Book 4 Review (Exam)

Book 4 Reflection: Sharp Objects Dear Mother, It has come to my attention that our last visit did not end well, and even though I am not writing to apologize, I am writing to inform you this is the last time you will ever hear from me. My whole childhood all you ever did was put me down as if it was my fault I was born out of wedlock, and that it was my fault for ruining your parent’s lives. My sister died when I was young, and still to this day, you compare me to my dead sister. How it should have been me who died and not Marian, as if I could control that. After I began harming myself and carving words into my skin to distract myself from the constant pain I was in, you never once asked if I was okay. I was sent to a godforsaken mental hospital for 6 months and how many times did you visit me? Once? And it was to remind me of how horrible of a person I was. How could I do this to myself? If my sister had been alive she would cherish life, her body, not infect it with scars from dirty, sharp objects. After my half-sister was born, it was clear to me she was your dead daughter’s replacement. Well, congrats. She’s a cold blooded baby killer. Yet you still love her more than me? The day I came home to investigate and write about the murders in my hometown, Wind Gap, and I came to the front door of your perfect little home, the only thing I saw in your eyes was resent. “Why has my daughter who I could care less about come back? No one wants her here.” Those words were basically screaming from your face. Not like you even had to say it. Oh, and a few things you should know about your baby-killing daughter. Not only does she have a taste for blood, she does drugs. Drinks. Hooks up with senior boys. Steals things, and lies to you. Great parenting you’ve done here. I also have a few things to say about you, Mother. You may have raised me, but you will never be a mother to me. You abandoned me in my time of need. Not only when I was in the hospital, but I can’t remember a time when I was a child where you held my hand when I was scared, or told me we were going to get my sister’s death. It baffles me that you question why I left home and became a reporter. “It’s never going to get you anywhere in life, Camille.” Well, what’s your other daughter, Amma, going to do for the rest of her life? Oh that’s right, rot in prison. “It’s so dirty that the only reason you came home was to report about the girls getting killed in your hometown. You’re disgusting.” Plot twist, your kid is the one choking her playmates. You’ve got some serious issues Adora. I feel almost lucky for Marian. She got out while she could. I was stuck, and still am stuck in your whirlpool of your perfectionist ways. Newsflash Adora, the town of Wind Gap hates you. You’re some stuck up idiot who pretended to be close to the girls that were killed here just because you lost a daughter 25 years ago. Honestly, move on. I did, and it’s not Marian even loved you either. I wish the night where you told me you didn’t love me, with your sticky liquor breath, I would’ve told you about the devil child you raised. Amma is nothing but a replica of you, only prettier. She’s twisted, alone and sick. You both need help. You’re pure evil, and this is my goodbye to you both. Honestly, Adora, I would take a recovering suicidal daughter over a killer any day. But then again, you’re not like most mothers, not most can say they raised a murderer. Good Riddance, Camille.

Reading Wishlist

Reagan's bookshelf: read

The Pact

by Jodi Picoult

My Sister's Keeper

by Jodi Picoult

The Storyteller

by Jodi Picoult

If I Stay

by Gayle Forman

Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn

it was a really fast pace book, and i absolutely loved it. if you like twisted mystery murder stories, Gone Girl is perfect. I finished it within a week.

Fifty Shades of Grey

by E.L. James

Crank

by Ellen Hopkins

Dark Places

by Gillian Flynn

Sharp Objects

by Gillian Flynn

Shutter Island

by Dennis Lehane

Message in a Bottle

by Nicholas Sparks

Book 2 Trailer

Book Talk Presentation

Post Number 6, 5 reasons why (Finished)

Five Reasons Why Libby Day is Afraid of the Outside World

Libby Day is a mid-twenty woman who lives in the past. Especially the night that her mother and two sisters were said to be murdered by her 15 year old brother, Ben Day. Libby lives in a world of fear and denial, she never wants to come out of her tiny, dead house with her under-fed cat and breathe some fresh hair. The thing is, she doesn’t have a job and all the money she got when she was younger, and her “pity money” from the courts is running out. Libby is forced to meet and talk to members of the “Kill Club” who believe her brother Ben is innocent. She meets people who know her story better than she does. People who hate her for putting Ben behind bars, but are willing to help her to get him out. The question is, why is she so afraid of her own shadow?  

1)      First off, her family WAS said to be murdered by her brother

Ben Day, her 15 year old brother, was proven guilty behind the brutal murders of Patty, Michelle, and Danielle Day. I guess if I was Libby, I’d be a little afraid of my own shadow if I saw my brother kill my mom and sisters. The thing is, the whole night of the murders is a little fuzzy, and she was like 5, so people find it hard to believe Libby’s testimony is anything but scripted.

2)      She was left behind to freeze

Probably the only reason Libby wasn’t killed was because she jumped out of a two-story window out of her house into freezing cold snow and was there all night. She lost two toes and almost a few fingers. Libby got to keep all of the stuff in the Day Murder house that her family left behind. As if that wasn’t bad enough, now she has a permanent reminder on her foot of what happened on that cold night of January 3^rd.

3)      Insult to Injury: Her brother was a child molester, too.

So, not only is her brother seen as a murderer, he’s also known in the town as a child molester. It was actually a complete misunderstanding. Ben didn’t ever harm a little girl sexually. He kissed a 5^th grader, Krissi Cates, but she was the one who kissed him first. Wild rumors spread throughout the town, and soon the little girl that had kissed him, was changing her story around and making crazy accusations that Ben had sexually hurt her, just so her trophy parents wouldn’t ever think that their little baby girl had a thing for older high school guys. Libby never wanted to believe her brother was a killer, let alone a child molester, too. Yet she couldn’t escape the town’s ancient rumors even if she told everyone it wasn’t true. Ben had three younger sisters, he’d never hurt a little girl.

4)      Fuzzy Memories

Libby was the only one that lived through the Day murders, besides Ben. Naturally, she was the one who had to be put on trial and was the one to say her brother ever did it. There was no direct evidence that ben killed his family other than that he and his mother had a big fight the night before, there were fingerprints and his blood in the house (I mean obviously, he lived there), and Libby’s testimony. Libby can’t exactly remember what happened that night, all of her memories are a blur. Most believe her whole testimony was staged, and written up by defense lawyers. None of the stuff that was said on the stand by Libby was entirely true. Basically her whole town thinks she’s this big liar who wrongfully convicted her older brother.

5)      Kill Club Creeps

There are these people who know Libby Day’s life better than she does. They’re called the Kill Club Creeps, and they’re obsessed with the Day Murders. They all believe that her brother is an innocent man and think we was wrongfully put in jail. Not only are they obsessed with her life, they constantly ask Libby for sentimental items that were left behind in her house. They also ask her to talk to her family who she hasn’t spoken to since her early teen years, and explore other suspects that might have killed her family. They’re the huge reason Libby is afraid of the whole world, they expect so much of someone who lost her best friends in a mysterious` murder in January of the 1980’s.

Shutter Island

          The book I’m currently reading is Shutter Island. The book should be kept as a film, because it’s moderately short. Most TV series are also book series, and so much happens in the 369 pages of Shutter Island it’d be hard to space it all out. One of the most important scenes in the beginning of the book is that the main character’s wife died. Her name was Delores. She died in an apartment fire, and the fire was arson. The guy who started the fire is apparently at Ashcliffe (Shutter Island) and Teddy soon becomes obsessed with finding the man who killed his wife. The next important scene in the book is about the mental patient that went missing, Rachel. She drowned her three kids in the lake behind her house and then sat them down at the dinner table like nothing even happened. The best part is, she invited her neighbor in to have food with her and her three dead kids around the dinner table. She’s a schizophrenic, and she had no idea she had even killed her kids. It’s important because why would she be in a mental institution in the middle of nowhere if she never did something horrible?
          One twist that I think the movie should keep is that the doctor of the island, is on vacation. He goes on vacation the day after Rachel goes missing, which is really strange. They emphasize it a lot in the book, so I picture that it could come back sometime in the future and it could be important. There’s a scene where Chuck and Teddy get stuck in a graveyard during a hurricane on the island, and they flee to a mausoleum that’s open. In there, that’s where they really get to know each other. They tell each other personal stories, and they crack the code that Rachel left behind before she disappeared. To leave that out, we’d lose personal information about both Chuck and Teddy, and we may not know what the code Rachel left meant.

            Teddy would need to be a tall male, preferably attractive, who is a leader-type looking person. His partner, Chuck, I picture him being a tall male, with curly brown hair and defenseless looking. Much less tough than Teddy. Rachel, the missing patient, would need to be a beautiful, brown haired woman with a loud voice, because she screams and yells a lot. She’s beautiful, but psycho. I see Teddy’s wife as a young, busty blonde with curly hair. He talks about her a lot, and even though she’s dead, he has flashbacks of her all the time.

            The soundtrack to the movie is most important. It’s what people hear when there’s no dialogue. Shutter Island gives me a really creepy vibe. So I think there should be eerie, mysterious music playing in the background. If there was happy music playing, that wouldn’t make any sense. It’s an island with a bunch of psycho murderers locked up with one of them missing, I feel like suspenseful music would fit perfectly. There’s also a scene in the book where Teddy gets into an argument with a patient that he knew. The music there would be very loud and intense, because it gets really heated and the patient is really creepy looking.

            One thing the movie should not ever change, is the ending. It turns out, Teddy is actually a psycho killer named Andrew Laediss, who has lived on the island for two years. He used to be a US Marshall, but he murdered his wife, Dolores, who killed their three kids, Daniel, Edward and Rachel. His whole life is an illusion. He doesn’t believe he’s Andrew, he believes he’s Teddy and that his wife was killed in an apartment fire a few years back. The doctors on the island set the whole story up to try and bring Teddy, or Andrew, to his senses. They created a fake plot, in which a patient went missing, Chuck, his partner, is actually the doctor they told us In the book at the beginning went on vacation, and made Teddy believe he was actually a US Marshall. If they changed the ending, to make it so Teddy was actually sane and got off the island safely and went back home, half of the movie wouldn’t make sense. The dreams he has about his dead wife and kids, the migraines he gets, the fact that the code Rachel left behind is telling him there’s a patient 67, none of it would make sense.
 

Book One Project

For Twilight, there’s team Edward and team Jacob. So why not team Nick and team Amy merchandise. I was constantly torn between who I liked better. Nick, the cheater who is being framed by his psychotic wife. Or Amy, the crazy wife who is being cheated on by her unfaithful husband. I’m sure some people agree with what Amy did, and some people are taking Nick’s side, because they feel bad for him. I personally, think Amy is a psycho and should be locked up away from people forever, but that’s just me.

My idea is that we could have shirts, posters, stickers, etc. saying “Team Amy” or “Team Nick”. Amy’s merchandise could have a picture of her, holding the Punch and Judy dolls in her arms. It could have quotes from her fake diary in the background. Nick’s merchandise could have a picture of him in front of The Bar holding the 4 clues Amy gave him for the scavenger hunt.  Most people have probably chosen a side, Amy or Nick.  On page 142, Nick begins with "I have a mistress. Now is the part where I have to tell you I have a mistress and you stop liking me." That was a huge turning point in the book. We were all feeling so bad for Nick that his wife is gone and blah blah blah. But, now he's a cheating jerk who has a wife that's missing and a 23 year old mistress. So, team Nick or team Amy?  
Another huge turning point in the book is in part two, Boy Meets Girl. It’s the present now, and it begins with Amy’s diary entry. On page 219 she says “I’m so much happier now that I’m dead. Technically, missing. Soon to be presumed dead.” This part proves that Amy is faking her own death and it literally framing her husband. What a psycho, who does that? But, on the other hand, her husband was cheating on her and she needed to get the heck out of Dodge. Amy wrote a fake diary, cut herself and then cleaned up the blood, staged a fake fight in the living room, left without a trace. Some readers may not like Amy so much at this point. So, team Nick, or team Amy?
Close to the end of the book, in part three, is the biggest turning point in the book. It’s also where most readers decide if they want Amy dead, or alive. It’s when Nick tries to choke her, and possibly kill her. On page 394, the couple is arguing. Amy compares Nick to his dad which makes him angry, and the chapter ends with, “Then his hands are on my neck.” At the start of the next chapter, from Nick’s perspective, it begins, “Her pulse was finally throbbing between my fingers, the way that I’d imagined.” At this point, the reader either wants Nick to kill Amy, or for him to let her go. I personally wish he would’ve killed her, but that isn’t how it ended. However, this is a huge indication of who the reader likes more. Team Nick, or team Amy?

The funny part was, on page 410 Nick actually says, “So let everyone take sides. Team Nick, Team Amy. Turn it into even more of a game. Sell some f***ing T-Shirts.” Which is true, they absolutely should! Twilight was such a big hit, and people obviously were taking sides. Good and Evil. In this case it’s a little bit of both, but it could still work. It could spike conversations in book clubs. Families could discuss who they like better over the dinner table. Friends could argue about how crazy Amy is and how careless Nick is. In all of the name of fun, no one needs to be throwing punches over how much they love Nick or over how crazy Amy is.