Week 5: The Raging Quiet

So, Marnie and Raven are basically in love, but neither of them wants to admit it. Raven wants to take Marnie to his "far-away home" and show her his dancing. When they get there, its just a field surrounded by a large circle of standing rocks. The townsfolk call this place "The Devil's Ring" and when they just happen to see Raven and Marnie dancing, their suspicions immediately believe the rumor that Marnie's a witch compelling the suposed demons inside Raven with her magic hand motion. They go to her house and wait until she returns. When she gets back, the townsfolk give her two options: Come to them quietly, or they would burn her house, and force her to come along. Reluctantly she goes, telling Raven to run far away. The townsfolk tightly binded her hands and put a sack over her head. Marnie is going to be tried for witchcraft. she's taken to the church, and Father Brannann did the best he could to get the townsfolk to stop, but they all think he's under Marnie's spell and won't listen to him. The people want Marnie to be tested by walking nine paces, with a hot bar of iron in her palm, it must be wrapped in a holy garment with the seal of the church on it. If in three days its starting to heal and is clean in, she'll be proven innocent. If its fustering and infected she'll be proven guilty and burned at the stake. She ends up doing it and is innocent.
The townsfolk still hate her even though she's innocent. Father Brannann suggest that she moves away with Raven and possibly get married to him. So after think about this for a while, they do get married (aww cute!!). Right after their marriage, Marnie goes to talk to Peirce because she's interested in selling the house that he's so interested in. He tells them that he wont need to buy the house because in his fathers will it says that the widow of an Isherwood inheirits her husbands belongings, but if she marries before tens years after her husbands death, she loses the inheiritants. They run back to the cottage, but about halfway there, they were stopped by some kids who had just put a black cats blood all over Eilis's grave, the supposed "witch" that lived there before Marnie. They said that they were going to burn the cottage down to get rid of the evil there. When Marnie and Raven get back to the cottage, they pack up all their stuff and get ready to leave.
On the road heading out of Torcurra, Peirce stops them. He starts talking about how naieve Marnie is that she didn't know about treasure there. The treasure ends up being the ugly ring they found in chimeny when the tree fell over from the storm. Its worth a small kingdom. Suddenly, they see black smoke and Marnie remembers what the children said and tells Peirce that the house is on fire. Father Brannann frantically runs up to them shouting that their house is on fire. Marnie doesn't care because its not her house and now she can buy just about anything she wants because she has Eilis' Treasure, the thing that brought her here.
I think that this book is about predjiduce and ignorance. I really can connect with this book because a lot of people hate me and love me for the fact that I am different. I really liked this book.

Week 5

I just finished reading The Road by Cormak McCarthy. The man and the boy stay on the beach of the ocean for a while, and the boy gets a fever. They stay a few days until he is better. Then they go out on the beach a ways together. When the man and the boy come back, everything is gone. Somebody had taken their food, blankets, and tools and left them! The man was furious and sprinted to the road. They find a grain of sand on the left side of the road and started running in that direction. After a while, they found out a skinny man had taken everything and was still trying to get away. The man caught up, threatened with his gun, and took the supplies back. It started to get cold there, even by the ocean, so the man and the boy head even farther south. They pass through a town and just as they were leaving it, the man got hit in the leg with an arrow. The man tipped the cart and shot the guy with the bow, which was up in a building, and the man with the bow died. The mam fixed up his wound and the boy was sad. He had always thought that they were the good guys, the heros. The boy relized that they didn't help people like in all of his father's stories. He relized that they kill people too. The man and the boy keep heading south and the man can't stop coughing. He relizes that he isn't going to make it to another day. He tells the boy this and the boy is really sad. He tells the boy to keep going and find the good guys. He said that he knows that if the boy tries hard enough, he will find good guys and live happily. The man died that night and the boy cried. He wrapped up his father in a blanket and took his gun and headed for the road. The first thing he saw was a man heading for him with a shotgun on his back. He finds out that he is a good guy and goes with him. He lived on and even found out that there are things called fish that live in the rivers.

I think that this book was really sad. I always thought that in the end, the man and the boy would find a town of friendly people and live happily ever after. It was the saddest thing when the man died. After all that he had been through and done for the boy, he still had hope the boy would go on in happiness. It was hard for me to think that the boy was all alone. It made me happy knowing that the boy still found good people to live with, but I still cried at the end of this book.

Homecoming: Week 5

After reading about 20 more pages of Homecoming, I have finally finished it. The last thing I talked about in my previous blog was that the kids’ grandma wanted them to stay with her, but she thought she just didn’t have the resources to care for them. However, she decided that until she got word back from Cousin Eunice, the kids could stay with her. Because they all knew Cousin Eunice would take ages consulting everyone in her town whether she should take them in or not, Gram decided that they could go to school in her own town while they waited for an answer after Gram sent a letter to Cousin Eunice. So on a bright Monday morning, the Tillermans went into town to register for classes. While they were in town for the day, their grandma had a plan to mail her letter. When Dicey brought this up, she tore the letter up into a million pieces. The last words Gram said must have sounded like music to these travel weary children. She asked, “Ready to go home?”

At the end of this book, I feel so happy that the kids got a happy ending like they deserved. They had been through so much, so finding a place to call home must have been a relief. I realized that throughout the Tillerman’s visit to their grandma’s, she got increasingly friendly and sane. Therefore, I think that she will be better off in life when she comes home to these kids each day.

The new book I am reading, The Tender Years, by Janette Oke, has already proven to me to have a very interesting plot to it. However, when focusing on the author more and her titles, she has been noted for winning the 1992 ECPA President’s Award, the 1999 CBA Life Impact, the Gold Medallion Award, and the Christy Award for fiction.

The Tender Years varies greatly from Homecoming as far as their characters’ problems and personalities go. In The Tender Years, Virginia, a 14 year old girl living in the early 1900’s or so, is shown facing troubles like fudes with here friends or small quarrels with her parents. She is faced with problems as any teenage girl faces, but in a slightly different setting than these days.

One of my questions, however, is how Virginia’s story is going to meet up with the prolougue. Also, I wonder why Virginia cares so much to be in with the good graces of her “friend” Jenny. I’ve noticed that she seems to have changed from a girl that could hold her own and stand up for what she thought was right into a shy, upset girl, wanting the approval and acceptance of her peers around her. I guess I’ll just have to see how this story unravels.

City of Bones

This week I have made it to page 260, chapter 14 in my book City of Bones. After Clary discovers what had happened at her house, she goes back to the Institution where she had earlier woken up in after being attacked. She wants to learn what happened to her mother so she and Jace go to Luke’s house to investigate. Luke is Clary’s mom’s best friend and she almost considered him a father because hers died before she was born.

   When they arrive they find Simon hiding in the bushes and they interrogate him to find out what he was doing. He told them he was worried because he hadn’t heard from Clary in almost a week and was told by Luke that she was visiting a sick aunt. Simon knew Clary didn’t have any other relatives so he wanted to see what Luke was hiding. He said that he caught Luke packing guns in a bag so they all went inside to see what was going on. When they get into the room where the bag was they hear the front door open so they all hide behind a screen. They listened as Luke talked to two people who turned out to be warlocks about how he thought Clary was dead from the demon that had earlier attacked her. They also talk about a “Mortal Cup” which is something that can create Shadowhunters.

   Later, after they get out of the house they go to a club to find a man named Magnus Bane and find out what he knows about Clary and her mother. Before they leave Simon drinks a potion that turns him into a rat and Clary puts him in her bag. As she walks out the door she realizes that the bag was torn open and Simon was gone. They asked Magnus about it and he said he saw a vampire carry a rat out. I end here with them going into the vampire lair to find him.

I found out later on in the story "speak" that Malinda was raped at a party the summer before school, everyone hated her because they thought she called the cops because of the party, but she actually called the cops because she was being raped and hurt. I think it's sad because no one knows the real story and they didn't bother to ask. It reminds me of people spreading rumors at school, people think something they're not sure about happened, and they start telling it to other people. I can relate to this because people spread rumors about me all the time in elementary school. They would say things like, "she hurt this person" "she kissed this guy," this was said in elementary school. Because of this people stayed away from me, just like people are staying away from Malinda. She found out that one of her ex best friends was dating the same guy that raped her. When Malinda tried to tell Rachel what really happened at the party, Rachel actually felt sorry for her, and wanted to know who did it, but when Malinda told Rachel who it was she got really mad and said that she was jealous and mad that she got the boy instead of Malinda, but later during the prom dance Rachel found out that Malinda was telling the truth, the guy that raped Malinda was trying to do the same thing to Rachel, and after that people started talking to Malinda again because they finally knew what happened. This reminds me of when me and my ex boyfriend used to fight. We were yelling at each other and finally he said you're just jealous because I found another girl, it broke my heart when he said that, but when she broke up with him I was there for him and helped him get through his sadness, we are good friends now and things are a lot better between us.

Week 4

I started reading Sold by Patricia McCormick earlier this week and I am now finished with it in less than a week. Sold is about a 13 year old girl from the Napal mountain countryside. Her family is very poor, so when her step-father says she needs to go into the city to become a maid for a rich family to earn money, she decides to do it. Her step-father has to sell her because he keeps gambling away the family's money so they continue to stay poor. The 13 year old girl, Lakshmi, is sold and a woman who makes her call her "auntie" takes her and brings her into the city. After she took her a certain distance, another man, who wants to be called "Uncle Husband" takes her even father away to another city. Once she is at the place where Lakshmi believes she is going to be a maid, an older fat woman, Mumtaz pays money for her. She believes Mumtaz is the head of the house, but she is wrong. Lakshmi is locked into a room and Mumtaz has a "customer" come into her room. Lakshmi fights him off and finally realized that she is not at a house to work; she is at a brothel in India. She is raped several times, but she stays hopefuk that she will pay off her debt to Mumtaz soon. But the trick is that Mumtaz made it so Lakshmi will never pay off her debt. Finally, after over a year, an American man comes in and says he will help her leave. He leaves and Lakshmi gives up hope he will ever come back until a week later when he shows up with police. The American man comes back and takes her to a safe place for help and treatment.

At first, I didn't think I'd like this story because it was so short and unlike many other books I read. After I finally got into the book, part of me didn't want to read it because I didn't want to hear about the horrible things that those girls actually go through. The book was told through Lakshmi's view and she told about the punishments that happened to other girls. This particular story, persons, and settings isn't EXACTLY true, but it is based on things that really do happen in India when girls are sold into prostitution.

A long time ago when Barnes Kilrone and Major Frank Paddock were very gallant young officers in Paris, it had happened that they had fallen in love with the same beautiful young girl. Now that that’s all over, there are two men in exile. They are to be living in one and I do mean one of the harshest territories in the American West. The horrible choice that Paddock made was a very bad one that may send both of the men into a battle to save both of their lives. Later on Paddock leads his soldiers in a chase of a Bannock war party. The war party massacred one of Paddocks patrols. Meanwhile, Kilrone has been chosen to guard a fort full of all aged children and women. Within a number of hours Kilrone knows that the choice that was made was the wrong choice. I am just thinking out load but I think that before the day is over one of them is going to be in very great danger. In other words I have decided to quite reading this book because it is falling apart. I would like to finish it but is really hard to finish with pages falling out every page I turn. When this book gets fixed I recommend that you should read this book or a book by the same author.