OUTSIDE READING COMMENTS

1. January 15, 2009 – Hanna S. (Hour 6)
2. January 15, 2009 – Stacey J. (Hour 4)
3. January 15, 2009 – Olivia L. (Hour 4)
4. January 15, 2009 – Emily B. (Hour 4)
5. January 12, 2009 – Nathalie R. (Hour 4)
6. January 11, 2009 – Daria B. (Hour 4)
7. January 5, 2009 – Irine L.G. (Hour 4)
8. January 5, 2009 – Sahar K. (Hour 4)
9. January 4, 2009 – Nels T. (Hour 4)
10. December 1, 2008 – Emma W. (Hour 4)

OUTSIDE READING #10

In The Last Girls the four main characters, Harriet, Courtney, Anna, and Catherine, all are very strong and successful women. The story of the book is based on a trip down the Mississippi River, but I think the women’s life stories and strengths they have acquired add so much more depth to the story. Whenever I am reading the book my mind begins to wonder and I think of the many successful women that surround me in my life. Maybe that is why I am enjoying this book so much, I can truly relate to the characters and their relationships with one another. What I really like about The Last Girls, is how the author uses the present and the past to develop the characters and their personalities. It helps me understand why the characters do certain things and what lead them in that direction.
Since last week, two important characters and their stories have been introduced. The first is Courtney, who, unlike Harriet, is married and has many children. Courtney, at first, seems shy, innocent and easily tricked but she actually is a very strong, witty woman. Her husband, an older man, never has been very loyal and Courtney has had to deal with that by sometimes indulging in her own secret affairs. Even though Courtney and her husband have not been very loyal to one another their love for each other is very strong. The second character that has been introduced is Anna. Anna’s personal life has not been described in great detail, but it is still easy to tell what kind of person she is; a career motivated individual. She is a romance writer with a long list of bestsellers. I think the author purposely decided not to describe Anna’s personal life because it is not important to the description of her character. Harriet and Courtney’s personal lives are important to the development of their characters. The marriages they have or the relationships they have with other people contribute a great deal to the understanding of their life stories. But Anna, on the other hand, is developed as a character on the accomplishments she has achieved. She has almost no time to have a personal life because she is too busy working.

OUTSIDE READING #9

In last week’s post, I introduced to you, my new book, The Last Girls by Lee Smith. I have gotten a good chunk of it read and have discovered I really like it! Like I said last week it is a totally different genre than I am used to reading and I wasn’t completely sure if I would like it, but the plot is interesting and the characters are witty and a little comedy to the sometimes sad plot. One of my favorite characters is Harriet. Even though she is well into her 50s her personality reminds me of a nervous and shy child. She is unmarried, which surprises me at first because she seems so fragile and weak, the kind of person that is dependent on another’s care. But then I realized I had misinterpreted her whole character and misunderstood her many strengths. She grew up without a father and her mother, while loyal, never could fully support Harriet and her younger sister, Jill. Harriet was often left to look after Jill while her mother worked the business. She flew through school with all As and eventually earned a full scholarship to all women’s Mary Scott College. Her life was never easy but she always stayed kind and always worked her hardest. Harriet is the only character that has been properly introduced so far. I have also learned that Harriet has traveled to Memphis, Tennessee to meet her college friends, Courtney, Anna, and Catherine, to once again travel down the Mississippi River. The girls had made a journey down the Mississippi River in college for their Great Authors class. They had gotten inspiration for their journey from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Their reunion in Memphis, Tennessee is to say goodbye to their good friend Baby, who had just recently died.

OUTSIDE READING #8

Since my last post I have begun a new book titled The Last Girls by Lee Smith. In The Last Girls four old friends reunite in Memphis, Tennessee to venture down the Mississippi River, just like they had done in college many years ago. These Mary Scott College students had decided, while reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in their Great Authors class, to travel down the Mississippi to New Orleans on a raft, Huck-Finn style, with a big group of their classmates. Now these four women, with nothing in common but the college they went to and the adventure down the Mississippi, meet again to journey down the river one last time to try and come to terms with their shared past.

This new book is a drastic change from The Lovely Bones! The Last Girls seems to be an upbeat and sometimes comical story about these four women’s past and present. Also unlike The Lovely Bones, The Last Girls seems true and I feel like I could relate to the characters. In The Lovely Bones the concept was hard to grasp at some points and I definitely didn’t relate at all to the main character, Susie. I am a little anxious to see if I will like this book. It is a lot different from anything I have ever read before—usually I like to read mystery—but I am ready to try something new and see if I like it.

OUTSIDE READING #7

In between cooking holiday dishes, wrapping presents and opening presents I didn’t have much time to read. But even with my busy schedule I managed to finish The Lovely Bones. I was so enthusiastic about finishing that I snuck away from my family and read the last few chapters. I don’t regret hiding from family for a few hours at all because the ending was phenomenal! I won’t spoil the conclusion for any readers, but I will say it is not how I would have expected it to be. It is definitely not like most endings. Unlike one final event to close the story, Alice Sebold slowly comes to an end by expressing a few final events that let the reader better understand the character’s lives and ultimately, I think, end the story more successfully.
One passage I thought wrapped up the book is spoken by Susie a few pages before the actually ending of the book. Susie is watching her family, from “her heaven”, while they drink champagne and celebrate Lindsey (Susie’s sister) and Sam’s (Lindsey steady boyfriend since Susie’s death) engagement.

“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the
connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great costs, but often
magnificent—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way
that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought
were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable
time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had
been my life.” (320)

Susie, while watching her family, realizes that her death, while a bug part of her family’s life, is not the only drastic event that occupies all their attention and emotions. To me this passage is the ending of Susie’s story and the beginning of her family’s.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that loves a good mix of mystery, romance, suspense and horror in the books they read. The story, at some points can be a bit strange and hard to relate to but overall the book is awesome—a must read.

OUTSIDE READING #6

“Imagine being stabbed.” Someone said.
“No Thanks.”
“I think it’s
cool.”
“Think of it—she’s famous.”
“Some way to get famous. I’d rather win
the Noble Prize.”
“Does anyone know what she wanted to be?”
“I dare you to
ask Lindsey.”
And they listed the dead they knew.
Grandmother,
grandfather, uncle, aunt, some had a parent, rarer was a sister or brother lost
young to an illness –a heart irregularity—leukemia—an unpronounceable disease.
No one knew anyone who had been murdered. But now they knew me.

This conversation arouse in the book when Lindsey, Susie’s sister, was at camp for the first time since Susie’s murder. Lindsey was not there when the topic came up; it was some kids from camp who had been planning the perfect murder for the competition they host for the parents every year on the last day of camp. Usually the competition is based on how to make the perfect mouse trap. But this year the competition had changed and Lindsey could feel the eyes of the other campers upon her when the challenge was announced.
This passage was very interesting to me. I found it so surprising that, in the book, Susie could become “famous” just by how gruesomely she had been murdered. But then I thought about it harder and realized it happens a lot—people become famous for something that happens to them, not for what they do or accomplish. The sad fact is that Susie probably wouldn’t have been remembered, except by her family, if she had just died of some “unpronounceable disease”. But because of the lack of evidence in her case and the surplus of rumors, her death has become this tragic story that everyone in the community, and by everyone I mean EVERYONE, is aware of.

OUTSIDE READING #5

The Lovely Bones keeps getting better and BETTER! While the story of Susie’s murder stays unsolved, I am able to understand more and more about Susie’s family and their influence on her story. One character that has been greatly defined in the novel by his views on Susie’s death is Buckley, Susie’s younger brother. Buckley is very young and doesn’t fully understand the concept of death but even though his understanding is some what blurry he still adds an interesting perspective. Buckley doesn’t even think his sister is dead, as he explains to his friend Nate, “She was gone for a while, but now she’s back” (91). In the novel Buckley’s idea of Susie’s death is explained, “Where do you think imaginary friends come from?” (91)


Also in the section I read this week a new character has been introduced; Susie’s grandma. Susie’s grandma may be in the book for only a short section but her influence on Susie’s family is huge! She comes to the Salmon’s house for Susie’s memorial service and suddenly everyone in the house feels a little bit better. Her free spirit and straight-forward manner makes the family express their true emotions instead of hiding them. This is a big leap from the few hushed discussion the family had about Susie and her death.


Finally in this week’s section of reading my favorite quote, so far, is expressed. It is about a woman that used to life in Susie’s neighborhood but died; the woman was the only person Susie knew that had died:

“My mother would sit her down in the kitchen and make tea for the two of them,
and after she calmed her she would call her son’s house to tell them where she
was. Sometimes no one was home and Mrs. Utemeyer would sit at our kitchen table
and stare into the centerpiece for hours. She would be there when we came home
from school. Sitting. She smiled at us. Often she called Lindsey ‘Natalie’ and
reach out to touch her hair…I wasn’t very surprised when I first saw Mrs. Bethel
Utemeyer in my heaven, nor was I shocked when Holly and I found her waling hand
in hand with a small blond girl she introduced as her daughter Natalie.”
(104-105)

I find this story of a Mrs. Utemeyer very beautiful, sad but beautiful.