Theme of "An Abundance of Katherines"

After finishing my second consecutive John Green book, An Abundance of Katherines, I am enthusiastic to say that Green's writing does not disappoint. From my last post, a lot of major events happen. For one, Hassan gets cheated on by his trendy girlfriend by someone whom I am not going to name to prevent a spoiler. End the end however, Colin finally comes to the conclusion that the future is going to happen no matter what efforts you go through to stop it. He realizes that the past can build up to events in the future, he realizes that these events can have nothing to do with events in the future, he realizes that he needs to let his life go and start reinventing a new self.

In our society today, we are often so focused on our futures that we don't concentrate on the present. Teenagers, like Colin, Lindsey, and Hassan, are so focused on their futures at college, in love, and on their career that they don't self reflect enough to reinvent themselves into people can easily achieve these goals while savoring the present.

One of my favorite quotes from the last chapter of this book is: "And when Hassan turned over his full house, Colin all of the sudden realized: you can make a Theorem that explains why you won or lost past poker hands, but you can never make on to predict future poker hands," (Green 389).

This is one of my favorite quotes because this is the big moment when Colin realizes that he will never be able to predict how long his relationships are going to last.

We can apply this to our lives, too. Instead of spending our time being infatuated with the future, focus on the present and the small things that you can do to get you to this goal.

http://johngreenbooks.com/abundance-of-katherines/

This link is a review of An Abundance of Katherines done by several people. This way, you can see what other people also think about the book.

Character Development throughout "An Abundance of Katherines"

Currently in An Abundance of Katherines, Colin and his best friend, Hassan, went on a hog hunt for the hated Feral Hog. While running through the woods, the boys get tired and decide to relax for a while. Unexpectedly, they are charged by a massive beast: the Feral Hog. Colin shoots at the monster and scares it away without harming it. During the process of shooting at the hog, Collin took down a wasps nest. They run away from the angry insects as quickly as possible but still manage to get stung several times. Colin leads them out of the woods and back to the store, where Hassan finds his girlfriend cheating on him. Devastated, Hassan runs toward the cheating scandal at the end of the chapter.

At the beginning of the book, I wasn't too impressed with the main character, Colin. I thought he was overly-obsessive and egocentric. As Colin meets more characters throughout the book, he starts to become more open minded. Colin was very socially awkward and attention seeking. But now he is turning into a less awkward person, with the help of Lindsey and Hassan. Although he still continues to work on his love formula, he learns to learn more about himself and love. I hope to see him change even more as I continue reading.

My favorite line from my chapter was "By slowly, things returned to status quo: Lindsey had a boyfriend, and Colin had a broken heart and a Theorem to finish," (Green 288). This is my favorite quote because it is so relatable; we all have those times when things happen but eventually turn back to normal.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/an-abundance-of-katherines

The link shows quotes from An Abundance of Katherines that represent some key themes in the book.

How Society Affected Collin in "An Abundance of Katherines"

Society: where people come together to form a community. Now-a-days, society is more of a place where one's opinions and views are altered to "fit in" and be "normal. We have all witnessed this; the most common, someone being called weird for believing something different. The worst part is that none of us realize that this is happening. Society plays a huge role in "An Abundance of Katherines". 

Collin, the main character, is so obsessed with love, he can hardly do anything else besides try to create a theorem of why none of his relationships have worked out. Collin, being the ex-child prodigy that he is, tries to write and rewrite a literal equation and formula to describe the heartaches and misfortunes in his love life. In our world today, love is emphasized as the most important aspect in someone's life. The older you get, the more serious your partner and you should become in a relationship. Collin is so infatuated by this that he is oblivious to half of the world around him. He doesn't make friends easily and doesn't know how to understand sarcasm. If Collin were to stop being so preoccupied by his theory, he could become a much more likable person and would probably find it easier to get a girlfriend if he possessed these traits. 

http://temple-news.com/living/coupling-becomes-obsession-in-society/

The column above is another viewpoint on our society's obsession with love and marriage.

Predictions for "An Abundance of Katherines"

After finishing The Fault in Our Stars, I decided to continue my trend by reading another John Green book. With high hopes, I started An Abundance of Katherines. This book is about Colin, a ex-child prodigy who just graduated high school. On the same day of his graduation, Colin was dumped by his girlfriend, Katherine. This was the 19th consecutive Katherine Colin had dated since the third grade; all of them had dumped him and left him broken hearted. Colin decides to go on a road trip with his best friend, Hassan, to try to get his mind off the break up. They drive for about 12 hours south of Chicago when they end up in a small Tennessee town, Gutshot. They meet Lindsey, a worker at a local convenience shop. They get a job with Lindsey's mother, who knows Colin from a show he participated on when he was a child prodigy. While in Gutshot, Colin tries to figure out the purpose of his life, knowledge, and love through logic. He creates equations and diagrams to try to help him solve these problems in his life.

As I continue to read this book, I predict that Colin will end up really liking Lindsey. Based on their flirty interactions, I believe that Colin already likes her but just doesn't want to admit it to himself because he consumed in the fact that the perfect girl for him will be named Katherine. I also predict that Hassan will also start to fall for Lindsey, causing problems in Colin and Hassan's friendship. As well as conflict between Colin and Hassan, I think Lindsey's boyfriend, Colin (not the main character, another Colin), will also get involved in the competition for Lindsey. I'm excited to see how the see how the next events in the book compare to my predictions and how they escalate.

http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/an-abundance-of-katherines

The link above is a review of this book.

Krista Ramsey Research

"Locking into the magic of Legos", one of Krista's columns, is about the importance of Lego's, and toys in general, in a childhood. Not only do Lego's provide a good time, but they also help the child learn important life skills, such as the reward to building something.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/krista-ramsey/2014/02/15/krista-locking-into-the-magic-of-legos/5521245/

"Like sparklers and hugs, Legos are things a child can never have enough of. Wise parents not only understand this, but support their child's Lego habit, sometimes to the tune of hundreds or thousands of dollars over the course of a childhood. Really smart parents know better than to total it up." This little paragraph is my favorite part of the column, not only for its relaxed tone, but also the relatable humor. Being a former Lego-lover myself, my parents and I know the const of Legos and the excessive amount the child "NEEDS" to have. The diction in this entire article is elevated, benefitting the witty mood the author possess. Krista starts this small saying by using a medium sentence, then transitions to a long and involved sentence, finally ending the paragraph with another medium sentence. The writer writes in a very informal and relaxed way throughout the entire article.

Questions
1. Where do you get your topics to write about?
2. What qualifications did you have to get to become a journalist?
3. What kind of background information do you have to research before writing a column?

"The Fault in Our Stars" Book Review

After finishing The Fault in Our Stars, I have come to one conclusion: this is one of the best books I have ever read. This novel is an emotional rollarcoaster of a story that is amazingly written. The book takes place in modern day Indianna, with a terminal cancer pacient, Hazel. Hazel's caring (maybe a little too-caring) mother forces Hazel to go to weekly support group, where a cancer survivor attemps to inspire the viewers of the meeting. Hazel hates going to these sessions but she attends anyway to preserve her mom's feelings. At one of the support group meetings, she meets Augustus, a 17 year-old cancer survivor who seems to enjoy Hazel's presence. As the two become friends, they spend a lot of time together and Hazel introduces Augustus to a book in which they both share a common love for, Imperial Affliction. Hazel and Augustus end up getting Augustus' Wish (Wish Foundation) granted and go to Amsterdan to meet the author of the book. After having a nice dinner together and meeting the disappointment of the author, Hazel and Augustus travel back to Indianna with upsetting news. The two spend as much time together as possible. In the end, true love is described as the common feeling between the lovers.

John Green, the author, is very witty and his writing style also obtains this quality. Since the book is written in Hazel's point of view, John writes her voice as very sarcastic and intelligent, to a point where it's as if she knows everything. The intended audience of this book could be anyone. Even though it is necessarily a "love story", the hilarious novel could appeal to any audience that reads it. John Green is a fantastic author and this book is definitely a five star book.

Why the John Green Wrote "A Fault in Our Stars"

Along with Fahrenheit 451, I have also been reading A Fault in Our Stars, which is now one of my favorite books. A Fault in Our Stars is about a girl, Hazel, who has thyroid cancer and dysfunctional lungs. She meets a boy, Augustus, at a support group she goes to and becomes very fond of him. Like Hazel, Augustus also had cancer but had been cured. The feelings happen to be mutual and together, they venture to Amsterdam to meet the author of their favorite book. After meeting the author, who turns out to be a total jerk, the two site-see different places for a while. While site-seeing, Hazel notices how uncomfortable Augustus looks doing basic and easy activities, such as walking and climbing stairs. When they get back to the small hotel, Augustus reveals that he had a reoccurrence of the cancer, except this time it was all over his body. I am now reading the part where Augustus is in a new trial for some medicines, hoping to cure his cancer.

While reading this book, I often wonder why John Green chose to write about such a sad, frightening topic. Has he had experience with cancer himself? Did someone he love have cancer? How did he know the feelings these teenagers were going through? The book is written entirely in Hazel's perspective and her witty thoughts and comments would have made me believe that the book was in-fact written by a teenager going through these problems herself. After some research, however, I learned that John Green did know a teenage girl going through this situation who totally changed his view on cancer, sickness, and death. Before meeting Esther Earl, cancer victim who was close with John, he had been struggling with writing this book. After meeting Esther, he got many new ideas and views on cancer and death.

 

Analyzing Setting of "Fahrenheit 451"

As I approach the conclusion of Fahrenheit 451, I have come to realize the major impact of the setting in the novel. Part 3, for example, starts off with Montag and the firemen, Beatty one of them, arriving at Montag's house to burn down for the storage of books. After burning down his own house, Montag incinerates Captain Beatty when he finds out about the ear bug Montag was wearing. The police go after Montag for about 2/3 of Part 3. During this intense police chase, Montag runs through allies, a gas station, across a busy street, to Faber's house, through neighborhoods, in the river, and into the woods. The suspenseful tone and feeling while reading this is largely impacted by the setting of this novel: a futuristic city.

 In the beginning of the novel, it becomes apparent within the first 20 pages that the setting takes place in a futuristic time and a government-controlled city. Understanding this from the beginning is highly useful to comprehending and understanding some of the events that take place in the novel, leading up to the climax in Part 3, that I stated above. One of the most key-scenes, when the setting is extremely important is during the climax/police chase when Montag is floating down the river and finally decides to venture into the forest. It states, "There must have been a billion leaves on the land; he waded in them, a dry river smelling of hot cloves and warm dust. There was a smell like cut potato from all the land, raw and cold and white tom having the moon on it most of the night," (Bradbury, 138). In this quote, I can clearly imagine the leaves covering the forest ground as the season of autumn slowly approaches. I can also smell the subtle smell of all the leaves and the trees in the forest. This adds to the description of setting and makes the novel more enjoyable.

https://bangordailynews.com/2012/06/07/news/10-ray-bradbury-predictions-that-came-true/

In the article linked above, "Fahrenheit 451" and some of Bradbury's other books that take place in futuristic societies are compared with what life is really like today. Surprisingly, we may not be that different than the parlor-obsessed, non-social characters in "Fahrenheit 451".

Blog Reflections

After reviewing my blogs from this year, I have noticed that they have become a lot more detailed and descriptive. In the beginning, I struggled with using textual evidence and supporting my claims and opinions. As I kept writing my blogs, this started to improve. By my last blog post, I was fluently using evidence from the text and I was supporting my statements. Throughout my blogging experience, I have always been good at summarizing what I had read that week. I would use detailed claims and make thoughtful inferences. Along with this, I made connections well between texts. My quality of writing has improved tremendously over this trimester of blogging. In the beginning of my blogging experience, I would be very straight-forward with the details I used. Instead of acknowledging important details within the text, I would give a very brief summary of what I had read. An example of this is my first blog post, “Summer Reading”. It was about the summer reading book I had read, Water for Elephants. In that post, I stated, “One of my favorite things about it is how much the characters developed over the time span in the book. As I read, Jacob was the character that really stood out to me. He is the main character and the point of view is through his eyes. As the book continues, Jacob interacts more and more with the circus crew where he ends up. On the circus train, he meets Marlena, who also develops throughout the book. While Jacob develops feelings for Marlena, more and more information about her is revealed. Marlena is not the only major character Jacob interacts with. He also becomes very close with Rosie, an elephant.” As you can see from this section of my blog, I used very vague terms and did not go into much description about what actually happened in the text. I just gave a basic overview about the facts of the characters. In my most recent blog, “Inferences”, I described the characters in much more detail and gave an example from the text, “Tris has started to redeem herself from her fight with Peter, in which she lost and got extremely injured. She does this by proving her thoughtfulness in an intense game of capture the flag. The trainees are split into two teams: those chosen by Four and those chosen by Eric. Tris is picked by Four, whom everyone on the team has a very lean and thin body structure.” An example of where I used a quote is later in that blog post and says, “Four rebalance by placing a hand on one of her hips and pushing her up to the next rung. She becomes very unsteady by this action and describes the following: ‘I feel the ghost of where his had was, his fingers long and narrow,’ (Roth 161).” Along with adding in more description of the characters, I also stated the reasoning behind the decisions they made. I developed well thought-out inferences and predictions. In the end, I am very happy I got to write blog posts every week because, not only did it help me develop more thoughtful writing, it allowed me to further understand what I was reading.

Inferences

Currently in Divergent, the Dauntless trainees have almost completed stage one of initiation. Tris has started to redeem herself from her fight with Peter, in which she lost and got extremely injured. She does this by proving her thoughtfulness in an intense game of capture the flag. The trainees are split into two teams: those chosen by Four and those chosen by Eric. Tris is picked by Four, whom everyone on the team has a very lean and thin body structure. After hiding the flag, Four’s team starts to argue about strategies of capturing Eric’s team flag. While the team is bickering, Tris decides to climb to the top of a broken down Ferris wheel. Four follows her to make sure she is okay. This is when I first started to make an inference: Four is very interested in Tris. On the Ferris wheel, Tris loses her balance.  Four rebalance by placing a hand on one of her hips and pushing her up to the next rung. She becomes very unsteady by this action and describes the following: “I feel the ghost of where his had was, his fingers long and narrow,” (Roth 161). This indicated to me that there is a spark between Four and Tris. Another line of proof for this theory is when Tris and Four are arguing after another day of training. Four says, “You know, I’m getting a little tired of waiting for you to catch on!” (Roth 182). This made me think that Four is trying to show Tris that he is interested in her but she is not picking up the hints which is irritating him. Hopefully, later in the book Four and Tris will date and maybe even marry since their personalities correspond very well.

Possible Theme

Now in my book, Divergent, Tris is starting to go through the stages of the initiation process. If she is not in the top five initiates (based on a scoring system), she will either have to guard the gates into the city or live factionless (homeless). The first stage of initiation is fighting. Tris, who is very small and fragile, had to fight Peter, who is larger and stronger than her. On top of that fact, Peter had been giving Tris a hard time about being from Abnegation since they had first gotten there. In the fighting stage, the two opponents would fight until the other was unconscious or unable to keep fighting. Before the fight had even started between Tris and Peter, Tris already felt defeated. Although, she did hope she could beat him, when she got in the ring, Peter hit her many times. From the start, her vision blurred from being punched in the face and she fell to the ground many times. However many times she fell to the ground, though, Tris would always get back up. She kept fighting until she finally collapsed to the ground unconscious and practically broken.

I think that this chapter/ fighting stage showed a lot of Tris' character. It shows that she doesn't give up easily and she will keep fighting until she absolutely can't anymore. I believe that this could be the basis for one of the themes of the novel, also: If you pursue through challenges, you will eventually become victorious.

Character Connections

Beatrice (or Tris when she joins the Dauntless faction) is the main character of Divergent. Her personality is very clear to the reader while finding out hints about it throughout the text. Some of her personality traits include being a leader, risk-taking, confident (for the most part), and spontaneous. Tris really reminds me of Katniss from the Hunger Games trilogy. Like Katniss, Tris/ Beatrice cares about her family a lot, even though she left them to make herself happier. Both young women are willing to take chances, this is represented when Tris jumps the mountain to get across to the Dauntless homes. Both Katniss and Tris are leaders also by not doing what the crowd does, and standing out from the rest of the people they interact with. An example of this is when Tris is the first to jump down into the Pit even though she is terrified. Although both characters are faced with challenges that are out of their reach (Katniss in the arenas and Tris being very skinny with not much muscle), they are both able to overcome these challenges and succeed at what they are trying to do.

Currently in Divergent, Beatrice/ Tris just got a tattoo and is learning how to fight. This is preparing her for initiation into the Dauntless. Already, I have seen some changes in her personality.

So far, I am really enjoying Romeo and Juliet. I had heard about the story a lot and knew the general details of it but now that we are reading and comprehending it, I am able to understand more about what has referenced it before.

About an Author

Veronica Roth is the autor of Divergent, the book I am currently reading. To find out more information on how she gets the ideas of her book/ to find out her background history, I researched her life. Veronica was born in New York but mainly raised in a suburb of Illinois. She was the youngest of the three children in her family. She has a brother and a sister that both live near her today in Chicago. Her parents got divorced when she was about five years old and she ended up mainly living with her mother. After graduating high school, she attended Northwestern University in Chicago where she majored in creative writing. Veronica wrote Divergent in her senior year at Northwestern while on winter break. Right when it was released, it became a major success. A year later, Veronica wrote and released Insurgent, which is the sequel to Divergent and a year later, Alligence was also released. Divergent is now being made into a movie that will be in theatres later this year. Veronica is still living in Chicago today and writing more books.