One Family... One Jail Cell... One Lesson

     Have you ever read that one book... THAT ONE BOOK, where you want to fall asleep during it? If so, you can relate... if not, you can read this book to say that you have. Touch & Go, written by Lisa Gardner, is one of those books. It draws you in with the synopsis, then gives you a good opportunity to fall asleep. I am just a little bit over half way through. The only reason I want to keep trekking through is because I want to see how the book ends. It has a good plot, but it is not carried out the best way.

    Yawn... Okay, enough about sleep. There is one thing that I have carried away from this book, and that is the theme. Although there can be many themes seen, I like the one about family. One must value their family above all else. This book started off with a thought. How can a perfect family just dissapear? That's the thing, the Denbe family is far from perfect. All of their priorities are not family based. When the Denbe's are abducted, and placed in a jail cell, this is the first time that they have had to work together in a little bit over a year. Mrs. Denbe thought to herself, "No, what silenced me was that he hadn't said anything before now. Sixteen months. A year and a third. I guess that's how long we'd really been drifting apart" (page 208). This quote shows just how disconnected the Denbe family was. Mr. Denbe hadn't been bringing home a pay check for 16 months, and this is the first time that Mrs. Denbe found out.

She goes on to think that, "Not just moments in a marriage, I realized now, but moments in an entire family, when you stopped seeing one another. When you shared a space, but no longer yourselves with one another" (page 231). This is another quote that supports this theme. I strongly agree with the theme that one must value your family above all else. Personally speaking, my family shares everything- daily routines and funny jokes and memories and vacations and our feelings- with one another, which makes our bond stronger. In Touch & Go, the Denbe family's bond is weak, and they don't have much faith in one another. I think of the Denbe family as a broken chain. They have no links connecting them anymore. When they were abducted and put in prison, they started forming a stronger bond and they started sharing their thoughts and feelings with one another. Sometimes it takes extreme measures to find out what is truly important to you. One must value their family above all else.

 

Summary, Reviews, and About the Author

 

 

 

Author of Touch & Go

While I have been reading this book for a little bit over a week, I have not made enough progress to see how the characters have developed or what the theme of the book is. Touch & Go has been an okay book so far. It isn't that book where you can't set it down. I have had a little bit of a hard time following it. However, I wanted to see how it ends, so that is the only reason I have kept reading. I decided to look up some information about the author, and as to why she wanted to write this book. I will share with you guys what I have found out.

Lisa Gardner

"Lisa Gardner, a #1 New York Times crime thriller novelist, began her career in food service, but after catching her hair on fire numerous times, she took the hint and focused on writing instead." (http://lisagardner.com/about). Lisa Gardner loves researching topics about what to write her books on. Her main interest is crime and police procedure. She has had a lot of success as a writer. She has over 22 million books in print, and is published in 30 countries. Lisa lives in New Hampshire with her husband and daughter. Not only has Lisa written the book Touch & Go, but she has written over 20 other books. Some of these books are Alone, Hide, The Neighbor, Live to Tell, and The Survivors Club. An interesting fact that I found out in the video below is that Lisa wrote her first book when she was 17 years old.

List of all the books written by Lisa Gardner


                                                       An Interview with Lisa Gardner

 

Book Review for A Secret Kept

I just finished reading the book, A Secret Kept, written by Tatiana de Rosnay. After reading the synopsis on the cover, the book sounded intriguing. I am so glad that I read it. This is a historical fiction novel about a long kept family secret. Melanie and Antoine are the main characters. They are very developed characters, and it made the book that much better.

 

Growing up, every year for vacaction, Melanie and Antoine would go on a trip with their dad's side of the family to Noirmoutier Island. However, after their mom died, they never went on that vacation again. Now, Melanie is turning 40 years old. Antoine couldn't think of a better way to celebrate that to return to  Noirmoutier Island. They haven't been back to the island since Melanie was 6 years old. On their little weekend get away, memories of their mother came flooding in... both good and bad. They recalled how she looked very elegant in her black dress for dinner, and how she always played with them in the ocean water. Unfortunatley, one memory came back to Melanie that made them realize that they may not have truly known their mom afterall. Before Melanie told Antoine of this memory, she wrecked their car driving home from  Noirmoutier Island. As a reader, you follow them on this journey of trying to figure out the secret, who their mom really was, while balancing their everyday lives.

 

I really enjoyed this book! I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction mixed with a little bit of romance. Overall, I would have to rate this book with 4 out of 5 stars. While it was very well written, there could have been more clarification during certain parts. I found this writing style very unique. In between the beginning chapters of the book, there are letters. It never says who they are to or who they are from until the later half of the book. These letters really tied together the book, and it was a nice touch to the overall writing technique of the book.

 

My Blog Reflection

By blogging this trimester, my writing has improved tremendously! As each week progressed, I feel like I became a better blogger. This can be seen throughout many of my blogs, but especially between my blogs titled, “The Lovely Bones: Book Recommendation” and, “Insurgent: Book Review”. The book recommendation about The Lovely Bones I wrote towards the beginning of the trimester, and you can tell. I have no textual evidence to support my claims, I don’t state what type of readers may enjoy reading the book, and when I stated “I think there could be improvements made”, I don’t give any specific examples of what the author could change.  In my book review of Insurgent, I use quotes to support my claims, I elaborated on major events (without any spoilers), and I explained which type of audience this book may appeal to. I said “I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed reading The Hunger Games. Insurgent contains a lot of action, mixed with a little romance”. It is as if the two blogs I am using for examples are night and day.

Overall, I really enjoyed blogging this trimester. I love reading good books, and being able to talk about them just made me more excited to keep reading. While I say I enjoyed blogging, I also enjoyed reading other students blogs and seeing what they had to say about the books that they were reading. One thing I struggled with through my blogging experience was trying to find two things that I could blog about each week. With all of my other homework, I didn’t have a ton of time to read outside of school, so I had trouble finding enough to blog about each week. I worked through this struggle by setting a goal for myself about how much time I should slot to read each day. Once I did this, I found I was moving along in my books quicker, and I was able to start new books. This really helped me find new things to blog about each week. One strength I had with blogging was when I set out to blog about a specific topic; I elaborated and could provide textual evidence. In most of my blogs towards the middle of the trimester and on, I did provide a lot of textual evidence. Unfortunately, I have not met my reading goal on good reads yet. My goal is set for 10 books, and I am almost half way there. I have completed a total of 4 books this trimester. I used goodreads.com in many ways. I followed some of my friends to get the latest on what they were reading. I downloaded the app to my phone, which I used to update the progress of my reading. I think I have improved as a reader over this trimester. By slotting out a certain amount of time each day to read, I found that I was able to read a book quicker. I also gained a better love of reading. I have a new respect for authors because it seems hard to be able to write a whole book and go through the process of getting it published. I really enjoyed blogging this trimester, and I am glad I was given the opportunity to become a better writer and reader!

The Glass Castle: Maureen's Birth

For weeks after the new addition to their family was born, she still didn't have a name. "The baby went without a name for weeks. Mom said she wanted to study it first, the way she would study the subject of a painting. We had a lot of arguments over what the name should be" (Walls 46). This new baby girl completes the Walls family. They have a total of four children, Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen. The little baby's name ended up being Lilly Ruth Maureen, but they would call the baby Maureen.

Jeannette was so excited to have a new baby sister. "Mom handed me the baby. I was going to turn six in a few months, and  Mom said I was mature enough to hold her the entire way home. The baby was pink and wrinkly but absolutely beautiful, with big blue eyes, soft wisps of blond hair, and the tiniest fingernails I had ever seen. She moved in confused, jerky motions, as if she couldn't understand why Mom's belly wasn't still around her. I promised her I'd always take care of her" (Walls 46). I like this quote because it shows how happy Jeannette is that Maureen was born. It also shows how important each sibling is. Since they were always on the move, they were all each others best friends. They relied on each other to take care of themselves, since their parents had a little role in raising them.

The Glass Castle: Theme

The theme of The Glass Castle so far, is that you don't need material items to be happy. Growing up Jeannette's family didn't own much, and what they did own, they were able to pack up at a moments notice and put into the car. "Dad came home in the middle of the night a few months later and roused all of us from bed. . . We had fifteen minutes to gather whatever we needed and pile into the car" (Walls 17). As this quote shows, the Walls family was always on the move and could fit almost everything they owned into the back of their car.

Despite the fact that they didn't own much, they were still able to find joy in the little things in life. Rex Walls (Jeannette's dad), decided that he wanted to find gold. So, he started building a tool called the Prospector. "Dad let Brian and me help him work on the Prospector. We'd go out behind the house, and I'd hold the nails while Dad hit them. Sometimes he let me start the nails, and then he would drive them in with one hard blow from the hammer" (Walls 23). This quote shows how excited Jeannette and Brian got when they got to help their Dad work on the Prospector. It was a big deal to them because they looked up to their dad. It made them happy to spend time with him when he wasn't drinking.

The Glass Castle: Characters

The characters personailites in The Glass Castle play a very important role in moving the story along. The kids are very influenced by their parents, which is why I wanted to decribe the parents personalities. There are many words to describe Jeannette's dad, Rex. He is short-tempered, believable, imaginative, brilliant, dishonest, and destructive, all at the same time. Rex does not have very many patience with his kids or wife. He is very belivable, dishonest, and brilliant because every time they move places, he is very quick to find a job. "Dad would get a job as an electrician or engineer in a gypsum or copper mine. Mom liked to say that dad could talk a blue streak, spinning tales of jobs he'd never had and college degrees he'd never earned. He could get about any job he wanted, he just didn't like keeping it for long" (Walls 19).

Jeannett's mom, Rose Mary, can be described as artistic, not very confident, and a truth teller. Rose Mary isn't very confident because she doesn't stick up for herself when Rex is bad-tempered. Rose Mary doesn't hide secrets from her kids. Her kids grew up not believing in Santa Claus because she told them is was a myth and there was no such thing. A quote to show that Rose Mary is artistic is, "In the meantime, Mom devoted herself to art. She spent all day working on oil paintings, watercolors, charcoal drawings, pen-and-ink sketches, clay and wire sculptures, silk screens, and wood blocks. She didn't have any particular style; some of her paintings were what she called primitive, some were impressionistic and abstract, some were realistic" (Walls 38).  With a creative mom, and a dad who has many personality traits, it's no wonder why their kids didn't have a normal childhood.