassing,indecent exposure, indecent exposure"(pg 59) Henry wouldnt look good hanging around a 6 year old with that kind of record and the police would suspect him to be some type of creep especially since he was charged with indecent exposure so thier relationship will be affected by the age difference as well as his criminal record.

The Glass Shatters.

Drug addiction changes your life and the lives of your loved ones, It is something that a lot of people struggle with. In Glass by Ellen Hopkins. The most important social issue is drug addiction .Kristina’s life changes and heads more downhill because of her addiction to crystal meth. Her relationships with her family and friends change especially with her baby hunter. Her addiction also changes her personality.

         

          Kristina’s Relationship with her family changes mostly in crank the first book of the crank series when she has to go visit her dad over the summer. This causes a drastic change because her dad was a drug addict and he gave her access to meth giving her the opportunity to get hooked on it. Also when she got back from her summer with her dad she was more distant  with her mom and her stepdad and siblings. In Glass however after she has a baby, she thinks that she is done with drugs but she gets pulled back into the addiction and her mom finds out so she gets kicked out of the house. When Kristina got kicked out she didn’t show the want to be living with her family again, which I find is strange because her mom wouldn’t allow her to take Hunter(her baby) because she knew that Kristina was unstable and would probably harm him. During Christmas her mom tried to reach out for her but she kept her distance for example:

“Tomorrow? Christmas. Presents and dinner with the family. And family. And Hunter. [He’s too little to care this year, anyway]”(pg 412)  This shows how out of the people in her family she mostly cares about hunter but not enough to sacrifice her conflicts with her parents to see her baby that she barely sees, before she got addicted it was weird for her not being there with hunter when she went to work, and Kristina acted like a mother and cared for her son.

         

            Kristinas personality changed because of the addiction to meth. Kristina has an alter ego and her name is bree, shes the more dangerous, daring, ruthless part of her and when she wants to refrain from meth bree pushes her toward it. In the book glass Bree kind of takes over Kristina and speaks for her. The scary thing is Kristina doesn’t have enough strength to not let bree take over her for example “ The small part, the kristina part, keeps whispering the other Bree part, is. ‘Not only were you stupid to sneak back to the monster,’  she mumbles, ‘but ten to one you’re going to get caught. Mom and Scott will know.’ The Bree part just stares contentedly at the ceiling, really comfortable for the first time in too many months. Meth. Tobacco.”(pg 111-112)  What Kristina is making clear is that her real self is the smallest part and she is worried about getting caught and she thinks that going back to the “monster” which is meth  is stupid, but Bree doesn’t really care about anything, but when she’s high Bree is the dominant voice that Kristina has so she doesn’t really care about getting caught all she wants to do is enjoy what’s going to end up ruining Kristinas life.

         

           I think Glass really represents the issue of drug addiction and how it can change a persons life because of Kristinas experience and struggles with meth. I think Ellen Hopkins wanted to really show her readers how dangerous drugs not only the known health affect it has but the affect on your family and the way you act. She really wants her readers to be aware of all of the struggles that somebody with a serious drug problem has to face. By choosing a character that faced it all. She wants us to know our Clear Glass life can be shattered by a serious drug addiction.