I'm running out of ideas for titles

The one thing that I thought was the most interesting thing Naomi remembered (when she got her memory back) was her kiss with Will the day before her fall. He had kissed her, but she had kissed him back. Why then, does she profess her love for James in front of him. Will is nothing but nice to Naomi, and it seems she doesn't realize what a great friend she has. However, James decides to break things off with Naomi. I believe it was because he doesn't trust himself with her; James desperately wants Naomi to forget, and though Naomi knows she never will, she tries to move on. During this time, Will passes out while working at yearbook, and is admitted to the hospital for pnemonia. When Naomi finds out, she is worried sick about Will, and does him the favor of taking charge of yearbook until he gets back. Though the had been fighting, they were now becoming closer than ever; Naomi would visit Will every night at his house. She and Ace were even back playing tennis together. The pieces of Naomi's life were slowly being placed back together. At the end of the book, Naomi and Will acknowledge the deep bond they have together, and though the book ends before anything further happens, I believe they will end up together.

Ah. I did it- I much shorter blog post! Next week I plan to blog once more about this book before moving on to the stack of others piling up in my room. While I was reading, there were many quotes that caught my eye and touched my heart *tear*; however I forgot to mark where they were! I guess I'll be searching for them in class this week so I can blog about them.

I definitely need to shorten my posts....

I basically forced myself to put down my outside reading book and blog. In earlier posts I mentioned me being concerned that I would finish this book all too soon, and I am finding that to be very true. Despite the late hour, I suspect to finish reading Memoirs of a teenage amnesiac tonight, and therefore wanted to get at least another blog post in before ending. Where did I leave off now…. Ah yes, page eighty-four. Now I’m on two hundred and twenty, so I will try to make this summary very straightforward. Naomi, who remembers nothing from the past four years of her life, breaks up with her tennis playing boyfriend Ace. She is not really sure why she began dating him in the first place (before losing her memory), but she knows their relationship is no longer working out. Then, Naomi earns herself a part in one of her friend’s play- acting the role of a female Hamlet. She does not tell her best friend, Will Landsman, about the play. He is the head of the yearbook committee with Naomi- they first met at yearbook and have worked hard to become chief editors. However, Naomi does not see the attraction of yearbook after her fall, and thus does not care about missing work hours on it for play rehearsal. During all this, Naomi has discovered that her father is engaged to a woman by the name of Rosa. Though before her accident Naomi realizes she was not very fond of Rosa, the new Naomi turns over a new leaf with Rosa, to her father’s pleasure. With Naomi’s real mother though, things are less than perfect. They have not spoken since Naomi’s stay in the hospital where she discovered the reason for her parents divorce was because of her mother’s affair, and that now her mother has a completely different life with a husband and child. Now, Naomi has begun to date the previously blogged character James. He is a very hard character to describe, but the author does it well. James is new to Naomi’s school, and a year older than her since he was held back. There are rumors about him from his old school; that tried to off himself after going crazy over some girl. Naomi really like James, they have gotten to the “I love you” stage, but sometimes when they’re together, I get the feeling that James feels he might lose control. His emotions are very mixed and hard to interpret, and he can get very depressed or angry over things that seem infinitesimal to me. At these parts in the book I wonder why Naomi and Will don’t date instead. Will is always very sweet to her, helping her whenever she needs it. One day, while James is helping Naomi prepare for her French exam, she suddenly remembers everything- everything she had forgotten from the past four years. Naomi hides this from everyone, preferring to just move forward, and not deal with the past.... (to be continued)

Making Connections

Well, as explained in my last post, I am currently eighty-four pages into my book. Basically, (as the title indicates) the main character, Naomi, is a junior in high school suffering from amnesia after a spill down some school steps. Once treated in the hospital, Naomi discovers she can remember nothing from the last four years of her life- not her boyfriend, her best friend, or her parent's divorce. Naomi feels incredibly confused, lonely, and fatigued. She begins to reevaluate her life, questioning some of the decisions she has made in the past four years and why she made them. Such as why she began dating a huge jock, why she spent over seven hundred and twenty hours a school year working on the yearbook commitee, or why she had wanted to drop her Advanced Photography class before her bout of amnesia since she likes it so much now. I found two things I wanted to share here that I found entertaining as I read. First, of all, Naomi takes a french class in school, and I have spoken the french language since what feels like forever. When Naomi returns to school from her accident, some of her teachers are more understanding than others- during her french class, she finds that each student is given a french name for the class to use in lieu of their first english name. I liked this because we do the same thing in my french class as well; therefore I am know to my teacher as Isabelle, and accidentally find myself writing the name on papers for other classes besides french at times! Here is an excerpt:

"One thing that had never been in question was my name. 'Sorry,' I said, 'My name is-'
'En francais? Je m'appelle...'
'Je m'appelle Naomi. Uh... Non, Nadine. Nadine, non.'
'Ici, nous employons les noms francais, Nadine.'
'Oui,' I said. Fine, if she wanted to call me Nadine, whatever. It sounded like the name of a comment dit-on? French prostitute, but whatever."

I am also skilled in the use of comment dit-on? which was used here and is translated into how do you say? Well, maybe you did not find that as fascinting as moi, but now were moving to the part that I found even more fascinating than the latter! Again, on my previous post I mentioned the want to read Furuba (aka Fruits Basket) after finishing this book. Well, a big issue from Fruits Basket is the being able to keep your memories, no matter how painful, and grow from them. (I cannot go on to explain the meaning behind all this- my post is already insanely long, and I am begining to wonder if my teacher even reads the whole thing! However, you should just understand that some of the characters from Furuba decided to get their memories surpressed.) In Memoirs of a teenage Amnesiac, Naomi has a conversation with the mysterious character James about forgetting awful memories. James is a new boy at her school who found Naomi unconsious after her fall. On page eighty-two, James says to Naomi, " 'Arn't there things you'd rather forget?' ". Naomi disagrees, and so do I. No matter how hard life becomes, I want to remember my stuggles, and someday, I would hope to look back and treasure each as a precious memory.

Manga, Mrs. West?

For outside reading this quarter, I chose to read the novel Memoirs of a teenage amnesiac, by Gabrielle Zevin. Originally, I planned to read Rebel Angels, the sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty, however I figured it would be difficult to post blogs about the second book in a series due to all the background information that might need to be provided in order make sense of my blogs. Therefore, the night before our choice of books were due, I fretted over what I would read. My list of "books to read" was sparse, containing nothing I felt would be suitable for this assignment. I frantically logged onto my computer and surfed over to TeenReads.com, a great website for recommending and reviewing new book releases. There I discovered Memoirs of a teenage amnesiac. Its summary gave off an interesting vibe that attracted me to the story. I grabbed my wallet and hurried off to Barnes & Noble to get a copy. My mission was successful. Thus far, I have already read eighty-four pages of the book and find it intreging, though I am concerned about the length. Not that it isn't appropriate, for the story is 271 pages long, but I will most likely finish it over Thanksgiving break, forcing me to find another book to read and blog about later. At the moment, I am reading the Fruits Basket series ruthlessly, and would very much like it if Mrs. West would let me read them in class for during outside reading time after I finish my actual book, however I don't know how she feels about manga....

Review: All My Sons

Yesterday, my class finished reading the play All My Sons, by Auther Miller. Overall, I did not like this play; I didn't think it was very eventful or climatic. At the end, when Chris discovers that his father was guilty for sending out faulty airheads, he feels ashamed and disgusted. He can't even look his father in the eyes. The play then ends when Joe shoots himself after reading a suicide letter from Larry, that Ann had been hiding. (Larry purposefully crashed his plane after finding out his father had been convicted.) I enjoy plays thawith more plot, and end happily with interesting discoveries. I think the most exciting thing that happened in this play was when Ann reveals the letter from Larry. Yes. A piece of paper was the most exciting part. I enjoy stories with more action- such as Twilight, or Fruits Basket (my new obsession) and Harry Potter. :)